Playing with Scorpions(1972)

Your Parents Will Come Back(es)

In 1983 a group of 154 children aged 3 and 17 years old traveled alone from Europe to Montevideo. They were children of political exiles from Uruguay, who were unable to come back to their own country; they sent their kids to know their relatives and home country. That human sign, charged with a political message, took part in children’s identity development. Nowadays, six of them still remember that day, when a crowd received them singing all together “your parents will come back”.

Brief Tender Light(en)

At America's elite MIT, a Ghanaian alum follows four African students as they strive to graduate and become agents of change for their home countries Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. Over an intimate, nearly decade-long journey, all must decide how much of America to absorb, how much of Africa to hold on to, and how to reconcile teenage ideals with the truths they discover about the world and themselves.

Dawn of the Damned(fr)

This excellent feature-length documentary - the story of the imperialist colonization of Africa - is a film about death. Its most shocking sequences derive from the captured French film archives in Algeria containing - unbelievably - masses of French-shot documentary footage of their tortures, massacres and executions of Algerians. The real death of children, passers-by, resistance fighters, one after the other, becomes unbearable. Rather than be blatant propaganda, the film convinces entirely by its visual evidence, constituting an object lesson for revolutionary cinema.

Mobutu, King of Zaire(fr)

This film is the result of more than two years of work tracking down archive material and witnesses close to Mobutu in Africa, Europe and the U.S. More than 950 hours of footage have been seen by the world. Among the 104 hours selected as the basis for this film, are 30 hours of archives recently discovered in Kinshasa and never before released. Completing these exceptional documents, are more than 50 hours of interviews with those close to the former president and the events surrounding his reign, conducted by the director in Kinshasa, Brussels, Paris and Washington. Like a vast historical puzzle, this film pieces together the tragic history of a country, and its self-styled leader - the dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, "King of Zaïre".

Mermaids(en)

In this tribute to the eternal allure of an ancient myth, colourful fins and swimming pools fill the lives of five modern-day women who strive to embody the mysterious siren as part of a growing “mermaiding” subculture.

The Man Who Wanted to Change the World(nl)

Peter Westerveld, artist and visionary, doesn’t want institutions to resolve the problems linked to earth’s problems. Growing up in Africa, he witnessed the advance of the desert and dedicated himself to finding solutions for the ongoing erosion and desertification of the land. The film follows Peter and the NGO working with him to realise his project; to build contour trenches that capture and store rain water under the surface and replenish the desert land.

Joseph Cornell: Worlds in a Box(en)

This is a 1991 documentary film about the legendary artist and filmmaker, Joseph Cornell, who made those magnificent and strange collage boxes. He was also one of our great experimental filmmakers and once apparently made Salvador Dali extremely jealous at a screening of his masterpiece, Rose Hobart. In this film we get to hear people like Susan Sontag, Stan Brakhage, and Tony Curtis talk about their friendships with the artist. It turns out that Curtis was quite a collector and he seemed to have a very deep understanding of what Cornell was doing in his work.

Cindy Sherman: Nobody's Here But Me(en)

New York based artist, Cindy Sherman, is famous for her photographs of women in which she is not only the photographer, but also the subject. She has contributed her own footage to the programme by recording her studio and herself at work with her Hi-8 video camera. It reveals a range of unexpected sources from visceral horror to medical catalogues and exploitation movies, and explores her real interests and enthusiasms. She shows an intuitive and often humorous approach to her work, and reflects on the themes of her work since the late 1970s. She talks about her pivotal series known as the `Sex Pictures' in which she addresses the theme of sexuality in the light of AIDS and the arts censorship debate in the United States.

ABBA: In Concert(en)

ABBA's 1979 tour of North America and Europe, with emphasis on performances at Wembley Arena, London.

The Road Forward(en)

The Road Forward is an electrifying musical documentary that connects a pivotal moment in Canada’s civil rights history—the beginnings of Indian Nationalism in the 1930s—with the powerful momentum of First Nations activism today. Interviews and musical sequences describe how a tiny movement, the Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood, grew to become a successful voice for change across the country. Visually stunning, The Road Forward seamlessly connects past and present through superbly produced story-songs with soaring vocals, blues, rock, and traditional beats.

The New Man(en)

A creative documentary about becoming a parent... and how to reconceive yourself. Fiction director Josh Appignanesi turns the camera on himself and his wife as they undergo the ordeal of becoming parents in the era of man-children and assisted reproduction. Faced with fatherhood, Josh spirals comically into an envious career funk. But life-threatening complications emerge- the couple are tested to the brink, confronting shattering losses. It's a portrait of our generation going through a revolution in reproduction- forced to find new ways to think about ourselves as creative beings. We hear from Slavoj Žižek, John Berger, Darian Leader (20,000 Days) and Zadie Smith. Universal yet still taboo, it's a film for everyone who has children, wants them, or still feels like a child themselves.

Whose Country?(en)

A young Egyptian filmmaker recounts his interaction with a group of plainclothes policemen while grappling with issues of guilt and morality.

White Man with Black Bread(de)

Christof Wackernagel, best known in Germany as an actor and former member of the Red Army Faction ("RAF") lives in Mali. In his compelling portrait, Jonas Grosch shows a man who simply cannot stand still if he senses injustice. The courage to stand up for one’s beliefs coupled with vanity? However one chooses to look at it, it is easy to imagine what made him connect with the "RAF". With his irrepressible will for freedom, Christof Wackernagel gets entangled in the horrors of day-to-day life in Africa.

F1 How It Was(en)

"‘F1: How it was’ is a thrilling, action-packed, insightful documentary into some of the sport’s finest races, despite the lack of budget or theme, Duke Video deliver on providing fans with an entertaining documentary that would make the perfect gift this Christmas." - Joshua Suttill, www.readmotorsport.com

Top Ten Monks(en)

The Cistercian monks of Austria are holy men who rise at 4:30 a.m., pray for more than four hours a day and have devoted their lives to God. They're also pop stars. This documentary offers a glimpse at the daily life of the joyous monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz Abbey whose recordings of their ethereal Gregorian chants have turned them into chart-topping music sensations.

Trophy(en)

This in-depth look into the powerhouse industries of big-game hunting, breeding and wildlife conservation in the U.S. and Africa unravels the complex consequences of treating animals as commodities.

Unrest(en)

When Harvard PhD student Jennifer Brea is struck down at 28 by a fever that leaves her bedridden, doctors tell her it’s "all in her head." Determined to live, she sets out on a virtual journey to document her story—and four other families' stories—fighting a disease medicine forgot.

A Story from Africa(en)

Following the 1884–85 Berlin Conference resolution on the partition of Africa, the Portuguese army uses a talented ensign to register the effective occupation of the territory belonging to the Cuamato people, conquered in 1907, in the south of Angola. A STORY FROM AFRICA enlivens a rarely seen photographic archive through the tragic tale of Calipalula, the Cuamato nobleman essential to the unfolding of events in this Portuguese pacification campaign.

Share the Road: Tales From a Band of Gypsy Bikers(en)

Share the Road is the latest release from Cirque Productions, the makers of TREK: A Journey on the Appalachian Trail. This unique documentary chronicles a 6,200 mile cross-country bike ride from Maine to Seattle down to Mexico. Four narrators offer their individual perspectives while biking across North America, camping in town parks, meeting Americans of all creeds, and living a dream. Epic scenery and an all-original soundtrack by Big Pretty and the Red Rockets will carry you through this four month journey. This film appeals to not only the biker, but to the adventurer in all of us.

Nana(es)