Playlist
An exploration of Black generational farmers in the American South reveals the fragility of legacy and the significance of owning land.
"Beid, Hafsa, Melissa, Manessa, Mohammad… 25 children and their dedicated teacher. We wanted to find out who they are… to discover their skills and strategies, their joys, fears, wants and needs."
(Ruth Beckermann)
More than 60% of all children in Viennese elementary schools do not have German as their first language. At the same time, there is an acute shortage of teachers and tutors. These adverse conditions are the starting point for Ruth Beckermann's FAVORITEN, in which the Austrian filmmaker (The Waldheim Waltz, Mutzenbacher) accompanies a Viennese elementary school class over the course of three school years. The result is an astonishingly cheerful portrait of an unusual community.
It's been 20 years since Samid last screened a film for his village. A TV repairman, Samid longs to bring the magic of cinema back to his bucolic town, taking pains to repair a Soviet-era projector. He trawls snowy mountains in search of an internet signal to order a light bulb, humorously demonstrating his tenacity. As he collaborates with 16-year-old cinephile Ayaz, Samid's journey becomes a personal odyssey of healing for the elderly projectionist.
"This land I was raised on…it feels heavy." Nevadan track star Kutoven Stevens runs with the weight of his ancestors on his shoulders. His great-grandfather Franklin ran away from the Stewart Indian School three times, escaping an abusive boarding school that sought to erase Indigenous culture through re-education. As Ku trains for scholarships and accolades, he wrestles with the legacy of colonialism, searching for a response to his family's enduring pain.
To prevent their village from extinction, Mexican residents simulate an experience they all know: crossing the border illegally into the US. They disguise themselves as border police and human traffickers so that tourists can feel like migrants for one night.
Wanjugu Kimathi is the daughter of Dedan Kimathi, legendary leader of the Kenyan Land and Freedom Army, or Mau Mau. This resistance group fought the British colonial regime from 1952 to 1960 to stop it from confiscating land, a conflict known as the Mau Mau Rebellion. In 1957, the British authorities hanged Dedan for possession of firearms, and then dumped his body at an unknown location.
Dedan's daughter Wanjugu follows in her mother's footsteps and continues the search for his remains. Along the way, she meets Mau Mau veterans, families of others who lost their land, and inspiring activists. She also discovers new atrocities and mass graves that the British would rather have remained secret.
While carrying on her day job as a receptionist at an airport, Wanjugu attracted huge numbers of followers and she now poses a threat to the businesses and prominent political figures who are today still profiting from the policies of the former British regime. Our Land, Our Freedom is her story, a painful but also hopeful chapter in postcolonial history.
High in the majestic French Pyrenees, a conflict is provoked by the reintroduction of brown bears amid a traditional shepherding community. The film follows an aging shepherd struggling to find a successor as bears prey on his flock, and a teenage boy obsessed with tracking them down. A modern folktale examining humanity's relationship with a vanishing natural world.
In a remote conservative village in the South of Egypt, a group of disenfranchised Coptic girls rebel by forming an all-female street theater troupe. They dream of becoming actresses, dancers and singers, challenging their families and the villagers with their provocative performances. Shot across four years, this coming-of-age story focuses on those girls, as they transition from childhood to womanhood.
The last cowboys of New Mexico eke out a fragile survival in a shrinking world of isolation, memories and rugged beauty as an epic drought devastates the American West.
In July 1989, the 13th World Festival of Students and Youth commenced with unprecedented fanfare. In a display of anti-imperialist unity, 22,000 people from 177 countries arrived in Pyongyang for the event. That summer, which followed the Tiananmen Square protests and preceded the Romanian Revolution, the world order was on the brink of seismic change. Bright Future captures a pivotal moment in the youth struggle for democracy.
At Watan Digital Color Photography, subjects enter the photo studio as everyday people and emerge as royalty. Watan, the shop's namesake photographer, uses his camera and extensive photo editing tools to transform customers into celebrities and heroes. Here, womanizers and soldiers alike bear assault rifles crowned with roses. Despite its artifice, this portraiture style is widely coveted. Director Danial Shah dissects Watan's interventions through interviews with Watan, probing his uncanny techniques and examining its popularity.
How Deep is Your Love, follows intrepid biologists exploring the mysterious deep sea, where 70% of our planet lies hidden. As they uncover mesmerizing creatures and ecosystems thriving in darkness, a looming threat emerges: the prospect of deep-sea mining in this untouched wilderness. This film weaves wonder with urgency, challenging us to balance the drive for resources with the intrinsic value of an ecosystem. As we journey through this breathtaking realm, we are left to ponder how deep is our love.
River of Grass is a poetic meditation on the Florida Everglades's fugitive past, present, and future inspired by the late feminist environmentalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas's 1947 book of the same title .
Using found footage from the colonial archives of British Mandate Palestine (1917 – 1948) and audio recordings of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Partition brings forth histories that have long existed at the margins. Co-director of the Nakba Archive, Diana Allan, re-photographs colonial found footage on 16mm to powerfully resituate Palestinian presence through story, voice and song.
Fusing rigorous reportage with innovative cinematic subjectivity, this bold documentary from veteran war photographer Olivier Sarbil is a uniquely intimate portrait of a Deaf person's experience of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
On the precipice of adulthood, teenagers converge at a traditional folk high school in Arctic Norway. Dropped at the edge of the world, they must rely on only themselves, one another, and a loyal pack of sled dogs as they all grow in unexpected directions.