Social & External
Haile Gerima and Ryszard Kapuscinski travel around Ethiopia talking to people about their current situations and what needs to be done for a prosperous country.
A verité legal drama about Judge Kholoud Al-Faqih, the first woman appointed to a Shari'a court in the Middle East, whose career provides rare insights into both Islamic law and gendered justice.
After bassist Jason Newsted quits the band in 2001, heavy metal superstars Metallica realize that they need an intervention. In this revealing documentary, filmmakers follow the three rock stars as they hire a group therapist and grapple with 20 years of repressed anger and aggression. Between searching for a replacement bass player, creating a new album and confronting their personal demons, the band learns to open up in ways they never thought possible.
Early Mondo film featuring primitive rituals, animals being butchered, unusual birth defects, and a legit trepanation scene.
An experimental ethnographic documentary that criticizes the colonizer view of anthropology.
John Bishop and Naomi Bishop present a portrait a peculiar life style of the Himalayan indigenous Sherpa people in their documentary , the Himalayan Herders. The 76 minutes long film is about the diverse culture and life style of herders community near Mt. Everest region of Nepal.The film was made in 1997 as a part of Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology Series.
Running Movie is a documentary film that focuses on Israeli long-distance runner Ayele Seteng (a.k.a. Haile Satayin), the oldest marathon runner to compete in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, and his efforts to participate in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Satayin has been a long-distance runner since he was a young boy in Ethiopia, but he only became a marathon runner after immigrating to Israel in the early 1990s. Now, at the age of 55, he keeps on running. We follow him as he practices in Ethiopia, far from his wife and eight children, and witness his moments of victory and defeat, as he competes in marathons around the world—from Berlin, Germany, to Tiberias, Israel.
When a massive Chinese factory complex attempts a high-stakes expansion in rural Ethiopia, three women in search of prosperity have their faith in industrialization tested to the limit. Filmed over four years with singular access, Made in Ethiopia lifts the curtain on China’s historic but misunderstood impact on Africa, and explores contemporary Ethiopia at a moment of profound crisis. The film was awarded the Jury Special Mention at Tribeca Festival.
Exclusive access to chief diplomat of the EU Federica Mogherini as Europe faces a crumbling world order.
"A Walk to Beautiful" tells the story of five women in Ethiopia suffering from devastating childbirth injuries. Rejected by their husbands and ostracized by their communities, these women are left to spend the rest of their lives in loneliness and shame. The trials they endure and their attempts to rebuild their lives tell a universal story of hope, courage, and transformation.
The residents of Bucha, Ukraine, are rebuilding their city from the rubble after surviving the horrors of Russian occupation. A newly married couple, a schoolgirl, a city official, and an elderly housewife have all endured the painful experiences of war, yet they manage to hold onto hope and solidarity. But how do you rebuild in the wake of growing trauma, especially with war still raging in your country? As time hopes for a peaceful life fade, they must grapple with mounting tensions within their communities. Shot over a three-year period, the film is a follow-up to When Spring Came To Bucha, as five protagonists navigate the complex terrain of inner conflicts, trauma, and a longing for justice, posing questions about the future of a society at war.
Filmed in Cordoba, Granada, Seville, and Toledo, this documentary retraces the 800-year period in medieval Spain when Muslims, Christians, and Jews forged a common cultural identity that frequently transcended their religious differences, revealing what made this rare and fruitful collaboration possible, and what ultimately tore it apart.
“Keep Sweet” concerns the conflicts in two towns on opposite sides of a state line. The area of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., was settled by members of a breakaway faction of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that continued to practice polygamy after the church had banned it.
Three charming 20-something grandsons take a unique journey with their grannies to discover their historic and personal legacies through stories from the Second World War. Three grandsons embark an anarchic journey into the past – a complex road movie about intergenerational dialogue in Great Britain, Germany and Hungary. Granny Project is a seven-year-long investigation of three young men coming to terms with their heritage through the extraordinary lives of their grandmothers: an English spy, a dancer from Nazi Germany and a Hungarian communist Holocaust survivor. The film deals with classic values and taboo-like historical topics, and the method used is equally important as it gives an insight to the zeitgeist of the young today.
On the border, the line as principle of property and belonging reaches an extreme dimension where it physically defines the sphere of its relations. Those who transgress it reconstruct these imaginary lines on a daily basis, redefining the traditional geography and occupying the non-spaces where others live in a temporary form of existence. These others, the non-citizens, are phantasmtic, exchangeable parts of a flexible market. Made invisible, they are permanently controlled persons. Under the pretext of a greater civilian security, they are kept clear from the public spaces reserved for the citizens with rights and pushed into non-public spaces, which are run by state and military surveillance, multinational operations servicing a European market and non-governmental organisations.
The residents of a quiet Mediterranean town are thrown into speculation overdrive with the unusual appearance of a bear in the midst of asparagus season.
The region of Lake Turkana, located in Kenya and Ethiopia, is considered to be “the Cradle of Humankind”. Among other finds, primate fossils from millions of years ago have been discovered in the region. But what about the region’s modern inhabitants and their relationship to their environment? Iiris Härmä, whose previous work includes the award-winning Leaving Africa, had the chance of joining Helsinki University’s researchers, Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares and Mar Cabeza, on their pre-pandemic trip to study the Daasanach people’s relationship to their environment through traditional animal tales. The researchers hope that storytelling would help to bridge the gap between people’s everyday lives and conservation efforts.
The Greek shadow puppetry began 130 years ago. A student of Greek shadow puppetry travels to China, where shadow puppetry began over 2000 years ago. There he follows Chinese shadow puppeteer master He Shihong in Wushan of China. Watching his performances and listening to him talk about his art and his career in it, many parallels are drawn and he expresses them by including his Greek shadow puppetry teacher in the film. This documentary is a cultural bridge between Greece and China through the art of shadow puppetry.
The film delves into an almost forgotten event that took place in Kfar Qasim in October 1956, when 47 innocent civilians were shot and killed by Israeli Border Police soldiers. Through a gripping narrative structure, like a suspenseful legal drama, the film unfolds the historical, political, and psychological reality that shaped and triggered the event. A cinematic montage created by the intertwined plotlines, emphasizes immense gaps, conflicting narratives, and deep divides between Jews and Arabs who are destined to live together on the same land. If we begin to recognize these gaps, will there be hope for reconciliation?
Filmmaker Amy Berg sheds light on the sexual, financial and spiritual abuses heaped upon members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by their former leader, Warren Jeffs.
