Sentenced

Cuba, 1961: 250,000 volunteers taught 700,000 people to read and write in one year. 100,000 of the teachers were under 18 years old. Over half were women. MAESTRA explores this story through the personal testimonies of the young women who went out to teach literacy in rural communities across the island - and found themselves deeply transformed in the process.

A short film on Republican efforts to improve education standards during the Spanish Civil War.

A library on four legs, the world's only existing Camel Library is located in Northern Kenya. As they pass antelopes and giraffes, the heavily loadedcaravan of camels are routinely carrying books through the rough savannah.In the villages with their houses of mud and dung these tenacious desert ships are wishfully awaited by the people of the nomadic Muslim tribes. Under the shade of acacia trees, especially the children are excitedly turning pages of school books, novels and comics. However, 400 kilometers outside of the capital city of Nairobi the local librarians are still struggling with illiteracy, old traditions, insufficient funds, blistering sun and - stubborn camels... This is the story about the Camel Library, about inquisitive children, about the origins of a book and about a camel and an exceptional librarian in the heart of Africa within the UNESCO-world decade of alphabetization.

The raw, heartfelt and often funny journey of adult Aboriginal students and their teachers as they discover the transformative power of reading and writing for the first time.

The Truth About Reading looks at the illiteracy problem in America, highlighting people who learned to read as adults, and sharing proposed solutions for working towards a future where every child learns to read proficiently.

In Turkey far too many women are still unable to read and write, and all they see in their life span is being forced into early marriage and relegation to the home, where they look after extended families and more children than they can feed. The girls are portrayed in their homes, together with the strongest supporters of their emancipation through education: their mothers. Girls of Hope portrays five girls who struggle for their education and, despite all the difficulties, try to hold on to their hope for a better future.

A retired high school English teacher is confronted by a former student who failed her class 15 years prior. He then involves her in a feature-length presentation on Moby-Dick and the science of reading.

Jay Blades, presenter of The Repair Shop, has decided it’s finally time to learn to read. He has been told he has the reading age of an 11-year-old. Throughout his life he has found ways of avoiding the written word, and this film digs deep into how this has shaped him.

An exploration of Burroughs’ life story, as told by Burroughs himself along with many of his contemporaries, including Allen Ginsberg, Brion Gysin, Francis Bacon, Herbert Huncke, Patti Smith, Terry Southern, and William Burroughs Jr.

The story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who, as a teenager in the late 1950s, had an affair with an older woman, Hanna, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. He alone realizes that Hanna is illiterate and may be concealing that fact at the expense of her freedom.

Newlywed Oliverio receives disturbing news that his mother is on her deathbed. He travels to a remote part of Mexico to fetch a lawyer who can sort out her will. Leaving his wife behind, he embarks on a bus ride that’s interrupted by an increasingly absurd series of episodes, including an impromptu birthday celebration; a one-legged man writhing in the mud; come-ons from an insatiable small-town belle, Raquel; and Oliverio’s frequent, Freudian nightmares.

Inocencio Prieto y Calvo receives a letter telling him he is the heir to his uncle's fortune of two million pesos. Not being able to read he has no idea of who sent the letter or its content. So he goes to the drugstore because the pharmacist can read the letter to him. But while waiting to be helped he sees that a young girl can read. He figures he has to be able to discover the letter's content by himself and decides he will save the letter and go to school, and wait to read the letter on his own.

Jesse Hallum sells the family farm to see that his daughter receives the medical care she needs at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital. The big city challenges him, though, especially when his illiteracy is exposed.

An espionage thriller set in the 1950s and adapted from the novel "Year Suan/Plot Against" by May Jia. Tony Leung Chiu Wai plays a blind man who works for a piano tuner. He is recruited for a spy mission because of his exceptional hearing.

The orphanage's pupils are sent by the district Komsomol committee to eliminate illiteracy in the remote village of Penki.

Inspired by true events, a young Frederick Douglass is secretly taught to read and write by his master's wife. Using only the air as their blackboard, this random act of kindness provided an education that paved the way from slavery to freedom.

Letras

John is a man of many talents, including one forbidden skill: he can read. When he teaches a young slave girl named Sarny to read and write, she learns an unforgettable lesson about the power of words and the true meaning of freedom.

A functionally illiterate factory foreman (Dennis Weaver) loses his job after refusing a promotion that requires reading.

A look at the legendary Czech sound designer and his profession. Editor and documentary filmmaker Adéla Špaljová has her father Ivo Špalj talk about his life, career, and working methods. Over the course of his long life, sound designer Ivo Špalj (*1940) has collaborated on hundreds of films and become a mentor for at least one generation of men and women behind the mixing board. This gentle documentary also shows “Engi” (as he is known to his colleagues) again working with Jan Švankmajer, whose films he has lent their typical, dense, and sophisticated sound mix.