The Waves(2024)

Songs of War: Music as a Weapon(en)

Music elates, touches the soul and bypasses reason. Music is magic. But precisely this magic can turn it into an insidious weapon for music and violence belong together. The brutal power of African war dances, the ferocity of Maori Hakas, the earth-shattering roar of US sound guns blasting Metallica at Taliban hideouts the principle is always the same: Aggressive sounds demoralise the enemy and whip the allies into a frenzy. In Songs of War, director Tristan Chytroschek explores the extraordinary harmony between music and violence. Sesame Street composer, Christopher Cerf, always wanted his music to be fun and entertaining. But then he learned that his songs had been used to torture prisoners in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. He is stunned by this abuse of his work and wants to find out how this could happen.

Made in Auschwitz: The Untold Story of Block 10(de)

Around 80 years ago, the gynecologist Carl Clauberg conducted medical experimentation on Jewish girls and women in Auschwitz. The results of those sadistic experiments were used in medicine across the globe. It is possible that German companies played a part in those experiments. Most of the survivors became infertile, and very few of them were later capable to give birth. The Untold Story of Block 10 introduces the audience to those who have survived.

Devi(ne)

Devi's life was upended following her arrest during Nepal's civil war accused of rebellion. Tortured and raped while in custody, she faced depression and isolation. Despite hardship, Devi joined rebel forces and became a prominent member of Parliament.

Stasi, un État contre son peuple(fr)

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, thousands of documents were hastily shredded by the dreaded GDR political police. 16,000 bags filled with six million pieces of paper were found. Thanks to the meticulous work of technology, the destinies of men and women who had been spied on and recorded without their knowledge could be reconstructed.

Hexenkinder(de)

The movie recalls children who suffered mental and physical harm both during the last century, particularly in religious orphanages, and during the time of early modernperiod witch-hunts. It shows that the mindsets and behavioural patterns of both time periods are more alike than one might think.

The El-Masri Case(de)

A documentary about the life of a German citizen abducted by the CIA in 2003.

Tickled(en)

Journalist David Farrier stumbles upon a mysterious tickling competition online. As he delves deeper he comes up against fierce resistance, but that doesn’t stop him getting to the bottom of a story stranger than fiction.

Refuge(e)(en)

Refuge(e) traces the incredible journey of two refugees, Alpha and Zeferino. Each fled violent threats to their lives in their home countries and presented themselves at the US border asking for political asylum, only to be incarcerated in a for-profit prison for months on end without having committed any crime. Thousands more like them can't tell their stories.

China: The Uighur Tragedy(fr)

A relentless chronicle of the tragedy of the Uighurs, an ethnic minority of some eleven million people who live in the Xinjiang region of northwest China, speak a Turkic language and practice the Muslim religion. The Uighurs suffer brutal cultural and political oppression by Xin Jinping's tyrannical government: torture, disappearances, forced labor, re-education of children and adults, mass sterilizations, extensive surveillance and destruction of historical heritage.

Echoes from a Sombre Empire(de)

Documentary examining Bokassa's rule in the Central African Republic using the testimony of witnesses and visits to key sites.

The Right to Live in Peace(es)

A moving portrait of Chilean singer-songwriter and political activist Victor Jara (1932-73) that chronicles the life of the talented artist who was imprisoned, tortured and machine-gunned by the country's dictatorship.

James Bulger: The New Revelations(en)

25 years after the verdict in the Jamie Bulger murder trial, we reveal what the jury, public and press never heard, and what his two killers, Thompson and Venables, said during their time in custody from arrest to release.

The Dark Figure(es)

Night and Fog(fr)

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

Standard Operating Procedure(en)

Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.

The Look of Silence(en)

An optician grapples with the Indonesian mass killings of 1965-1966, during which his older brother was exterminated.

Doctors of the Dark Side(en)

Doctors of the Dark Side is the first feature length documentary about the pivotal role of physicians and psychologists in detainee torture. The stories of four detainees and the doctors involved in their abuse demonstrate how US Army and CIA doctors implemented the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques and covered up signs of torture at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Interviews with medical, legal and intelligence experts and evidence from declassified government memos document what has been called the greatest scandal in American medical ethics. Based on four years of research by Producer/Director Martha Davis, written by Oscar winning Mark Jonathan Harris, and filmed in HD by Emmy winning DP Lisa Rinzler, the film shows how the torture of detainees could not continue without the assistance of the doctors.

A Deep Breath, Women Filmmakers(eu)

At last we are starting to hear the voice of women in the cinema. We celebrate it with this documentary on the Basque women moviemakers of yesterday and today, giving a global overview of the subject. Three female divers guide us through the topic of their films, their points of view, their dreams, their efforts to get somewhere, their contribution to the cinema and to society.

François Mitterrand et la guerre d'Algérie(fr)

Abused by Mum: The Ruby Franke Scandal(en)

Ruby Franke's rise as a "momfluencer" with millions of followers hid a nightmare; when her son fled and alerted a neighbor about the abuse, police raided her home, rescuing her children.