Heal America

32 year old female boxer Steluta Duta tries to buy her own home by winning boxing match after boxing match only to find her life is a continuous loop. As she trains for her European Boxing Cup, Stela revisits the past dramas of being an abandoned, institutionalized child.

49 Up is the seventh film in a series of landmark documentaries that began 42 years ago when UK-based Granada's World in Action team, inspired by the Jesuit maxim "Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man," interviewed a diverse group of seven-year-old children from all over England, asking them about their lives and their dreams for the future. Michael Apted, a researcher for the original film, has returned to interview the "children" every seven years since, at ages 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 and now again at age 49.In this latest chapter, more life-changing decisions are revealed, more shocking announcements made and more of the original group take part than ever before, speaking out on a variety of subjects including love, marriage, career, class and prejudice.

How might your life be better with less? The popular simple-living duo The Minimalists examines the many flavors of minimalism by taking the audience inside the lives of minimalists from various walks of life.

A cinematic portrait of the homeless population who live permanently in the underground tunnels of New York City.

In Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, a group of friends lives on the streets. They call themselves the Freetown Streetboys, even though there are some women among them as well. Suley, Lama, David, Alfred, Shero and Sarah have all faced enormous physical and psychological challenges, and have been abandoned by the world around them. Without commentary and in poetic, cinematic images, the camera records the dark environment that they inhabit. The group shares their heartrending stories of the precarious nature of life in this complex country. But there is also room for everyday personal struggles, such as starting relationships, how to bring up children (or not), and sex.

Tell Them We Were Here is an inspirational feature-length documentary about eight artists who show us why art is vital to a healthy society and reminds us that we are stronger together.

Stonewall veterans (including prominent trans activist Sylvia Rivera) and HIV-positive New Yorkers take up residency on the Hudson River piers as cranes raze vacant buildings for a new skyline.

Why don't we do something to ease the suffering of the poor, the excluded? Because we live in fear of "the other," the stranger. Filmed a few months before the 2004 presidential election, On the Road with Mary is a gripping view of an America living in fear. From a miserable neighbourhood in Detroit ravaged by crack and violence, to the militarized border with Mexico, this potent road movie exposes the unbearable other side of the American Dream.

A documentary about homeless people living in Switzerland.

Waiting for Barcelona revolves around the struggles of undocumented immigrants collecting scrap metal and selling illegal replicas in Barcelona. The film centers on the idea of how the dream of the city is very similar to everyone, but in practice differs depending on your wealth and citizenship. Without the right documents for working our protagonists face serious difficulties and even end up on the verge of insanity.

Mom and Me is a personal and intimate documentary about a young filmmaker coming of age in extraordinary circumstances. It follows the complicated relationship between director Lena Macdonald and her mother, who was once a filmmaker herself, but ended up homeless, crack-addicted and on the streets. For ten years Lena filmed in the cold, hard streets of Toronto’s inner city and her story is raw, honest and unforgettable. Mom and Me is about addiction, prostitution and despair but it is also a story about family, the power of hope and the tenacity of love.

Thomas Adam - Frankfurt von unten

A documentary view of an encampment of homeless people on the outskirts of Nashville, Tennessee in the Southern United States.

Up to 30,000 youths are homeless in Australia, resorting to drugs, prostitution and crime to stay alive. This underclass of physically and emotionally abused children are the subject of this documentary. The program looks at massive changes in the home where violence is on the increase and some kids have no option but to find accommodation elsewhere and looks at positive steps to prevent these situations in the future.

Homelessness in the United States takes many forms. For Elizabeth Herrera, David Lima and their four children, housing instability has meant moving between unsafe apartments, motels, relatives’ couches, shelters, the streets and their car. After 15 years of this uncertainty, the family moved into their first stable housing — an apartment in the San Francisco Bay Area — in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

How do seven young people, former street children from Romania, get to see the Pacific Ocean? On 1 December 2008, a Romanian national team participates for the first time in the Homeless World Cup in Melbourne, Australia. The film follows the team from the formation of the squad to the end of the championship. The young people are from Timisoara and Arad, runaway children who now live in abandoned houses or who have managed to get a job and live in rented accommodation after going through orphanages or prisons. After taking a beating from many teams, the young Romanians manage to beat the USA. They are happy. They are all thinking of never going "home" again. It's warm and nice here, the people are nice. "In case I stay, I kissed you all!" says one of them cautiously. But after taking pictures of themselves on the beach with the ocean behind them and beautiful girls by their side, the seven return to Romania and get on with their lives.

A sweeping look at the history and causes of the current homeless crisis in Los Angeles and an intimate view of the tireless advocates who strive to create better lives for their homeless clients.

At the Covenant House, located on the outskirts of the French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana, the doors never close, and there is always room for one more. On any given day, a constant stream of young people carrying everything they own in plastic garbage bags fills the courtyard. The prospective residents are just teenagers, but have already been labeled drug addicts, schizophrenics, criminals and outcasts. As one staff member puts it, “the most damaged population of youth that exists in society today”. Filming over the course of a full year, brothers Brent and Craig Renaud tell the raw and emotional stories of the incredible kids who seek shelter at the Covenant House, and the staff struggling to work miracles everyday on their behalf.

A short documentary following the last 5 hours of a 59-years-old man, Ahmed before becoming homeless due to the late payments and bureaucracy by the Department for Work and Pensions.

In January 2011 Paul Crane discovered a tent city in downtown St. Louis, along the Mississippi River. He was curious as to who these people were, how they ended up there, and what life was like for them each day. He initially thought he would simply go down during the day and capture footage when possible, but he quickly realized that if he wanted to truly capture how these people lived and the full reality of their collective and individual existence, he would have to be there full time and become a part of the place, so he moved in with them.