Ex-Shaman

Ever since their first contact with the Western world in 1969 the Paiter Suruí, an indigenous people living in the Amazon basin, have been exposed to sweeping social changes. Smartphones, gas, electricity, medicines, weapons and social media have now replaced their traditional way of life. Illness is a risk for a community increasingly unable to isolate itself from the modernization brought by white people or the power of the church. Ethnocide threatens to destroy their soul. With dogged persistence, Perpera, a former shaman, is searching for a way to restore the old vitality to his village.

The Noise of Time

In the town of Xoco, the spirit of an old villager awakens in search of its lost home. Along its journey, the ghost discovers that the town still celebrates its most important festivities, but also learns that the construction of a new commercial complex called Mítikah will threaten the existence of both the traditions and the town itself.

Gjama

“Gjama” is a rarely practiced mourning ritual that was performed by Albanian men throughout the centuries. By shouting specific phrases and acting out a strict choreography, it is a way of paying respect to the deceased but also overcoming grief and pain over the loss of a loved one. Through the documentation of the re-enactment of the ritual, Zgjim Elshani seeks to recover fragments of the practice in the communities where this form of collective grieving is still a way of overcoming loss. By doing so, the project intends to rethink collective grieving and what it means to publicly display emotions in a male-headed society.

The Hollywood Gad-About

A parade highlights the Screen Actors Guild's Film Stars Frolic, hosted by Walter Winchell as Master of Ceremonies.

Joanna

Joanna is famous because of her blog on confronting a terminal disease. The movie shows her everyday life.

Men Boxing

Experimental film fragment made with the Edison-Dickson-Heise experimental horizontal-feed kinetograph camera and viewer, using 3/4-inch wide film.

A Prayer for Beslan

Beslan will forever be synonymous with the murder of hundreds of innocent children. One year on, how is the town coping? Our documentary this week is a harrowing and powerful new film on the school siege and its enduring legacy.

Behind The Jugular

Behind The Jugular is a short animated documentary, featuring an ex-abattoir worker describing his experiences within the slaughterhouse. The film gives a raw account of the restricted and often ignored industry, intended to prompt the audience to consider, and reconsider, their ethical beliefs and values, and how they implement these morals in life.

Overwork

The found-footage short film OVERWORK offers a personal reinterpretation of a collection of instructional 16mm films from the German Employment Agency.

Avenida

A place with stairs, but that leads to walls. A place with lots of space, but no one fights for it. And a place with lots of owners, but so empty that no one wants to enter.

Red & Blue Make Purple

A Local Reno Artist and DJ discusses the many inspirations behind her work and how it impacts herself and others.

Cree Way

This short documentary examines an innovative educational program developed by John and Gerti Murdoch to teach Cree children their language via Cree folklore, photographs, artifacts, and books that were written and printed in the community. Made as part of the NFB’s groundbreaking Challenge for Change series, Cree Way shows that local control of the education curriculum has a place in Indigenous communities.

Sea Pilgrim

A meditative film on Brazilian sailor Tassio Azambuja.

Der Frühling erobert Berlin

Der Führer

Propaganda short about the "Führer" Adolf Hitler

Carropasajero

The sound of metal creaking as if something is about to break. An old pickup truck adapted to carry passengers crosses the La Guajira desert in Colombia. With the wind come voices that merge among the passengers who travel there. A Wayuu woman returns to her territory, accompanied by her family, after years of exile due to a paramilitary massacre. A cyclical journey where the time layers of the territory touch and the border between the living and the dead is diluted.

Afrique 50

The first French anti-colonialist film, derived from an assignment in which the director was to document educational activities by the French League of Schooling in West Africa. Vautier later filmed what he actually saw: “a lack of teachers and doctors, the crimes committed by the French Army in the name of France, the instrumentalization of the colonized peoples.” For his role in the film, Vautier was imprisoned for several months. The film was banned from public screening for more than 40 years.

Yo soy una niña

This short film brings light to the reality of transsexuality during childhood and aims to emphasize the importance of the role of grandparents.

Cree Code Talker

CREE CODE TALKER reveals the role of Canadian Cree code talker Charles 'Checker' Tomkins during the Second World War. Digging deep into the US archives it depicts the true story of Charles' involvement with the US Air Force and the development of the code talkers communication system, which was used to transmit crucial military communications, using the Cree language as a vital secret weapon in combat.

Die industrielle Reservearmee

Interviews and images from the work and leisure time of guest workers in the Federal Republic are combined into a militant appeal for solidarity.