The Raging Soil

Narir Kotha is an exploration of the experience of women in the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. During the war, thousands of women were systematically raped and tortured by the Pakistan Army and their collaborators. But they were not only victims of sexual violence, they were also in the front lines of the popular resistance against the occupying Army, as fighters and martyrs. Narir Kotha is an attempt to explore some of these stories, through the words of the women themselves.

One of the rooms inside the legendary Barba Azul Cabaret has become a shelter for the girls working there: the women's bathroom. Every night La Mami, who's in charge of the bathrooms, offers them the warmth and the advice they need to take on the challenge they face in the dance hall.

La Chapelle neighbourhood, Paris. Hundreds of exiled people from East Africa survive on the streets, chased violently by the police, yet seeking to defend their rights as asylum seekers. Some months later, having finally obtained their rightful housing, two Sudanese young men return to the sites where they first landed and talk about their arrival in Paris during this agitation.

An unlikely collaboration between a forensic scientist from Texas and a group of Latin American students changes the course of forensic science and international human rights.

Journalist Dermi Azevedo has never stopped fighting for human rights and now, three decades after the end of the military dictatorship in Brazil, he's witnessing the return of those same practices.

In October 1995, Forbach witnessed one of the most violent strikes in the history of contemporary France. A thousand or so miners took to the streets for a merciless struggle against a reform in their rights. Twenty years after the mines shut down, people’s will to fight is still alive, just hidden away somewhere.

Jesus 'Chuy' Aceves and a dozen living members of his extended family suffer from the very rare condition of congenital hypertrichosis, meaning they were born with excessive hair on their faces and bodies. Due to their appearance, they suffer from discrimination in all areas of their lives: the children are made fun of at school and abandoned by their 'non-hairy' parents, and the adults cannot find work unless they choose to exhibit themselves as freaks in circuses. This moving and visually arresting documentary is a portrait of Chuy and his family members. It examines their day-to-day lives and their struggle to find love, acceptance and employment.

I have been pretty satisfied with my life before I got on the bus. When I do in June 2011, my whole life turns upside down. I am just a regular passenger at first. Like other people I was sorry, and felt obliged to help and care for other passengers. Then I begin to film these common heroes with my camera. Those who speak about hope, who provide it and get on the bus, Ms. Kim Jin-suk, and other crane laborers who risk their safety while demonstrating for their rights on high. She, while stationed insecurely on high, begins interacting with the world through Twitter and makes friends. Then I realize I really love her. Will we have her back safely?

In the wilderness of the Bucharest Delta, nine children and their parents lived in perfect harmony with nature for 20 years – until they are chased out and forced to adapt to life in the big city.

Once upon a time, the Venezuelan village of Congo Mirador was prosperous, alive with fisherman and poets. Now it is decaying and disintegrating—a small but prophetic reflection of Venezuela itself.

Makun (no llores) - Dibujos en un CIE

A film about the Tibetan Freedom Concert in San Francisco in 1996.

Quien dice patria dice muerte

Olivia Martin McGuire (China Love) parallels a grandfather’s journey to safety during the Cultural Revolution with his granddaughter’s fight for freedom in Hong Kong today. Interweaving unflinching testimony of the elder’s exodus from the Chinese mainland, exquisitely animated recreations of the perilous escape to Hong Kong through land and sea, and vivid, evocative archival footage of both mid-20th-century China and the Hong Kong protests today, Freedom Swimmer emerges as a gripping and timely account of the struggle for survival across generations.

Cóndor

The 6 Guarani villages of Jaraguá, in São Paulo, fight for land rights, for human rights and for the preservation of nature. They suffer from the proximity to the city, which brings lack of resources, pollution of rivers and springs, racism, police violence, fires, lack of infrastructure and sanitation, among others. Unable to live like their ancestors, their millenary culture is lost as it merges with the urban culture.

In a context marked by exploitation and clandestine labour, a group of farm workers are promised work under contract and fair conditions during the orange harvest in southern Italy. After only five days, they are forced to stop picking and wait in the orange grove for new instructions.

Far from home, a young Burmese man struggles to escape the weight of a brutal and unforgiving military coup, threatening both his nation’s freedom and its very survival. Now, in Australia and unable to return home, he’s doing everything he can to stay connected to his people.

Delia Giovanola, one of the founder of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, recounts the initial search for kidnapped grandchildren during Argentina's last military dictatorship. After decades of searching, she shares new strategies to restitute the identities of those missing children, which are now adults.

On feminism and state terrorism. The case of Ana María Cámara, forcibly disappeared in Santa Fe, Argentina.