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Films A-Z
¡Vivan las Antipodas!
¡Vivan las Antipodas!
Victor Kossakovsky / Germany, Netherlands, Argentina, Chile / 2011 / 104 min.
More than two thirds of the Earth’s surface is covered by oceans. This leaves few places on the planet diametrically opposite to each other on the surface. In his film, Victor Kossakovsky sets out to meet antipodeans, or inhabitants of those rare places on the globe. There’s not much in Argentina’s ...
18 Days in Egypt
18 Days in Egypt
Ahmed Salah, Ramadan Salah / Egypt / 2011 / 45 min.
Before 25 January last year, few in Egypt could have imagined any change in the longstanding dictatorship that prevailed there. After the first demonstrations began, the Egyptian revolution lasted barely three weeks, or exactly 18 action-packed days. The rapid course of events was aided and abetted ...
269 Millions under Water
269 miliónů pod hladinou
David Čálek / Czech Republic / 2002 / 53 min.
This documentary follows the year of work People in Need performed after devastating floods hit the Czech Republic in 2002. It shows how – thanks to the flood team created by the NGO soon after the disaster – it was possible to apportion money to the people directly affected, according to their ...
5 Broken Cameras
5 Broken Cameras
Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi / Israel, Palestine, Netherlands, France / 2011 / 90 min.
Emad, a Palestinian farmer, got himself a camera when his fourth son was born. The very same day saw the beginning of the occupation of land intended for the construction of a large Israeli settlement in the village of Bil’in in Ramallah. Emad filmed unarmed villagers’ attempts to protest peacefully ...
A Farmer's Desire
En bondes längtan
Rebecka Rasmusson / Sweden / 2010 / 14 min.
Knut is an elderly Swedish farmer who spent his entire life in the wrong body. Now all he wants is to enjoy his remaining days as a woman. A Farmer’s Desire by director Rebecka Rasmusson is presented in the spirit of the Nordic film school, i.e. no holds barred. Through grace and humour, it shows ...
After Life - 4 Stories of Torture
Jälki elämässä - 4 tarinaa kidutuksesta
Mervi Junkkonen / Finland / 2011 / 58 min.
Serge, Musa, Kebi and Hector are four very different men from far-flung corners of the world. But they share one thing in common – they were subjected to torture in their own countries. As a result, they have experienced psychological difficulties that often are further exacerbated by life’s complications. ...
Aisha's Song
Aisha's Song
Orlando von Einsiedel / UK / 2011 / 10 min.
At the age of three, Aisha lost sight in one eye; she awoke one morning and it was gone. At least that’s what her mother tells her. Aisha’s eye still hurts. A visible physical handicap lowers her chances of finding a husband. Luckily, she found a way to take care of herself in a traditional Muslim ...
Al Entisar - The Boat of Hope
Al Entisar - Loď nádeje
Ladislav Kaboš / Slovakia / 2011 / 26 min.
A Slovak reporter accompanies a ship full of humanitarian aid bound for Misurata in Libya. This port town has been the scene of the toughest battles in the conflict, and for six months a fishing boat from Malta has been one of its few links to the outside world. Interviews on board the ship reveal the ...
Angola - Dreams and Reality
Angola - sen a skutečnost
Tomáš Hodan / Czech Republic / 2008 / 55 min.
After being waged with varying degrees of intensity since 1975, the civil war in Angola ended ten years ago when the African country won liberation from Portuguese colonial rule. Tomáš Hodan’s documentary captures what happens when the “white man” returns, this time to help the local population ...
Back to the Square
Back to the Square
Petr Lom / Norway, Canada / 2012 / 83 min.
The joy, pride and sense of community experienced during the revolution in Egypt was replaced by the everyday fight for survival. How did the transformation impact the lives of citizens? Employing the documentary essay form, director Petr Lom considers the character and depth of the revolutionary changes. ...
Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark
Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark
May Ying Welsh / Qatar / 2011 / 51 min.
Last year’s protests in Bahrain followed close on the heels of uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. In the same vein as earlier demonstrations, demands included freedom, political participation, and modern citizenship. In early March, a day before the beginning of NATO’s intervention in Libya, they were ...
Bakhmaro
Bakhmaro
Salome Jashi / Germany, Georgia / 2011 / 58 min.
The film’s title draws attention to a spot that has become a tourist paradise in the mountains of Georgia. But documentarian Salome Jashi takes her camera to places that are the exact opposite of Bakhmaro. Despite the wishes of locals, a faded brick building by a motorway that sees only a handful ...
Barzakh
Barzakh
Mantas Kvedaravicius / Finland, Lithuania / 2011 / 60 min.
This Finnish-Lithuanian film, produced by Aki Kaurismäki, documents the current situation in Chechnya. The war is long over but the kidnapping, torture and murder of “inconvenient” individuals continue on an almost daily basis. Lithuanian director Mantas Kvedaravicius, who spent three years shooting ...
Belarusian Dream
Belorusskaya mechta
Ekaterina Kibalchich / Russia / 2011 / 55 min.
According to this film’s anonymous guide, autumn 2010 was the most beautiful period in Belarus in recent years. His words are illustrated with footage of the election rallies of independent presidential candidates. The speaker and many others hoped that the country’s first free elections in 16 years ...
Benghazi Rising
Benghazi Rising
Reed Lindsay, Jihan Hafiz / USA / 2011 / 51 min.
Until recently, Libya was the Arab state with the strongest repressive power. It was also the only country of the Arab Spring where a protest movement transformed into an armed liberation movement. Everything started with a small demonstration in the east Libyan city of Benghazi, in support of an advocate ...
Big as Brno
Film jako Brno
Vít Klusák, Andran Abranjan, Kristýna Bartošová, Natálie Císařovská, Robin Kvapil, Lukáš Senft, Jan Strejcovský / Czech Republic / 2011 / 63 min.
An annual march by neo-Nazis took place in Brno on 1 May last year. In response, an informal group named BRNO Blokuje (Brno Blocks) was formed, uniting people with the common aim of preventing the march in a non-violent manner. Documentary filmmaker Vít Klusák and six of his students from Prague’s ...
Big Boys Gone Bananas!*
Big Boys Gone Bananas!*
Fredrik Gertten / Sweden / 2011 / 87 min.
Just before Swedish documentarian and investigative journalist Fredrik Gertten set off for Los Angeles for the world premiere of Bananas! (screened at One World in 2010), he received some shocking news from the organisers. At the last minute, his film – documenting the alarming situation of Nicaraguan ...
Bitter Seeds
Bitter Seeds
Micha X. Peled / USA, India / 2011 / 89 min.
Micha X. Peled’s film focuses on the agricultural community of central India to get to the root of the huge number of suicides occurring in the region. In the last 16 years, about a quarter of a million farmers have taken their lives, including the father of journalism student Manjusha Amberwar, who ...
Bombay Beach
Bombay Beach
Alma Har´el / USA, Israel / 2011 / 74 min.
In her visually engrossing documentary debut, Israeli director Alma Har’el introduces us to Salton Sea, an artificial lake in the middle of the California desert. Dubbed the “American dream gone horribly awry,” this bizarre and uninhabitable place is filled with poor and unemployed families. Take ...
Carte Blanche
Carte Blanche
Heidi Specogna / Germany, Switzerland / 2011 / 91 min.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague was established to try perpetrators from around the world for crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes. This film, by German director Heidi Specogna, follows the court’s investigators and prosecutors to spotlight the process of these complex ...
Darkhead
Schwarzkopf
Arman T. Riahi / Austria / 2011 / 90 min.
Nazar is a 25-year-old Austrian rapper with Iranian roots. After spending four weeks in custody on suspicion of armed robbery, he’s now in dire financial straits. Eager for a fresh start, he sets off for Berlin to record his second album, the lyrics of which give full vent to his feelings as a second-generation ...
Daughters of Malakeh
Dochters van Malakeh
Jet Homoet, Sharog Heshmat Manesh / Netherlands / 2011 / 78 min.
Maryam is 45 years old. She has a job, her own apartment and is the de facto head of the family. She looks after her parents and to a certain extent also looks after her younger sister Ghazal. After spending many years in the Netherlands, her brother Sharog Heshmat is coming to Iran to attend her wedding. ...
Dear Mandela
Dear Mandela
Dara Kell, Christopher Nizza / South Africa / 2011 / 90 min.
When Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa in 1994, it was a miraculous moment for many of the country’s inhabitants. With the collapse of the despised apartheid system, people believed in a better future for everyone, including poor people living in cardboard shacks on the edges of ...
Desert Riders
Desert Riders
Vic Sarin / Canada / 2011 / 80 min.
Their giant bodies knocking into each other, the camels struggle to overtake each other at high speeds on a narrow racetrack. Along the route, several honking cars follow the animals, urging them on. Riders desperately cling to the backs of these “arks of the desert,” as a fall could be deadly. ...
Detroit Wild City
Detroit Wild City
Florent Tillon / France / 2011 / 80 min.
Birches grow on a skyscraper in the centre of the city. Youths throw cookers and fridges out of the 11th floor of a tenement building. There is no traffic on an eight-lane highway. These post-apocalyptic images of a depopulated Detroit, similar to the ones director Florent Tillon uses to open his film, ...
Eighty Eight
Eighty Eight
Sebastian Feehan, Josh Bamford / UK / 2011 / 11 min.
At 88 years old, British senior citizen Ralph Settle completely defies the stereotypical notions of surly pensioners sitting at home all day in front of the television. This former active sportsman and roller-skating champion spends his days playing the mandolin in the centre of a small town in Cornwall. ...
El Medico - The Cubaton Story
El Medico - The Cubaton Story
Daniel Fridell / Sweden, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Cuba / 2011 / 85 min.
Michel, a Swedish producer, records his songs in Cuba while also searching out talented locals to produce music for export that fits stereotypes about Cubans. The island’s reggaeton scene is flourishing and rapper El Medico is the Swede’s new favourite. As his stage name suggests, El Medico, real ...
Epicentre
Epicentrum
Petr Jančárek / Czech Republic / 1993 / 38 min.
What were the beginnings of the biggest humanitarian organisation in Central and Eastern Europe? People in Need began in a small room at the offices of newspaper Lidové noviny with a few enthusiasts ready to dedicate their lives to helping others, without reward or payment. For many, work at the Lidové ...
Essay of a Revolution
Ensayo de una revolución
Pedro Pablo Sara, Antonio Labajo / Spain / 2011 / 29 min.
Not long after the wave of protests in the Arab world, young people in well-established democracies also started expressing disagreement with the current state of society. In Spain, the movement Democracia Real YA! (Real Democracy NOW!) was formed with the aim of fighting “corruption, unemployment, ...
Fallega 2011
Fallega 2011
Rafik Omrani / Tunisia / 2011 / 52 min.
Tunis’s Kasbah Square was where demonstrators in the Arab world first came together to demand democracy and an end to dictatorship; it also was the site of a long-term occupation following an attack by President Ben Ali. Many Tunisians were satisfied when the dictator was ousted and hoped for an easing ...
Family Portrait in Black and White
Family Portrait in Black and White
Julia Ivanova / Canada / 2011 / 85 min.
Foster mother Olga Nenja is raising 23 children in the Ukrainian countryside, many of them the offspring of African fathers who studied in Ukraine. Because of their skin colour, these children do not have much hope of being adopted. Only some remember their original families, and tell sad stories about ...
Far From Home
Ver van huis
Hilt Lochten / Netherlands / 2011 / 15 min.
Gooitske, a nine-year-old Dutch girl, waits impatiently for a bus to arrive. Children from faraway Belarus are coming to her school; they suffer from various health problems because of the meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant 26 years ago. The Belarusian children hope that a six-week stay in ...
Fliehkraft
Fliehkraft
Marie Elisa Scheidt, Alexandra Wesolowski / Germany / 2011 / 17 min.
“Today, I don’t want to go to jail,” Matthias sometimes thinks. He works as a guide for visitors, mainly secondary school children, to former East German jails. As a non-conformist youth, he wanted to travel and get out of the GDR. When he wasn’t allowed, he tried to defect but ended up behind ...
Forbidden
Mamnou
Amal Ramsis / Egypt, Spain / 2011 / 67 min.
The Egyptian revolution, in the first instance, was an uprising for freedom and dignity. However, the actual revolution was preceded by a series of small protests against bans of all types. This film, shot shortly before the unrest erupted, depicts in an amusing style the background to Egyptians’ ...
Forever Yours
Ikuisesti sinun
Mia Halme / Finland / 2011 / 77 min.
Since they have not disowned their offspring, biological parents can still intervene in their children’s lives, even if they have nothing to do with their daily care. This happens, for instance, when Inka attempts to change her surname so as not to have to explain to classmates why her name is different ...
Framing the Other
Framing the Other
Willem Timmers, Ilja Kok / Netherlands, Ethiopia / 2011 / 25 min.
The Mursi tribe lives in the basin of the Omo River in the south of the east African state of Ethiopia. The women are known for placing large plates in their lower lips and wearing enormous, richly decorated earrings. Every year hundreds of Western tourists come to see the unusually adorned natives; ...
From Cherries to Cherries
Od višní do višní
Jana Boršková / Czech Republic / 2011 / 57 min.
Jana Boršková, a student at Prague’s FAMU film school, wanted to make a documentary about her father. But before she could start, he died unexpectedly. So Boršková’s mother – a kind and spirited 60-something – became the protagonist of her debut film. Her mother’s stories are complemented ...
Girl Model
Girl Model
Ashley Sabin, David Redmon / UK / 2011 / 78 min.
In the Russian city of Novosibirsk, crowds throng to an audition for female models. Parents want their daughters to excel in elegance, grace, manners and communication skills – plus make lots of money. In this competition between dozens of young girls, 13-year-old Nadya emerges victorious. She has ...
Give Up Tomorrow
Give Up Tomorrow
Michael Collins / UK, USA / 2011 / 95 min.
How outrageous is the mere thought of someone being sentenced to death for a crime that, in all probability, he didn’t commit? Worse yet, in a scenario where the lack of victims’ bodies, proof or witness testimonies makes it unclear whether a crime has even taken place? This is the story of Paco ...
Greenland Year Zero
Grønland år 0
Anders Graver, Niels Bjorn / Denmark / 2011 / 26 min.
Contemporary Greenland is going through revolutionary changes in several areas at the same time. In 2008, its citizens voted in a referendum for greater independence from Denmark. The discovery of huge deposits of oil on the island immediately made it a magnet for drilling companies from all over the ...
He Thinks He's the Best
He Thinks He's the Best
Maria Kuhlberg / Sweden / 2011 / 75 min.
Carmine is a family man who has worked hard his entire life; he also is an active union member. Aldo has seven children; he has been to prison numerous times for dealing drugs. Aldo and Carmine are brothers who have not spoken in 13 years. The last time they met – at their mother’s funeral – the ...
Hitler's Children
Yaldey Hitler
Chanoch Ze'evi / Israel / 2011 / 80 min.
Israeli director Chanoch Ze'evi sets out to discover how the descendants of members of the Nazi elite came to terms with being linked by blood to the perpetrators of some of the worst crimes in history. Through raw interviews, He shows how that connection has fundamentally influenced their lives. Katrin, ...
How to Die in Oregon
How to Die in Oregon
Peter Richardson / USA / 2011 / 107 min.
“I’m from the country, and we never let horses and dogs suffer,” says Cody, the protagonist of this film about people who decided to end their lives with the help of a doctor. Since 1994 in the American state of Oregon, up to 500 people have taken their “final cure” there. Cody is a strong ...
Chechen Dream
Čečenský sen
Petr Jančárek / Czech Republic / 1995 / 35 min.
In 1995, People in Need director Šimon Pánek led a humanitarian mission to Chechnya, delivering surgical and medical aid for a local field hospital. This “on the road”-style documentary captures the entire journey, from Prague to a hospital in Shali and the mountain town of Vedeno. Depicting dedication ...
Chernobyl Forever
Chernobyl Forever
Alain de Halleux / Belgium, France / 2011 / 55 min.
Belgian documentary maker Alain de Halleux returns to 1986, when almost half of Europe was contaminated by poisonous fallout after an explosion in reactor 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. As a result, a 30-kilometre zone around the epicentre is so contaminated it will remain uninhabitable for ...
I am a Woman Now
I am a Woman Now
Michiel van Erp / Netherlands / 2011 / 86 min.
When it comes to the discussion of transgender, the focus tends to be on young people who either are preparing to have sex-change surgery or recently have undergone the process. In this film, Dutch director Michiel van Erp looks at the lives of older transsexuals who had operations in the 1960s and ...
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
Marshall Curry, Sam Cullman / USA / 2011 / 85 min.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the term environmental or ecological terrorism became part of the media lexicon. Generally it’s used to describe the actions of radical activists who, in their efforts to protect the environment, overstep acceptable social boundaries. The documentary If a Tree ...
Inside My Head
In mijn hoofd
Erna Slotboom / Netherlands / 2011 / 17 min.
To be successful in top tier tennis, a player must be talented, in excellent physical shape and, above all, have the ability to concentrate. Britt is a Dutch girl who knows what it takes to win. She prepares herself both mentally and physically for every single match. But one day, before an important ...
Into Oblivion
Mrtvá trať
Šimon Špidla / Czech Republic / 2011 / 52 min.
The 1,200-km Salekhard–Igarka railway was intended to link the Yenisei and Ob rivers. Called the Transpolar Mainline, it connected uninhabited outposts along the northern polar circle. Built between 1947 and 1953 under the direct orders of Stalin, Gulag prisoners were used as labourers, a practice ...
Invoking Justice
Invoking Justice
Deepa Dhanraj / India / 2011 / 86 min.
In the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, family disputes are settled by Islamic councils, called Jamaats, which consist exclusively of men. Only men conduct investigations and interrogations while also cooperating with police and civil courts. Women are not even permitted to appear before a Jamaat. ...
Justice for Sale
Justice for Sale
Ilse van Velzen, Femke van Velzen / Netherlands / 2011 / 83 min.
“He gave me a potion. I drank it because I thought it was medicine.Then I became dizzy and fell down,” says the man in his emotionally convincing testimony before a military tribunal in Bukavu, a town in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The man has accused his subordinate of ...
Karama Has No Walls
Karama Has No Walls
Sara Ishaq / Yemen / 2012 / 25 min.
Yemen joined in with the protests immediately after the start of the Arab Spring. Unlike Egypt and Tunisia, however, the country’s authoritarian regime did not collapse but instead responded with violence. Consequently, the protests were followed by what in effect was a civil war that remains unresolved. ...
Kids' Rights
Mensjesrechten 2011
Necati Sonmez, Christine Pawlata, Nicola Moruzzi, Anneta Papathanassiou / Netherlands / 2011 / 9 min.
This series of three short films looks at selected paragraphs of the Convention on the Rights of the Child adopted by the United Nations in 1989. Due to the particular vulnerability of children, the convention makes it mandatory for authorities to protect their interests and ensure they have the best ...
Kosovo - Blood Isn´t Water
Kosovo - Krev není voda
Petr Jančárek / Czech Republic / 1999 / 24 min.
Petr Jančárek’s film captures Kosovo during the mass return of Albanian refugees after the 1999 exodus. His guide and commentator, People in Need´s volunteer Marie Wichterlová, explains how her youthful adventure left her forever changed. She also discusses how People in Need provides aid in places ...
Letters from Iran
Chroniques d'un Iran interdit
Manon Loizeau / France / 2011 / 78 min.
In 2009, footage of protests against the seemingly rigged presidential elections in Iran went around the world. The governing regime bloodily suppressed the peaceful demonstrations. Since then, opponents of President Ahmadinejad face repression, while Western media have almost no access to the country. ...
Life in Stills
Hatzalmania
Tamar Tal / Israel / 2011 / 58 min.
She is stubborn, combative and complicated, but also can be charming and funny. Miriam Weissenstein, 96, is only four years younger than the city of Tel Aviv, where she has lived since departing Czechoslovakia in 1921. Through his extraordinary photographs, her husband, Rudi, captured life in Tel Aviv ...
Loan Shark
Úžera
Martin Řezníček / Czech Republic / 2001 / 29 min.
Martin Řezníček’s film, made in conjunction with People in Need and Czech Television, examines a phenomenon that has spread among socially excluded communities in the Czech Republic: usury, or money-lending. How it works is illustrated through the story of one Romany family - borrow money and pay ...
Love in the Grave
Láska v hrobě
David Vondráček / Czech Republic / 2011 / 74 min.
The protagonists of David Vondráček’s love story are Jan and Jana, two street people who have found a home in an abandoned graveyard in the Prague suburb of Strašnice. The cemetery’s wall and overgrown trees form a physical and metaphorical border between two worlds. For Jana, living in a crypt ...
Made in Berdsk: A Story of One Protest Vote
Made in Berdsk: A Story of One Protest Vote
Charles Maynes, Andrey Babaev, Masha Eismont / Russia / 2011 / 36 min.
The residents of the Siberian city of Berdsk, home to around 100,000 people, have never really had much interest in politics. The mayor from the largest ruling party, United Russia, has governed the city without interruption for 14 years. Before the municipal elections in 2011, he was elected to the ...
Machine Man
Hombre Maquina
Alfonso Moral, Roser Corella / Spain / 2011 / 15 min.
Dhaka, Bangladesh. Barefoot women collect coal. Boys produce 18,000 bricks a day. A man weighing 50 kilos moves 100-kilo sacks. Children sort plastic bottles for 12 hours each day. Men dismantle rusty wrecks in a polluted river. When they speak of the work that destroys their health, which in Europe ...
Mama Illegal
Mama Illegal
Ed Moschitz / Austria / 2011 / 102 min.
Moldova is the poorest country in Europe. Life is particularly difficult in the countryside. The former granary of the Soviet Union is mired in poverty, despair, and alcohol. Consequently, it is not surprising that many Moldovans, particularly Moldovan women, illegally emigrate to Western Europe in ...
Mother India
Mother India
Raffaele Brunetti / Italy / 2011 / 61 min.
After eight years of marriage to Niladri, Jhuma is still awaiting a longed-for child, something her husband’s family remind her of at every opportunity. This is making Jhuma, from the Indian state of West Bengal, very unhappy, so Niladri takes her on an expensive trip to a reproductive clinic in the ...
No Entry No Exit
Auf Teufel komm raus
Mareille Klein, Julie Kreuzer / Germany / 2010 / 82 min.
Karl D. expects trouble when, after 15 years behind bars, he sets out for Heisenberg, the small Bavarian town where his brother Helmut lives. His fears are borne out: Dozens of locals are waiting in front of Helmut’s home, carrying signs calling for his immediate departure. Karl has been convicted ...
Odysseus' Gambit
Odysseus' Gambit
Alex Lora / USA, Spain / 2011 / 12 min.
Saravuth is a charismatic man living in New York’s Union Square. There, this American of Cambodian origin plays chess with people; losers pay him five dollars, enabling him to survive another day. A caring community of sorts has formed around Saravuth. Sometimes fellow players bring him food or hot ...
Outside the Court
Outside the Court
Marc Isaacs / UK / 2011 / 58 min.
Director Mark Isaacs engages an interesting group of people on the pavement in front of the municipal court in Highbury, London. Included in the mix are an incurable thief; an aggressive alcoholic; an armed robber; and the father of a rebellious child. The manner in which they come and go directly reflects ...
Planet of Snail
Planet of Snail
Yi Seung-Jun / South Korea, Japan, Finland / 2011 / 87 min.
Deaf and blind since childhood, young Korean Young-Chan’s most important sense is touch – just like a snail. His lonely life, with limited opportunities for communication with his surroundings, changes instantly when he meets Soon-Ho, who suffers from a debilitating spinal disease. She becomes his ...
Prisoners of Burma
Barmští vězni
Igor Blažević, Jasmina Blažević / Czech Republic / 2000 / 23 min.
This timeless documentary by Igor and Jasmina Blažević captures the chilling testimonies of students imprisoned for political reasons in Burma. Shot in 2000, it shows how, each decade, students take to the streets to protest the military junta and demand democracy. In response, the military government ...
Punk in Africa
Punk in Africa
Deon Maas, Keith Jones / Czech Republic, South Africa / 2011 / 82 min.
It starts with the quote, “In Africa, music cannot be for entertainment, it must be for revolution.” In Punk in Africa, Prague-based U.S. director Keith Jones and screenwriter Deon Maas set out for the Dark Continent to prove the merit of that statement. In Southern Africa, the truth is discovered ...
Race to the Bottom
Závod ke dnu
Vít Janeček / Czech Republic / 2011 / 82 min.
“The reality we live in could be called a technopolis. It is not nature. It is a world with its own unique sense of time and space. This time-space is defined by great acceleration…And what is this time-space of the technopolis? It is human labour,” renowned Czech philosopher Václav Bělohradský ...
Radioactivists - Protest in Japan since Fukushima
Radioactivists - Protest in Japan since Fukushima
Julia Leser, Clarissa Seidel / Germany / 2011 / 72 min.
What sort of serious event would shake Japan’s traditionally orderly society from its lethargy? That’s the central question in the documentary Radioactivists - Protest in Japan since Fukushima by German directors Julia Leser and Clarissa Seidel. Set against the backdrop of anti-nuclear protests ...
Red Forest Hotel
Red Forest Hotel
Mika Koskinen / Finland / 2011 / 84 min.
In this film, Finnish journalist Mika Koskinen shows the true face of China’s green politics. He travels to the southern Chinese province of Yunnan, where Swedish-Finnish corporation Stora Enso is preparing to open a new factory. But his efforts to make a film are hindered. When he tries to shoot ...
Scarlet Road - A Sex Worker's Journey
Scarlet Road - A Sex Worker's Journey
Catherine Scott / Australia / 2011 / 70 min.
Rachel Wotton is an energetic blonde who is studying at university and goes on motorcycle rides with her boyfriend. Above all, she loves her work as a sexual worker. Rachel specialises in people with disabilities, which is roughly half her clientele. She also is cofounder of the Touching Base NGO, which ...
Skydancer
Skydancer
Katja Esson / Germany, USA / 2011 / 72 min.
Indians build skyscrapers because they don’t suffer from vertigo. Mohawks are warriors and know no fear. These two myths – one created by white people about the genetic singularity of Native Americans, the other by Native Americans about their own uniqueness – offer a romantic explanation as to ...
Slum Stories: Romania - Gyuri
Slum Stories: Romania - Gyuri
Andrei Dascalescu / Netherlands, Romania / 2010 / 8 min.
The protagonist and guide in this film is a small Roma boy called Gyuri. When he grows up, he would like to be a truck driver or policeman. At the moment, he lives with his parents and four siblings in a small wooden shack that can be difficult to heat in winter. The situation is the same for about ...
Solar Eclipse
Pod sluncem tma
Martin Mareček / Czech Republic / 2011 / 83 min.
The latest film by renowned Czech documentary filmmaker Martin Mareček takes us to the remote Zambian village of Masuku. In 2006, two Czech development experts implemented an electrification project that brought power to a school and hospital complex and light to the village. Five years later they ...
Speak Your Mind
Speak Your Mind
Emad Ali / Iraq / 2011 / 14 min.
This short film by Emad Ali, a student at a film school in Baghdad, deals with the difficulties reporters in his country face. Journalist Kuthar explains how in Iraq, the idea of objective and independent reporting is incomprehensible to most people. Ibrahim, who suffered serious injuries while doing ...
Special Flight
Vol Spécial
Fernand Melgar / Switzerland / 2011 / 103 min.
Switzerland has a reputation as a stable, prosperous country where citizens make a significant contribution to the running of the whole society. That may be one reason it is a popular destination for refugees and migrants, although local legislation is far from welcoming. Under Swiss law, anyone without ...
Sweet Smoke of the Fatherland
Zoete rook van het vaderland
Masha Novikova / Netherlands / 2011 / 80 min.
Against the backdrop of rich archive footage, renowned documentarian Masha Novikova tells the stories of three people from different parts of Europe whose lives were affected by the wars of the 20th century. Seventy-nine-year-old Victorino lives in a mountain village in the Pyrenees. As a child, he ...
Syria: Inside the Repression
Syria: Inside the Repression
Sofia Amara / France / 2011 / 52 min.
Following six months of regular demonstrations against the Syrian regime, Ramadan in August 2011 offered a brief respite. For several weeks, the Syrian army pulled back from a number of towns (Hama, Homs and Rastan), allowing protesters to take control. A Lebanese reporter managed to get into those ...
Taste the Waste
Taste the Waste
Valentin Thurn / Germany / 2011 / 88 min.
Before vegetables get from the fields to our plates, at least half of them end up in a dump; that means every second tomato or head of lettuce. Sounds incredible, but it’s true. And agriculture produces a third of greenhouse gases. Just look at supermarket waste containers or peer into the nearest ...
The Argentinian Lesson
Argentynska lekcja
Wojciech Staroń / Poland / 2011 / 56 min.
Set in the remote Argentinean town of Azara, this personal documentary by Wojciech Staroń features his seven-year-old son Janek. While the Polish director’s wife teaches locals of Polish origin the language of their forefathers, the boy is sent to school to learn Spanish. Janek soon befriends Marcia, ...
The Boxing Girls of Kabul
The Boxing Girls of Kabul
Ariel J. Nasr / Canada / 2011 / 52 min.
The main characters of this film are three sporty Afghan girls who dedicate themselves to boxing. They train rigorously at an athletics stadium in Kabul, where girls were publicly lynched during the Taliban era for “sins” such as playing sports. For decades in Afghanistan, women were denied the ...
The Bully Project
The Bully Project
Lee Hirsch / USA / 2011 / 98 min.
They push you into a narrow locker in the cloakroom. On the bus they choke you and stab your stomach with a pen. In the school corridor, on Facebook, and in text messages they humiliate you with insults. Thirteen million American school kids experience bullying annually and each year thousands commit ...
The Carrier
The Carrier
Maggie Betts / USA / 2011 / 88 min.
As a young girl, Zambian Mutina Mweemba dreams of marrying a loving man. She imagines them raising their children together, giving them the best life possible. When Mutina meets Abarcon, a man from a distant village, her dream seems to have come true. But the image of a perfect marriage is shattered ...
The Forgotten
Los Olvidados de los Olvidados
Carles Caparrós / Spain / 2010 / 88 min.
Carles Caparrós’s film has this motto: “There is no document of civilization that is not at the same time a document of barbarism.” People have always fought against anything different, incomprehensible and strange. In the Western world, mental illnesses are considered diseases; in a number of ...
The Island President
The Island President
Jon Shenk / USA / 2011 / 101 min.
Surely no head of state ever faced such serious problems as Mohamed Nasheed, former president of the Maldives. He spent 20 years leading the opposition to the dictator Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. For that, Nasheed was repeatedly imprisoned. It was only after a revolution that he took over the presidency. ...
The Kingdom of Mister Edhi
Le Royaume de Monsieur Edhi
Amélie Saillez / Belgium, Spain / 2011 / 82 min.
Director Amélie Saillez tells the fascinating story of Abdul Sattar Edhi and his wife, Bilquis. The couple, from the Pakistani city of Karachi, built a network of social and healthcare facilities in this Islamic country. They help everyone regardless of religion, skin colour, nationality or caste. ...
The Magical Journey of Useless Things
The Magical Journey of Useless Things
Katja Schupp / Germany, Poland / 2011 / 93 min.
The adage that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure is borne out by the peculiar Polish duo of Piotr Liszcz and Jan Byczek; for them, discarded rubbish from German households allows them to make a living. The annual mass removal of garbage in the area around Germany’s Mainz is a true gold ...
The New World
Uus maailm
Jaan Tootsen / Estonia / 2011 / 59 min.
Like most European cities, Estonia’s capital, Tallinn, is ruled by cars. When yet another road intended exclusively for cars was opened in the New World district in 2006, a group of locals finally ran out of patience. After staging a protest with respirators and gas masks that prevented a ceremonial ...
The Price of Sex
The Price of Sex
Mimi Chakarova / USA / 2011 / 73 min.
According to UN estimates, each year around 1.5 million women are taken abroad to serve as sex slaves. After the fall of Communism, Mimi Chakarova, who directed The Price of Sex, left with her mother in search of a better life in the U.S. She explores the fate of less fortunate East European women from ...
The Prism GR2011 - KRISIS
The Prism GR2011 - KRISIS
Nikos Katsaounis, Nina Maria Paschalidou / Greece / 2011 / 62 min.
Greek police shot and killed 15-year-old student Alexandros Grigoropoulos in Athens in December 2008. His death unleashed mass protests both in Greece and several other European countries. However, the protracted financial and social crisis was perhaps a deeper reason for unrest. At the beginning of ...
The Quiet One
The Quiet One
Emelie Wallgren, Ina Holmqvist / Sweden / 2011 / 29 min.
Maryam, 6, is trying to settle into her new surroundings. She and her mother left their native Iran for snowy Sweden. Like other immigrant children, she must learn the language of her new country at school. Things are tough at first; almost immediately little Maryam finds herself on the periphery of ...
The Redemption of General Butt Naked
The Redemption of General Butt Naked
Eric Strauss, Daniele Anastasion / USA / 2011 / 85 min.
Joshua Milton Blahyi once believed he was blessed with supernatural powers that enabled him to dodge bullets. He went into battle naked with his army of child soldiers, ruthlessly delivering death and destruction. His cruelty was legendary, making his army one of the most feared units in Liberia’s ...
The Siege
The Siege
Angus Gibson, Miguel Salazar / Colombia / 2011 / 88 min.
The date 6 November 1985 entered Colombian history as La Toma, The Siege. On that day, members of the guerrilla group M19 burst into the Supreme Court in central Bogota and took 350 people hostage, including leading representatives of the country’s judicial system. Then President Belisario Betancur ...
The Substance
The Substance
Martin Witz / Switzerland / 2011 / 89 min.
In the spring of 1943, a sensational discovery was made in a Basel laboratory. Thanks to the experiments of Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann, lysergic acid (LSD) saw the light of day. One milligram of this substance was enough to literally turn human consciousness on its head. After initial experiments ...
The Tiniest Place
El lugar más pequeño
Tatiana Huezo / Mexico / 2011 / 104 min.
Even though it’s been almost three decades, the Central American village of Cinquera remains haunted by memories of the tragedy that occurred there. The civil war in El Salvador lasted 12 years, leaving tens of thousands of victims in its wake. In the 1980s, Cinquera was repeatedly occupied by government ...
The Tripoint
Trojmezí
Klára Řezníčková / Czech Republic / 2011 / 59 min.
Klára Řezníčková’s documentary focuses on the easternmost part of the Czech Republic, where the country meets Poland and Slovakia. The border has influenced the historical development of the area and the fate of those living there. In this film, people from various nationalities in the mountain ...
The Voice of Burma
Burmas Stemme
Turid Rogne / Norway / 2011 / 64 min.
“We don’t see it as work. It is our destiny, our future,” says the Burmese editor in chief of the small Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) radio station, which he founded with a few compatriots in the early 1990s in Oslo, Norway. The aim of their émigré radio station was to bring free information ...
Through Ellen's Ears
Door de Oren van Ellen
Saskia Gubbels / Netherlands / 2011 / 18 min.
Like her parents and most of her family, 11-year-old Ellen is deaf and communicates using sign language. She can only articulate with great difficulty. In her last year of primary school, she has to make a crucial decision: Should she continue her studies in a special school for deaf-mutes or should ...
To the Light
To the Light
Yuanchen Liu / China, USA / 2011 / 69 min.
For a long time, China has been one of the world’s biggest producers and consumers of coal. Seventy percent of its energy comes from coal-fired power plants. The flipside of China’s economic boom is best encapsulated by the situation in local mines, where each year about 20,000 miners die in accidents. ...
Trafacka - Temple of Freedom
Trafačka - Chrám svobody
Saša Dlouhý, Roman Vávra / Czech Republic / 2011 / 75 min.
Prague’s genius loci is comprised not only of rare historical buildings, but also dilapidated factory halls such as MeetFactory in Smíchov and the former transformer station in Vysočany. At the end of 2006, a group of young artists led by Jan Kaláb (also known as Point) decided to transform the ...
Valley of the Last Mujahideen
Údolí posledních mudžáhidů
Tomáš Vlach / Czech Republic / 2003 / 27 min.
After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Afghanistan received a great deal of international attention and sponsors earmarked large sums of humanitarian aid for the country. A few months later, refugees began returning, making it imperative to provide work for adults and education for children. People ...
Welcome, Come in
Nech sa páči, poďte ďalej
Paula Ďurinová, Vladimíra Hradecká / Slovakia / 2011 / 30 min.
In Slovakia today, more than 600 segregated settlements are home to almost 200,000 people, primarily members of the Roma ethnic minority. For these inhabitants, the chances of escaping settlements and living a normal life among the majority are slim. There are exceptions, however. Places where, thanks ...
Who Killed Natasha?
Qui a tué Natacha?
Myl?ne Sauloy / UK, Russia, France, Chechnya / 2011 / 64 min.
Grozny, the capital city of Chechnya, 15 July 2009. Natasha Estemirova, a journalist and human rights activist, never made it to a meeting scheduled that day. The life of this fearless woman was ended by a bullet from a pistol; her body was found abandoned by a road. Just like her close friend Anna ...
You've Been Trumped
You've Been Trumped
Anthony Baxter / UK / 2011 / 95 min.
A coastal strip in north-eastern Scotland, near Aberdeen, is one of the few remaining areas of unspoiled countryside in the U.K. … at least it was before multimillionaire Donald Trump decided to build the world’s most luxurious golf club there. Scottish Parliament approved the project, making the ...
Zero Silence
Zero Silence
Jonny von Wallström, Javeria Rizvi Kabani, Alexandra Sandels / Sweden / 2011 / 57 min.
In 2011, citizens of Arab countries took to the streets to fight for their rights. This film is comprised of several participants’ stories – young people who could no longer remain silent. It starts in Tunisia, where the Arab Spring was ignited by the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, who set ...