Bad Hombres(2017)

Notes about identity(es)

Gyrischachen - von Sünden, Sofas und Cervelats(en)

A high-rise apartment built in the 1960s provides housing for 2500 people from 42 nations. Separated from the city by a river and bounded by towering sandstone cliffs, everyone attempts to live and survive in their own way. Foreigners who have a go at being Swiss, and Swiss who observe with scepticism. They meet in the corner shop run by an Iraqi living in exile, send their kids to a children’s club managed by a missionary, and old drinking mates meet regularly over a beer in the neighbourhood’s only bar. Despite all the differences, they are rather proud of the fact that they come from here.

Le point de vue du lion(fr)

The Valley(fr)

As thousands of migrants attempt to cross the French-Italian border on foot through treacherous mountain routes, the state cracks down on the local communities that come to their aid in this revealing look at an unfolding human rights crisis.

A Tale of Two Kitchens(en)

Two countries, two restaurants, one vision. At Gabriela Cámara's acclaimed Contramar in Mexico City, the welcoming, uniformed waiters are as beloved by diners as the menu featuring fresh, local seafood caught within 24 hours. The entire staff sees themselves as part of an extended family. Meanwhile at Cala in San Francisco, Cámara hires staff from different backgrounds and cultures, including ex-felons and ex-addicts, who view the work as an important opportunity to grow as individuals. A Tale of Two Kitchens explores the ways in which a restaurant can serve as a place of both dignity and community.

Muerte es Vida (Death is Life)(en)

Monarch butterflies have brought hope to the darkest times of people's lives. In Mexico, when they arrive for Day of the Dead, they are thought to be souls of the departed. Coincidence?

Southern Border(es)

On the border, the line as principle of property and belonging reaches an extreme dimension where it physically defines the sphere of its relations. Those who transgress it reconstruct these imaginary lines on a daily basis, redefining the traditional geography and occupying the non-spaces where others live in a temporary form of existence. These others, the non-citizens, are phantasmtic, exchangeable parts of a flexible market. Made invisible, they are permanently controlled persons. Under the pretext of a greater civilian security, they are kept clear from the public spaces reserved for the citizens with rights and pushed into non-public spaces, which are run by state and military surveillance, multinational operations servicing a European market and non-governmental organisations.

Copal Dreams(es)

The communities of San Martin Tilcajete and San Antonio Arrazola in Oaxaca, Mexico are best known for being the main source of the "Alebrijes" (wood carving) in the state; a relatively new but powerful tradition in mexican folklore. In both communities, there is a family that claims they're father started this tradition in all the state of Oaxaca.

Más que un Juego(es)

Colorful Guatemala(en)

James A. FitzPatrick takes a look at colorful Guatemala.

Merida and Campeche(en)

This Traveltalk series short visits two of the most important cities on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula.

Glimpses of Guatemala(en)

We begin this short visit to Guatemala at the port town of Livingstone, then journey up the Rio Dulce. We stop to watch men tap the trees, harvest the sap, and load the product onto small planes. At a local market, we see indigenous life much as it's been for hundreds of years. Then it's back to the coast, to the prosperous Isla de Flores, a trading island.

Viramundo(pt)

Viramundo shows the saga of the northeastern migrants that arrive in São Paulo, beginning with a train arriving and ending with a train leaving São Paulo in a cycle repeated every day. Viramundo's aim was to question why the military coup d'état in Brazil happened without any popular resistance or revolution or reaction of the society.

2017 Oscar Nominated Short Films: Documentary(en)

Zapatista Women(es)

April 1994 in the Lacandona Jungle, Chiapas, México. The Zapatista women talk about the living conditions of Mexican indigenous populations and the life of peasant women. They explain the reasons for their struggle and their uprising.

In Between(sq)

In rural Kosovo, identical houses are built for family members working abroad, in the hope that they will one day return to settle in their old homeland.

The Wildebeest Migration: Nature's Greatest Journey(en)

Every year, on the steppes of the Serengeti, the most spectacular migration of animals on our planet: Around two million wildebeest, Burchell's zebra and Thomson's gazelles begin their tour of nearly 2,000 miles across the almost treeless savannah. For the first time, a documentary captures stunning footage in the midst of this demanding journey. The documentary starts at the beginning of the year, when more than two million animals gather in the shadow of the volcanoes on the southern edge of the Serengeti in order to birth their offspring. In just two weeks, the animal herd's population has increased by one third, and after only two days, the calves can already run as fast as the adults The young wildebeest in this phase of their life are the most vulnerable to attacks by lions, cheetahs, leopards or hyenas. The film then follows the survivors of these attacks through the next three months on their incredible journey, a trip so long that 200,000 wildebeest will not reach the end.

Emily Cat-alonian(es)

Emiliana, a black kitten from Barcelona, has led a remarkable life. Having weathered a divorce, multiple relocations, and a move to a new country, she now dreams of returning to her beloved Spain. Her journey reflects resilience and a longing for home amidst the many changes she has faced.

Contained Mobility(en)

Upon entering the harbor, the voyager leaves the exceptional condition of the boundless sea--this traversable space of maritime immensity--to come ashore in an offshore place, in a container world that only tolerates the trans-local state of not being of this place--nor of any other really--but of existing in a condition of permanent not-belonging, of juridical non-existence. He comes to signify the itinerant body, bound to string along a chain of territories, never reaching a final destination. Probing the protocols of access time and again, he moves through non-civil places, waits for status in off-social spaces, only to remain suspended in the post-humanist lapse. What used to be a state of temporary exemption--survival in the fluid time-space of legal deferral--has slowly consolidated into the prime mode of migratory subsistence. The site of this existence is connected but segregated; it is the world system of contained mobility. (Video Data Bank)

X-Mission(en)

X-Mission explores the logic of the refugee camp as one of the oldest extra-territorial zones. Taking the Palestinian refugee camp as a case in point, the video engages with the different discourses — legal, symbolic, urban, historical — that give meaning to this exceptional space.