Cinema Libertad

Historias de Lavapiés(es)

Biagio(it)

It is the true story of a man called Biagio Conte, a Sicilian who was looking for God and ended up founding a mission to help the homeless and the poorest immigrants of his city. His story starts in the mountains as a shepherd and continues on a long trip to reach Assisi, the home of Saint Francis.

Fifth Paratha(hi)

Set in 1972, Kanpur, the film focuses on just one family of four living in rather dilapidated conditions and trying to get by each day with whatever they earn that day. A simple story of a family trying to make ends meet with a happy smile soon takes a turn for the worse as poverty brings out the worst in everyone.

Cyclo(vi)

Follows a young cyclo driver on his poverty-driven descent into criminality in modern-day Ho Chi Minh City. The boy's struggles to scratch out a living for his two sisters and grandfather in the mean streets of the city lead to petty crime on behalf of a mysterious Madame from whom he rents his cyclo.

Lawn Dogs(en)

In the affluent, gated community of Camelot Gardens, bored wives indiscriminately sleep around while their unwitting husbands try desperately to climb the social ladder. Trent, a 21-year-old outsider who mows the neighborhood lawns, quietly observes the infidelities and hypocrisies of this overly privileged society. When Devon, a 10-year-old daughter from one family, forges a friendship with Trent, things suddenly get very complicated.

Out of the Blue(en)

A young girl whose father is an ex-convict and whose mother is a junkie finds it difficult to conform and tries to find comfort in a quirky combination of Elvis and the punk scene.

Black Pete – No, You're It(da)

A drama-documentary film about the fatal effect of poor living conditions on health – the so-called "social inheritance." The principal characters in the film are two fourteen or fifteen-year-old children, Carl and Hanne. Covering a hundred-year period and drawing on case stories recorded by actual hospital staff, the film illustrates a number of variations of "the same old story."

The Bench(da)

Kaj is a stubborn man with a great deal of pride. The former chef lives in a council flat. He has wasted his life and is now on a council job training scheme for the long-term unemployed, where he refuses to let the foreman of the activation project boss him about. When Kaj's daughter, with whom he has not been in touch for nineteen years, moves into the same council estate on the run from her violent husband, a change comes over Kaj. His initial instinct is to avoid her, but by chance he ends up helping to look after Jonas, her six-year-old son. For the first time for years Kaj need not survive on his own devices. Now he has responsibilities and a family of his own.

Harrison Montgomery(en)

In a rundown apartment complex in San Francisco's Tenderloin, a septuagenarian seer is waiting for his final message. For decades the eccentric recluse has chronicled the phrases of the Wheel of Fortune and deciphered their hidden meaning - the details of a mission to save his neighbors from their troubles.

Soledad's Shawl(es)

Alberto Robles, a young doctor, is faced with the decision to surrender to a life full of comforts and luxuries or to continue dedicating himself body and soul to serving those who need it most.

Bandit Queen(hi)

Born a lower-caste girl in rural India's patriarchal society, "married" at 11, repeatedly raped and brutalized, Phoolan Devi finds freedom only as an avenging warrior, the eponymous Bandit Queen. Devi becomes a kind a bloody Robin Hood; this extraordinary biographical film offers both a vivid portrait of a driven woman and a savage critique of the society that made her.

Holler(en)

In a forgotten pocket of Southern Ohio where American manufacturing and opportunity are drying up, a determined young woman finds a ticket out when she is accepted to college. Alongside her older brother, Ruth Avery joins a dangerous scrap metal crew in order to pay her way. Together, they spend one brutal winter working the scrap yards during the day and stealing valuable metal from the once thriving factories by night. With her goal in sight, Ruth finds that the ultimate cost of an education for a girl like her may be more than she bargained for, and she soon finds herself torn between a promising future and the family she would leave behind.

The Airy Tomb(en)

Can there be a bleaker portrait of a life half-lived? Cinematic treatment of poet R.S. Thomas's story of Twm, the "shy soul" who lives and dies alone in the "grim house nailed to the mountainside", oblivious to the interest shown in him by young girls in the village and to his own isolation as he scratches a living from the farm.

Coco Chanel(en)

Fashion icon Coco Chanel, steeped in wealth and fame, still issues game-changing designs and collections. The audience is taken backwards in time to the woman's upbringing in an orphanage, and traces her path to ubiquity as it winds through poverty, wars, doomed romances, and rather glamorous betrayals.

Scarborough(en)

Three kids in a low-income neighborhood find friendship and community in an unlikely place.

Wendy and Lucy(en)

A near-penniless drifter's journey to Alaska in search of work is interrupted when she loses her dog while attempting to shoplift food for it.

Angela's Ashes(en)

An Irish Catholic family returns to 1930s Limerick after a child's death in America. The unemployed I.R.A. veteran father struggles with poverty, prejudice, and alcoholism as the family endures harsh slum conditions.

In the Heat of the Night(en)

African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real killer. Their investigation takes them through every social level of the town, with Tibbs making enemies as well as unlikely friends as he hunts for the truth.

Synoikia to Oneiro(el)

A poor neighborhood of Athens, Asyrmatos, is the center of the world for the people who live there and try in every way to escape from poverty and destitution. A handsome released youth, Ricos (Alekos Alexandrakis), is trying to make money, at the same time that his lover, Stefi (Aliki Georgoulis), is seeing other men and her father, Nekrophoras (Manos Katrakis), is trying to contribute in family finances. Rico will set up a job, but will spend the money raised before he can put it into action. As a result, one of his "partners" (Alekos Petsos) will commit suicide, leaving his pregnant wife, Eleni (Aleka Paizis), to her fate. Rikos, his beloved and her father, defeated and disappointed because of the expectations that were never fulfilled, will be forced to come to terms with the harsh reality.

Five Fingers for Marseilles(en)

Years ago, the young Five Fingers fought for the rural town of Marseilles against brutal police oppression. Now, after fleeing in disgrace, Tau, one of them, returns to Marseilles, seeking only a peaceful life. When he finds the town under new threat, he must reluctantly fight to free it.