Insomnies

If we had wings, there wouldn't be kites. We belong to the sky as much as the earth. Every kite string held tight touches Sahmeran, the tales of Arabian Nights and the narrow streets of Mardin. Children live their own stories with their kites just like the kid inside me who grew up with kites. "Rising Puppets of The Limitless Sky" tells the story of a child who grew up under the shadow of the kites in Mesopotamia, and the people who follow him.

Hay Que Ser Paciente

Filmed as Brazil was transitioning back into a democracy after over two decades of dictatorship, ‘Mulheres: uma outra história’ focuses on various aspects of women's participation in the Brazilian political scene and features interviews with some of the 23 women newly elected to the Constituent Assembly who managed to gain the approval of some of their proposals for the Brazilian Constitution which was being written at the time. The film features appearances from suffragist Carmen Portilho, who reminds viewers about the long history of struggle for women to earn the right to vote in the country, and Jandira Feghali and Benedita da Silva who would become some of the most influential political leaders in the country’s history.

Germany, as seen from the water. The landscape passes by in epic tranquillity as the audience immerses itself in the world of barge shipping. The top permitted speed for smaller watercraft is specified in the inland waterways regulations as a maximum of 15 km/h. A woman is along for the ride on Germany’s rivers and canals, with plenty of time to explore this little-known cosmos. In the end, the director dreams of a life on board and endeavours to find her place in the predominantly male domain. Welt an Bord is a hybrid of documentary and narrative film. The basic conditions are set by the limited space on the barge and the work that must be done. Kathrin Resetarits embodies the alter ego of director Eva Könnemann, while she herself takes charge of the cinematography. Together they accepted the captain’s invitation to join in this other life. What kind of life is it anyway? Resetarits/Könnemann listen and work their way through fiction and reality.

The unveiling and dedication ceremony of the Calgary Soldiers' Memorial.

Cold War Leningrad: In a culture where the recording industry was ruthlessly controlled by the state, music lovers discovered an extraordinary alternative means of reproduction: they repurposed used x-ray film as the base for records of forbidden songs. Giving blood every week to earn enough money to buy a recording lathe, one bootlegger Rudy Fuchs cuts banned music onto such discarded x-rays to be sold on street corners by shady dealers. It was ultimate act of punk resistance, a two-fingered salute to the repressive regime that gave a generation of young Soviets access to forbidden Western and Russian music, an act for which Rudy and his fellow bootleggers would pay a heavy price.

Decades after his play first put gay life center stage, Mart Crowley joins the cast and crew of the 2020 film to reflect on the story's enduring legacy.

San Sebastián de los Reyes Bullring, Madrid, Spain, March 27, 1977. In response to the strange political alliances that were taking place between antagonistic forces in search of a self-serving consensus, the anarcho-syndicalist union CNT organizes a rally to denounce the reprehensible machinations of its adversaries. (Documentary shot in 1977; edited and released in 2011).

A celebration of the universe, displaying the whole of time, from its start to its final collapse. This film examines all that occurred to prepare the world that stands before us now: science and spirit, birth and death, the grand cosmos and the minute life systems of our planet.

A short documentary covering the conclave and election of Pope Pius XII.

Actor Nicolas Cage and director Martha Coolidge sit down to discuss their wok on the 1983 film "Valley Girl."

After finding some videos she uploaded to YouTube when she was a child, Manuela attempts to follow the trail she herself has left on the Internet. A search that looks into all that things that won't never die and that, especially, thinks about the way we look at ourselves.

Fascinating -- and unintentionally funny -- experiments at Austria's famed Institute for Experimental Psychology involve a subject who for several weeks wears special glasses that reverse right and left and up and down. Unexpectedly, these macabre and somehow surrealist experiments reveal that our perception of these aspects of vision is not of an optical nature and cannot be relied on, while the unfortunate, Kafkaesque subject stubbornly struggles through a morass of continuous failures.

Short documentary about the Georgian Military Road. Captures Ingush and Ossetian settlements of the early 20th century

A documentary that follows the story of Dario Pasquarella, deaf director and actor, and his company. Through his work, Dario seeks to bring together the deaf and hearing community, who are usually separated by a lack of communication. In his shows he uses both languages, LIS, sign language and spoken language, to tell stories in which the deaf and hearing can live in symbiosis.

A short documentary following Koyote Moone and her medical and psychiatric service dog Banner. This film explores issues surrounding non-visible disabilities and discrimination against service dog teams.

Manon daydreams about the new customer in her aunt's hair salon. She must be a sea-queen, listening to the heartbeat of her violet whale.

On a Summer afternoon, Pedro packs the last few boxes before having to leave his apartment in New York. 12 years ago, Pedro and Ana had arrived in America from Portugal, in search of a dream. Now, Ana's voice describes, from the other side of the ocean, that same country to which they are returning. As the rooms are emptied, Pedro bids farewell to one life, welcoming another. But the dream that brought him will remain forever in the city that never sleeps, awaiting his return.

When the MV Sewol ferry sank off the coast of South Korea in 2014, over three hundred people lost their lives, most of them schoolchildren. Years later, the victims’ families and survivors are still demanding justice from national authorities.

This is a conversation starter first, a video second.