The Last Rites

Land Without Bread(es)

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.

Megacities(en)

Megacities is a documentary about the slums of five different metropolitan cities.

A Dream of Iron(ko)

Korea's past was whale worship; its present is industry. Is the future whales AND industry?

From Us To Me / Vom Wir zum Ich(de)

This first co-production between the GDR and Great Britain is intended to contribute to an understanding of the situation and attitudes of millions of working people in opposing social orders. Using the example of shipyard workers, fishermen, the brigade and family of a trade union active cook and unemployed person of various ages and professions in Newcastle on the one hand and a brigade of crane operators of the Warnowwerft and fishermen of the Warnemünde cooperative on the other hand, insights into the way of life and attitudes of people of our time are to be conveyed.

The Department(en)

THE DEPARTMENT is a feature documentary which takes us inside the never-before-seen child protection system at work in NSW. Filmed in an observational style, it follows caseworkers across the state as they navigate the complexities of keeping children safe in families experiencing domestic violence, addiction, poverty, mental health issues and intergenerational trauma.

Livet är kort, konsten lång – filmen om Åke Göransson(sv)

Meth Storm(en)

As police and DEA agents battle sophisticated cartels, rural, economically-disadvantaged users and dealers–whose addiction to ICE and lack of job opportunities have landed them in an endless cycle of poverty and incarceration–are caught in the middle.

The Journey(sv)

Peter Watkins' global look at the impact of military use of nuclear technology and people's perception of it, as well as a meditation on the inherent bias of the media, and documentaries themselves.

Los posibles(es)

Santiago Mitre co-directs his first movement following The Student together with choreographer Onofri Barbato. Although it would have been more accurate to say “his first film-story-adventure-movie-great movie following The Student”, the word movement fits perfectly in Los posibles, the most overwhelmingly kinetic work Argentine cinema has delivered in many, many years. The film deals with the adaptation of a dance show directed by Onofri together with a group of teenagers who came to Casa La Salle, a center of social integration located in González Catán, trying to find some refuge from hardship. Already entitled Los posibles, the piece opened in the La Plata Tacec and was later staged in the AB Hall of the San Martín Cultural Center. Now, it dazzles audiences out of a film screen, with extraordinary muscles and a huge heart: Los posibles is a rhapsody of roughen bodies and torn emotions. Precise and exciting, it’s our own delayed, necessary, and incandescent West Side Story.

Isle of Flowers(pt)

A tomato is planted, harvested and sold at a supermarket, but it rots and ends up in the trash. But it doesn’t end there: Isle of Flowers follows it up until its real end, among animals, trash, women and children. And then the difference between tomatoes, pigs and human beings becomes clear.

The End of Poverty?(en)

The End of Poverty? asks if the true causes of poverty today stem from a deliberate orchestration since colonial times which has evolved into our modern system whereby wealthy nations exploit the poor. People living and fighting against poverty answer condemning colonialism and its consequences; land grab, exploitation of natural resources, debt, free markets, demand for corporate profits and the evolution of an economic system in in which 25% of the world's population consumes 85% of its wealth. Featuring Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz, authors/activist Susan George, Eric Toussaint, Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera and more.

Solidarność: How Solidarity Changed Europe(de)

Gdańsk, Poland, September 1980. Lech Wałęsa and other Lenin shipyard workers found Solidarność (Solidarity), the first independent trade union behind the Iron Curtain. The long and hard battle to bring down communist dictatorship has begun.

Slums: Cities of Tomorrow(en)

One billion people on our planet—one in six—live in shantytowns, slums or squats. Slums: Cities of Tomorrow challenges conventional thinking to propose that slums are in fact the solution, not the problem, to urban overcrowding caused by the massive migration of people to cities. (Lynne Fernie, HotDocs)

Fish Story(cn)

J and Jacky are good friends who attend the same school. J is from a single-parent family, and will be taken care by Jacky’s family whenever his mother has to return to Mainland to renew her visa; such kind of story is not an isolated case. These families have been uprooted for a “better future” in Hong Kong, but is this “future” that the children really long to have? A Chinese saying: “How does one understand the joy of fish, if one is not a fish?” Will the adults really understand what the children want?

Blood and Water(en)

When the 2004 tsunami hit the coast of Sri Lanka, 65-year-old Anton Ambrose's wife and daughter were killed. "In five minutes," he says, "I lost everything." A year later, Anton returns to Sri Lanka. With him is his nephew, award-winning filmmaker Rohan Fernando. A Tamil, Anton moved to California in the 1970s and became a very successful gynecologist. His daughter, Orlantha, made the opposite journey, returning to Sri Lanka where she ran a non-profit group that gave underprivileged children free violin lessons. Blood and Water is the story of one man's search for meaning in the face of overwhelming loss, but it is also filled with improbable characters, unintentional comedy and situational ironies.

The Salt Mines(en)

Explores the lives of Sara, Gigi and Giovanna, three Latino transvestites who for years have lived on the streets of Manhattan supporting their drug addictions through prostitution. They made their temporary home inside broken garbage trucks that the Sanitation Department keeps next to the salt deposits used in the winter to melt the snow. The three friends share the place known as "The Salt Mines".

Debt(es)

DEBT is the story of a frantic pursuit: the search for the responsible for the televised cry of hunger of Barbara Flores, an eight-year-old Argentinean girl. Buenos Aires, Washington, the IMF, the World Bank and Davos; corruption and the international bureaucratic lack of interest.

Methadonia(en)

Shot over the course of 18 months in New York City's Lower East Side, METHADONIA sheds light on the inherent flaws of legal methadone treatments for heroin addiction by profiling eight addicts, in various stages of recovery and relapse, who attend the New York Center for Addiction Treatment Services (NYCATS).

Gangstresses(en)

Gangstresses, a documentary by Harry Davis, tells the story of violence, poverty, and survival in the streets from a female perspective. Over a two-year period, Davis interviews female hustlers, drug dealers, rappers, porn stars, prostitutes, mothers, and daughters. Among them are Champagne, a well-known African American porn star who has a small child; Mama Mayhem, a street hustler; Uneek, a rapper from the Bronx; and Vanessa Del Rio, a famous porn actress. Musicians Lil' Kim, Mary J. Blige, Ice T, and Tupac Shakur also share personal stories of survival. The documentary conducts follow-up research on the women's complicated lives, offering glimpses of both tragic reality and hopeful recovery.

Three Songs for Benazir(ps)

The story of Shaista, a young man who—newly married to Benazir and living in a camp for displaced persons in Kabul—struggles to balance his dreams of being the first from his tribe to join the Afghan National Army with the responsibilities of starting a family. Even as Shaista’s love for Benazir is palpable, the choices he must make to build a life with her have profound consequences.