Common Ground(2018)

The Last Chinese Laundry(ab)

A documentary from 1987 featuring the life of early Chinese immigrants to the island of Newfoundland.

¡Ya Basta! 30 Years of Zapatista Autonomy(en)

In the mountains of Chiapas, a rebel experiment in autonomy continues to thrive – thirty years after its declaration of war against the Mexican state. ¡Ya Basta! 30 Years of Zapatista Autonomy, a Modern Insurgent documentary, explores the legacy and future of the EZLN, reflecting on how a masked, rural rebellion reshaped Mexico’s political landscape and inspired activists across the globe. What does revolution look like when it refuses to seize state power? And what can the world learn from a community that continues to build its own system from the ground up?

Freedom Runners(en)

Rotem Genossar, a teacher at the Bialik-Rogozin campus in south Tel Aviv, founds a running group for his students, young African refugees whose families fled their homeland and now live in Israel without any legal status. At first running is just a social activity for the students, but it quickly becomes a means to fight for their civil rights, part of a struggle to secure them a place of their own, out of the margins of Israeli society.

Paulina(en)

Through both interviews and dramatic reenactments, this documentary chronicles the life of Paulina Cruz Suárez.In the 1950's, when Paulina was a child in a rural Mexican village, her parents traded her away for land rights. The villagers ostracized her and the town boss raped her, keeping her as his unwilling mistress throughout much of her adolescence. At 15, she took control of her destiny and escaped to Mexico City to begin a new life. Now middle-aged, Paulina returns to her village to confront her family about what happened and encounters a web of intrigue and denial. PAULINA interweaves documentary and fiction styles to explore the characters' radically different perspectives and memories, and those of this vital, resilient woman.

Mirage à l'italienne(it)

The Shelter(fr)

It is winter at an emergency shelter for the homeless in Lausanne. Every night at the door of this little-known basement facility the same entry ritual takes place, resulting in confrontations which can sometimes turn violent. Those on duty at the shelter have the difficult task of “triaging the poor”: the women and children first, then the men. Although the total capacity at the shelter is 100, only 50 “chosen ones” will be admitted inside and granted a warm meal and a bed. The others know it will be a long night.

Matria(es)

My grandfather fought alongside Pancho Villa, became Master Mason, was an elected official who represented Oaxaca three times, and president of the national Association of Cattle Hands. In 1942, he formed the Legion of Mexican Fighters, a group of 100,000 cattle hands training to repel a possible Nazi invasion in Mexico. His story of success, however, held a secret that affected my family, and that I discovered while making this documentary.

Day of the Dead(en)

A portrayal of the Mexican Day of the Dead consisting of still shots and narration. Deals with the special objects and events surrounding the annual Mexican celebration of “All Souls Day”. It is not only a rich flood of folk art, but a view of the way that the Mexicans have come to terms with death. Searched out with the help of Alexander Girard and a moving guitar score by Laurindo Almeida.

Jaripeo(en)

Set against the vibrant spectacle of the jaripeo, a symbol of Mexican cowboy tradition and machismo, this story unveils a hidden world of queer desire and quiet rebellion. As glances and gestures disrupt the rigid norms of masculinity, the rodeo becomes a stage for our protagonists to navigate identity, community, and the search for belonging in an oppressively traditional space.

The Iron Triangle: Willets Point and the Remaking of New York(en)

Targeted for several failed redevelopment plans dating back to the days of Robert Moses, Willets Point, a gritty area in New York City known as the “Iron Triangle,” is the home of hundreds of immigrant-run, auto repair shops that thrive despite a lack of municipal infrastructure support. During the last year of the Bloomberg Administration, NYC’s government advanced plans for a “dynamic” high-end entertainment district that would completely wipe out this historic industrial core. The year is 2013, and the workers of Willets Point are racing against the clock to forestall their impending eviction. Their story launches an investigation into New York City’s history as the front line of deindustrialization, urban renewal, and gentrification.

A letter to Nikola(el)

As a letter to her son, the filmmaker testifies her experience as a photographer aboard the Aquarius, a ship that rescued 29,523 people in the Mediterranean between 2016 and 2018.

The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)(en)

Co-directed by acclaimed cinematographer Ellen Kuras and subject Thavisouk Phrasavath, this haunting documentary chronicles a refugee family’s epic journey from Laos in the aftermath of the secret war waged by the United States there to New York, where they find themselves fighting a different kind of war on the streets of Brooklyn. Filmed over the course of 23 years, THE BETRAYAL is a visually and emotionally stunning look at the complex ways in which the political shapes the personal.

A Place Called Chiapas(en)

In 1994, the Zapatista National Liberation Army, made up of impoverished Mayan Indians from the state of Chiapas, took over five towns and 500 ranches in southern Mexico. The government deployed its troops and at least 145 people died in the ensuing battle. Filmmaker Nettie Wild travelled to the country's jungle canyons to film the elusive and fragile life of this uprising.

Landscape of our Body(vi)

As queer trans and gender non-conforming children of the Vietnamese diaspora, we are fragmented at the crossroads of being displaced from not only a sense of belonging to our ancestral land, but also our own bodies which are conditioned by society to stray away from our most authentic existence. Yet these bodies of ours are the vessels we sail to embark on a lifetime voyage of return to our original selves. It is our bodies that navigate the treacherous tides of normative systems that impose themselves on our very being. And it is our bodies that act as community lighthouses for collective liberation. Ultimately, the landscape of our bodies is our blueprint to remembering, to healing, to blooming.

Terwijl het liefde was(nl)

Artistic director of the National Theater Eric de Vroedt writes and directs a performance about his own mother Winnie, who passed away in 2020. This piece, titled The Century of My Mother, is a family story about the migration from the Dutch East Indies to the Netherlands. It is De Vroedt's way of examining the relationship with his mother and not having to say goodbye to her yet: 'I can let her live on stage, but when the curtain falls, when the play is completely finished, then she is really dead'.

Football And Immigration, 100 Years Of Common History(fr)

Football is both the place, the crystallization of sporting passion and the witness of identity imaginations. It is also an interesting and relevant area for discussing the migration issue. From the 1930s to the present day, football, notably with the composition of the French team, has reflected the plurality of the French population. Raymond Kopa, Michel Platini, Zinedine Zidane, Basile Boli... these four footballers alone illustrate the four major waves of immigration that France has experienced.

Assimilation Memories(en)

90's era home videos of a Mexican father starting a new life in the United States

Oaxaca - Zwischen Rebellion und Utopie(en)

Latvian Coyote(lv)

An absurd game of “finding happiness” is being played by local Latvian coyotes* and illegal immigrants on the Russian and the European Union border. It is a game with no winner – all participants are driven to play by the sense of despair. While one side leaves home and undertakes a perilous journey to the other side of the globe, hoping to spend the rest of their lives in a free country, the other side risks their freedom to earn a chance to stay right where they are, in their homeland. *coyote – someone who smuggles illegal immigrants

Carlos Sainz: The Operator(es)