Faces from Home

De Gaulle, le commencement

Avelino Chillarón was 12 or 13 years old when he realized that his surnames and those of his cousins ​​didn't match, so he decided to ask his uncle. This is how he learned that, although his father and aunt were siblings, they didn't have the same father, so he and his cousins ​​didn't share the same grandfather. In this way, Avelino realized that there was a part of his family he didn't know. The protagonist of this story feels partially mutilated from a part of his family history, a part that was taken away from him by a regime that established, over the years, a long period of widespread social amnesia about a series of corpses and missing persons throughout the spanish geography.

As daylight breaks between the border cities of El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico, undocumented migrants and their relatives, divided by a wall, prepare to participate in an activist event. For three minutes, they’ll embrace in no man’s land for the briefest and sweetest of reunions.

The free, almost naive view from the perspective of a child puts the "68ers" in a new, illuminating light in the anniversary year 2008. The film is a provocative reckoning with the ideological upbringing that seemed so progressive and yet was suffocated by the children's desire to finally grow up. With an ironic eye and a feuilletonistic style, author Richard David Precht and Cologne documentary film director André Schäfer trace a childhood in the West German provinces - and place the major events of those years in completely different, smaller and very private contexts.

At the edge of the Yangtze River, not far from the Three Gorges Dam, young men and women take up employment on a cruise ship, where they confront rising waters and a radically changing China.

Aging parents of disabled adults, they worry about their child's life after their disappearance. A moving insight into the daily life of a family home in the Vendée region, which offers them the prospect of a peaceful future.

No profession, no say, no freedom of expression. Life as a prince consort is not exactly pleasure taxing. No constitution ascribes any function to the husband of a queen. Nowhere does it say what he must or must not do. A life in the shadow of the crown. Can that go well?

On the military road construction site, on the pastures of Lessinia, writer Carlo Stuparic wrote to his brother Giani. The film celebrates his memory.

Kekaiulu Hula Studio follows the Proclaimed Hula Halau of the same name, showcasing their twist on what the real reason for hula is and what life as a dancer in the halau is really like. Something previously unseen in the public eye.

Eliza Dushku takes on her homeland of Albania.

Through the eyes of grandmother Rumidjah, a poor old Christian woman living in the slums of Jakarta, we see the economical changing society of Indonesia and the influence of globalization reflected in the life of her juvenile granddaughter Tari and her sons Bakti and Dwi.

For three decades now, Qatar, this small desert kingdom, has not stopped being talked about; because of its financial power and the secrecy that surrounds it, the royal family that runs it fascinates as much as it frightens.

A sock puppet explores a family history told from the perspective of a mother and father.

Maya is Ayaibex's daughter, an addict in recovery that feels a blame for damages that caused her daughter, Maya decides to remember her mother's childhood experiences in her world of addiction to seek the redemption of the weight that her mother has loaded for 20 years and get both to forgiveness.

Danny Berish’s grandparents met at a nudist camp in 1949. In an effort to understand his grandparents’ radical lifestyle, he meets and mingles with members of Van Tan, Canada’s oldest naturist club.

Filmmaking icon Agnès Varda, the award-winning director regarded by many as the grandmother of the French new wave, turns the camera on herself with this unique autobiographical documentary. Composed of film excerpts and elaborate dramatic re-creations, Varda's self-portrait recounts the highs and lows of her professional career, the many friendships that affected her life and her longtime marriage to cinematic giant Jacques Demy.

The celebration of a city is held every year and nostalgia is the main guest. Around the city there is nothing but ruins and in the distance, four men walk the streets of a city that was once great.

Stone Street documents the life and experiences of a Trinidadian diaspora family and their enduring connection to the long standing family home in Port of Spain. Through the intersecting journeys of this extended and extensive family, the filmmaker explores themes of home, belonging and identity in a life defined by the fragmentary nature of a migratory Caribbean culture. This experimental documentary combines a lyrical first person voice with a family archive of home made audio visual artifacts, interviews and events. As the documentary explores the fragmentary nature of Caribbean identity, it simultaneously celebrates the fragments of domestic memorializing found in home movies, videos and photographs. Stone Street uses these various forms to evoke the experience of a complex and diverse Caribbean and Caribbean diaspora identity.

Stuck in a creative rut, filmmaker Gilda Pourjabar returns to Iran, her homeland, to talk with her brother Siamak, an illustrator based in Tehran. This encounter raises questions about their relationship to Western popular art, as they grew up in a culture that the current political regime describes as “westoxicated.” This documentary uses playful animations by Siamak, inspired by Franco-Belgian comics and rock concert posters, superimposed on archival footage of the most recent popular uprisings in Iran to become a logical collaboration for these artists who shared a record collection as children. Together, they examine how art slips through the cracks of repression to light the rebellious sparks in the hearts of young people.

Brenda’s first memories were of growing up in a loving white foster family, before she was suddenly taken away and returned to her Aboriginal family. Decades later, she feels disconnected from both halves of her life, so she goes searching for the foster family with whom she had lost contact. Along the way she uncovers long-buried secrets, government lies, and the possibility of deeper connections to family and culture.