Searching for Freedom: The Holy Land Foundation(2016)

This Is My Land(en)

Israeli-born director Tamara Erde visits six independently-run Israeli and Palestinian schools to investigate how history is taught in this contested region.

Something from There(en)

Something from there is a short film on the substance of our original lands. Weaving between the voices of the artist’s parents, one a refugee and the other not, the film is personal, yet evokes a shared Palestinian experience.

Here and Elsewhere(fr)

Here and Elsewhere takes its name from the contrasting footage it shows of the fedayeen and of a French family watching television at home. Originally shot by the Dziga Vertov Group as a film on Palestinian freedom fighters, Godard later reworked the material alongside Anne-Marie Miéville.

Incident at Oglala(en)

On June 26, 1975, during a period of high tensions on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, two FBI agents were killed in a shootout with a group of Indians. Although several men were charged with killing the agents, only one, Leonard Peltier, was found guilty. This film describes the events surrounding the shootout and suggests that Peltier was unjustly convicted.

Record of Life: Those Who Fought in the Okawa Tsunami Trial(ja)

On March 11, 2011, Okawa Elementary School in Ishinomaki City was engulfed by a tsunami, and 74 children, or 70% of the school's children, were killed. 51 minutes elapsed between the earthquake and when the tsunami reached the school. The school was informed of the tsunami and a school bus was on standby, but students did not evacuate. Okawa Elementary was the only school that suffered a large number of casualties in this earthquake. This documentary follows the lawsuit that followed the disaster, where the parents sought the truth behind the tragedy.

The Amanda Knox Saga(en)

Amanda Knox served four years in an Italian prison for the murder of her British flatmate Meredith Kercher in Perugia in 2007, always insisting on her innocence. In 2011, she was acquitted on the basis of DNA evidence but prosecutors successfully appealed and her acquittal was struck down. In 2014 she was again found guilty in absentia after a retrial and sentenced to 28 years and six months in jail. The saga came to and end when Italy's highest court overturned the convictions of Ms Knox and her former boyfriend, Italian student Raffaele Sollecito in March 2015. Known burglar Rudy Guede was arrested a short time later following the discovery of his bloodstained fingerprints on Kercher's possessions. He was later found guilty of murder in a fast-track trial and is currently (as of 2019) serving a 16-year prison sentence.

Waltz with Bashir(he)

An Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.

It's Hard Being Loved by Jerks(fr)

The murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh by an Islamic extremist in 2004, followed by the publishing of twelve satirical cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed that was commissioned for the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, provides the incendiary framework for Daniel Leconte's provocative documentary, It's Hard Being Loved by Jerks.

Waiting for Farajallah(ar)

We are taken behind the scenes of a play in-the-making: The play is Samuel Beckett’s WAITING FOR GODOT—starring a group of young 48-Palestinians. One by one, we are introduced to a variety of characters: the play’s director, actors, and other ordinary people. As we delve further into each of their lives, the film reveals the startling parallels between the themes of the play and their own. Everyone is waiting for something: a permit to build a house, better work conditions, a starring role in a film. Much like Waiting for Godot, our heroes are awaiting Faraj Allah… something that may or may not come.

The Emma Bovary Trial(fr)

On January 31, 1857, the French writer Gustave Flaubert (1821-80) took his place in the dock for contempt of public morality and religion. The accused, the real one, is, through him, Emma Bovary, heroine with a thousand faces and a thousand desires, guilty without doubt of an unforgivable desire to live.

War Photographer(en)

Documentary about war photographer James Nachtwey, considered by many the greatest war photographer ever.

Journey into Gaza(it)

“In Gaza you have to get there in the evening, in spring, lock yourself in your room and from there listen to the sounds coming in through the open window.... It's 2018. I am 25 years old and a foreign traveler. I meet young Palestinians my age..”

The Truth vs. Alex Jones(en)

Filmed over four years with unprecedented access, this documentary chronicles the riveting courtroom drama of two defamation lawsuits brought by Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims' families against Alex Jones and his website, InfoWars.

BETWEEN(en)

Initially embarking on an unplanned personal filmmaking project, Ilias Boukhemoucha finds himself drawn to the overlooked corners and marginalized communities within Canadian cities.

The Thin Blue Line(en)

Errol Morris's unique documentary dramatically re-enacts the crime scene and investigation of a police officer's murder in Dallas.

Borderline(fr)

Triedny nepriateľ(sk)

Detained(he)

Najwa, Nawal, and Siham, three Palestinian widows, live with their 11 children in a house on Shuhada Street in Hebron. Their house lies on the border; the façade is under Israeli occupation, the Palestinian Authority controls the back. At the entrance to the house is a military post; on the roof the Israeli army has placed a watch point over Palestinian Hebron. The three women, trapped in the middle and constantly surrounded by Israeli soldiers, carry on their difficult lives in a perverse situation: the occupation becomes a routine, the absurd becomes a given. This is the story of an occupation that extends to the staircase and the roof of the house, where it encounters poverty, loneliness, pain, but also the small joys of everyday life. This is an internal prison, the external one is the ongoing occupation.

Occupation 101: Voices of the Silenced Majority(en)

A thought-provoking documentary on the current and historical causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. political involvement.

Wild Plants of Palestine(en)

The film follows journeys of observational tours solicited by the Palestinian Museum and conducted by two professors from Birzeit University to collect photos of and information on the Palestinian Flora. The title is adapted from a collection of 123 images (circa 1900 to 1920) of wild flowers in Palestine found in the Matson Collection in the Library of Congress. Despite the tendency to trace the wild plants, the text in general aims at questioning the territorial extension of what is meant by the term “Palestinian”, while standing on insignificant topographical features of the (postcolonial) landscape in West Bank. Furthermore, it addresses photography as a practice and a tool of distributing and restricting information at once.