Rooms of Shadow and Light

Mustang: The House That Joe Built(en)

A documentary about the girls of the Mustang Ranch, a legal brothel in Nevada.

Five Sex Rooms und eine Küche(de)

The Typewriter and Other Headaches(fr)

This third opus will take us into the homes of some of the Adamant and Averroes & Rosa Parks’ protagonists, during the visits led by their caregivers.

Father, Son and Holy War(hi)

Filmmaker Anand Patwardhan looks to history and psychology as he delves into the possible reasons behind the demolition of the Babri Mosque.

Picturesque India or, In and About Calcutta(en)

Botanical gardens in Bombay plus the highly decorative Jain Temple in Calcutta.

India Cabaret(hi)

An exploration of the 'respectable' and 'immoral' stereotypes of women in Indian society told from the point of view of two striptease dancers in a Bombay cabaret.

ABEPSS 70 anos(pt)

Baraf(en)

Ice (Baraf) is essential to almost every step of the fishing supply chain at Sassoon Docks, Mumbai's largest fish market, and this short documentary takes you through a day in the life of the workers responsible for it.

Purdah(hi)

The inspiring story of a young Indian Muslim woman who trades her burka for dreams of playing on the Mumbai Senior Women's Cricket Team and how the harsh realities for women in her country creates an unexpected outcome for her own family, ultimately shattering and fueling aspirations.

Chicken Ranch(en)

Documentary on the "Chicken Ranch," a legal Nevada brothel.

Love Meetings(it)

Pier Paolo Pasolini sets out to interview Italians about sex, apparently their least favorite thing to talk about in public: he asks children if they know where babies come from; asks old and young women if they support gender equality; asks both sexes if a woman's virginity still matters, what do they think of homosexuality, if divorce should be legal, or if they support the recent abolition of brothels. He interviews blue-collar workers, intellectuals, college students, rural farmers, the bourgeoisie, and every other kind of people, painting a vivid portrait of a rapidly-industrializing Italy, hanging between modernity and tradition — toward both of which Pasolini shows equal distrust.

Lost Songs of Sundari(mr)

In Mumbai, once an island city linked by the sea, modern bridges and land reclamation have reshaped the landscape, disrupting the lives of its original communities.

Bordellaffären från Makten och sanningen(sv)

"Makten och sanningen" - depicts the Geijer-affair or the Brothel-affair in 1977 where journalist Peter Bratt was forced to publish an apology in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter even though it turned out that everything he had previously written in the case was true. The Swedish Minister of Justice Lennart Geijer was accused of using under age escort girls provided by the Madam Doris Hopp in Stockholm. Geijer denied the charges..

Rhymecology: Write Better Rhymes(en)

The world of hip-hop lyrics has changed, simple rhyme schemes just don't cut it. Rhymes are put under a microscope, and there is no lyrical leeway for emerging artists. This gripping documentary tells the story of Jeff Walker.

Filles de joie et de misère(fr)

Guaicurus Street(pt)

A red-light district in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The camera is admitted into a "running house". Love for sale looks like a routine, dreary assembly line exercise here, sometimes almost like a comedy.

Agent of Happiness(dz)

The documentary team follows two happiness agents in their forties who spend a month and a half on the road twice a year, going door-to-door with their questionnaires in isolated villages in the Himalayas. The filmmakers undertake to provide an intimate insight into the daily lives and desires of Bhutanese people, and also seek the answer to the universal question of whether happiness can really be measured. Gross National Happiness promises a heart-warming journey into a mysterious, fairytale-like world, which is the exact opposite of the social order dominated by consumption and desires.

A Very British Brothel(en)

A look at the daily life of an English brothel.

Joy Ride(hi)

A documentary about human-powered manual ferris wheel rides at Juhu beach in Mumbai.

Aufstand im Bordell - Frauenhandel um 1900(de)

In the spring of 1902, Viennese working-class daughter Marie König runs away from her beating father and is lured into a high-class brothel by an agent. Instead of the promised self-determined life "with horse-drawn carriage rides and silk dresses", she experiences closed doors, violence and exploitation. Only after years of agony does Marie confide in the journalist Emil Bader, who makes the conditions in the brothel public and takes the owner, Regine Riehl, to court.