Roundup

Invisible Days, or the Legend of the White Crocodile(de)

In her essay film, Eva Hiller illustrates the nightly infrastructure of a large city, using Frankfurt am Main and Berlin as examples. Just as pet reptiles gone feral are reported to populate New York's sewers, so too is there bustling activity – often invisible to outsiders – when darkness falls on Germany’s metropolises.

Migrant Dreams(en)

When Umi and Dwipa left Indonesia to work in an Ontario greenhouse as part of Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program, they hoped the jobs would provide the opportunity and income for a better life. They didn't expect that fixers and false promises would lead to deception and exploitation. Sadly, their story is not uncommon. Min Sook Lee continues to speak truth to power with her commitment to providing a voice to the silenced, fulfilling documentary's capacity as a powerful tool for social change.

Girls Don't Fly(en)

An airstrip, a hangar and a classroom somewhere in rural Ghana: This is the place where 18-year-old Lydia and 20-year-old Esther hope to achieve their dream: learning how to fly. They have joined the first aviation school for girls in West Africa. There, an ambitious Englishman wants to train young women from rural areas to become pilots. Yet, during training and everyday life at the Aviation Academy Western ideals collide with African values, and the girls gradually realize, that their dream of flying comes at a price.

First Comes Love(en)

First Comes Love consists of perfectly choreographed scenes of four wedding ceremonies accompanied by a complex medley of popular love songs. All seems to be going as it should until the couples reach the altar, when the celebratory atmosphere is interrupted for a surprising public service announcement. Then song and dance continues until the happy couples depart, leaving behind a dwindling crowd and a few altar boys who carefully sweep up the rice that blankets the pavement like snow. The film doesn't attempt to defend--or discredit--the institution of marriage. Instead, it reveals the many subtle emotions surrounding the event, and raises questions about how the double standard regarding marriage affects gay and straight couples.

Mimi(fr)

Mimi isn't a star, she's just someone. A close-up of the singularity of a real life. An encounter of someone's particular story, romance, fantasy and territories.

Tyke Elephant Outlaw(en)

This is the gripping and emotionally charged story of Tyke, a circus elephant that went on a rampage in Honolulu in 1994, killed her trainer in front of thousands of spectators and died in a hail of gunfire. Her break for freedom - filmed from start to tragic end - traumatised a city and ignited a global battle over the use of animals in the entertainment industry. Looking at what made Tyke snap, the film goes back to meet the people who knew her and were affected by her death - former trainers and handlers, circus industry insiders, witnesses to her rampage, and animal rights activists for whom Tyke became a global rallying cry. Like the classic animal rebellion film King Kong, Tyke is the central protagonist in a tragic but redemptive drama that combines trauma, outrage, insight and compassion. Ultimately, this moving documentary raises fundamental questions about our deep and mysterious connection to other species.

The Alcohol Years(en)

Carol Morley returns to Manchester, where in the early 1980s, five years of her life were lost in an alcoholic blur. The Alcohol Years is a poetic retrieval of that time, in which rediscovered friends and acquaintances recount tales of her drunken and promiscuous behavior. In Morley’s search for her lost self, conflicting memories and viewpoints weave in and out, revealing a portrait of the city, its pop culture, and the people who lived it.

Remembrance(es)

The documentary film Remembrance is an outline of the past century taking as a motif the life of Luis Frank, a Lithuanian emigrant. It is a journey through a time wich the world was made by war, that of wich we have so many times heard of and by wich we live constantly under menace. Emigration, war, freedom, childhood, the quest for something, a country -Mexico- kept in memories, are some of the subjects dealt within this film. Remembrance is the story of people who have traveled the world in search of a place where to belong, people whose lives were punctuated by ruptures.

Game Over(es)

The Commoners(en)

In 1890, one man had the idea to collect every bird ever mentioned in Shakespeare and release them into Central Park. The only bird to survive in the New World was the European starling, which became one of the most common birds in North America. Its introduction is now widely considered a major environmental disaster.

Isabella Rossellini - Aus dem Leben eines Schmetterlings(de)

The Balanda and the Bark Canoes(en)

A documentary about making the feature film "Ten Canoes". It is May, 2005 in Central Arnhem Land: 'We are making a movie. The story is their story, those that live on this land, in their language, and set a long time before the coming of the Balanda, as we white people are known. For the people of the Arafura Swamp, this film is an opportunity, maybe a last chance to hold on to the old ways. For all of us, the challenges are unexpected, the task beyond anything imagined. For me, it is the most difficult film I have made, in the most foreign land I've been to...and it is Australia.' - Rolf de Heer

Calamity Who?(fr)

Documentary about a woman who claims to be Calamity Jane's daughter.

Diagnosing Difference(en)

How does it feel to have your gender identity included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders? Diagnosing Difference is a documentary featuring interviews with 13 diverse scholars, activists, and artists who identify on the trans spectrum (transgender, transsexual, genderqueer, and gender variant) about the impact and implications of the Gender Identity Disorder (GID) on their lives and communities.

Touch(en)

A man returns, after fifty years, to Chinatown to care for his dying mother. He is a librarian, a cataloguer and recorder, a gay man, a watcher, an impersonator. He passes his time collecting images - his witnesses and collaborators. Sitting in the dark, we look at them and share his cloak of invisibility, both a benefit and a curse.

The Creators(en)

Oscar nominee director Nanette Burstein is behind The Creators, a documentary film that charts the rise of a new kind of celebrity, YouTube creators. Starring Zoella amongst others, the film explores the lives of several YouTube vloggers, seen from a different angle by going behind the video camera to see what it takes to succeed on YouTube.

Bajo Juárez: The City Devouring Its Daughters(es)

In an industrial town in Mexico near the US border, hundreds of women have been sexually abused and murdered. As the body count continues to rise, a web of corruption unfolds that reaches the highest levels of Mexican society.

Living in Fear(en)

Filmed and edited entirely in isolation, Living in Fear is an educational and inspiring documentary directed by myself, Stephanie Castelete-Tyrrell, a disabled filmmaker as I capture the fears and struggles disabled people faced before the government implemented the lockdown on the 23rd March 2020. Thousands of people with disabilities were left in the dark and had to make the call weeks before to lockdown as it was inevitable that we would die if we caught the virus. Food was impossible to access because we couldn't go out or get delivery slots, and even if we did panic buyers made it impossible to get the items we desperately needed. We were truly isolated, unable to have family and friends visit. Having carers coming in and out of the house was risky and many disabled people felt that having basic care was putting their lives at risk.

Acácio(en)

After thirty years living in Angola, the Portuguese ethnologist Acácio Vieira, along with his wife Conceição, moves to Brazil bringing with him an extensive archive of the life of people of Angola and Portuguese colonizers. Weaving memories, images and personal stories, the film embarks on an affectionate journey of the couple’s past, while reconstructing a link of the three countries in which they lived.

Aboio(en)

Brazilian outback, cowboys preserve their age-old customs, communicating with their cattle in a form of plaintive singing known as Aboio. The chant resounds an improvised, ancient form that is an entrance to the life and the imaginary of the ancient Brazilian cattle drivers.