Comme si j'étais morte

Documentary depicting the lives of child prostitutes in the red light district of Songachi, Calcutta. Director Zana Briski went to photograph the prostitutes when she met and became friends with their children. Briski began giving photography lessons to the children and became aware that their photography might be a way for them to lead better lives.

A journalistic investigation, built not on rumors and assumptions, but on direct evidence, revealing the true mechanisms of podium coronations. Hidden camera footage of negotiations with the owners of the largest national beauty contests and an attempt to answer the question of why these people are not yet in prison. Famous people on the jury are not a guarantee of fair judging. Irrefutable evidence of the corruption of the so-called “stars” who elect the next Miss and Mrs. The collection and subsequent theft of funds for charity is a side business of the owners of fraudulent shows. What actually awaits the titled Misses after purchasing the prize? And what do children's beauty pageants turn out to be like for young participants?

Since the fall of the Iron Curtain an estimated four million children have found themselves living on the streets in the former countries of the Soviet Union. In the streets of Moscow alone there are over 30,000 surviving in this manner at the present time. The makers of the documentary film concentrated on a community of homeless children living hand to mouth in the Moscow train station Leningradsky. Eight-year-old Sasha, eleven-year-old Kristina, thirteen-year-old Misha and ten-year-old Andrej all dream of living in a communal home. They spend winter nights trying to stay warm by huddling together on hot water pipes and most of their days are spent begging. Andrej has found himself here because of disagreements with his family. Kristina was driven into this way of life by the hatred of her stepmother and twelve-year-old Roma by the regular beatings he received from his constantly drunk father. "When it is worst, we try to make money for food by prostitution," admits ...

Japan’s obsession with cutesy culture has taken a dark turn, with schoolgirls now offering themselves for “walking dates” with adult men. Last year the US State Department, in its annual report on human trafficking, flagged so-called joshi-kosei osanpo dates (Japanese for “high school walking”) as fronts for commercial sex run by sophisticated criminal networks.

Faced with a documentary film that included an interview with a young girl forced into prostitution, Michael Kranz asked himself the apparently banal question of “what can be done?” He travelled to Bangladesh and began to search for the girl. A film that is both self-critical and critical of society about the desire to at least do something and not to simply and passively give in to the injustices in this world.

Prostitution is banned in Thailand, yet every year about 400,000 men from Germany travel to the Asian country. The so-called sex tourists spend a few nice days in the coastal city of Pattaya with bought "girlfriends" and thus circumvent the prostitution ban. Besides seemingly harmless sex meetings, however, there is also child prostitution, which has worsened especially since the Corona lockdown and also poses major problems for the police.

Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in a small hut on a mountain in Nepal. When the Himalayan monsoons wash away all that remains of the family's crops, Lakshmi's father says she must leave home and take a job to support her family. He introduces her to a glamorous stranger who tells her she will find her a job as a maid in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi journeys to India and arrives at "Happiness House" full of hope. But she soon learns the unthinkable truth: she has been sold into prostitution...

A mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze feed his urge for violent action.

Vincke and Verstuyft are one of the best detective teams of the Antwerp police force. When they are confronted with the disappearance of a top official and the murder of two prostitutes, the trail leads to the almost retired assassin Angelo Ledda. Since Ledda starts showing symptoms of Alzheimer's, it's getting more and more difficult to complete his contracts. When he has to murder a 12-year old call-girl, he refuses and becomes a target himself. While Vincke and Verstuyft are chasing him and counting the corpses, Ledda is taking care of his employers.

Hattie, a New Orleans prostitute, meets a photographer named Bellocq at her brothel one night and, after he photographs her, he befriends her 12-year-old daughter, Violet. When Violet is brought on as a working girl by her mother's madam and Hattie skips town to get married, Violet quickly loses her innocence and focuses on reuniting with Bellocq. But a life with Bellocq is compromised for Violet after her mother returns to town.

A Mumbai police officer's search for a missing teenage girl leads her to the depraved world of child trafficking. What follows is a cat-and-mouse game between the officer and a ruthless mafia kingpin.

A teacher is sexually involved with an underage student. She visits her father's home and discovers a boy who's been kept as a sex slave. The teacher continues harboring the boy out of fear and begins to feel sexually attracted to him.

Thirteen-year-old Kerry is repeatedly sexually abused by several adults, including at one point her mother. Her father sets her up as a prostitute. Kerry finally calls Childline and is put in a safe house, where she tries to come to terms with what has been done to her. Based on a true story, with the names changed to protect the real Kerry's identity.

Two amateur circus kids from a poor Ukrainian village, ten-year-old Barbu and his older sister Mimma, are sold to a circus artist called Caruso who promises them a career in the West.

A retelling of the biblical book of Hosea set against the backdrop of the California Gold Rush of 1850.

The two brothers Aske and Bastian live with their father, Lasse, in a world of fear, violence and alcohol but the brothers' strong and close relationship means everything. Aske must serve his father's sexual needs, as well as paying customers and his father's friend, Hans. Aske tries everything to keep his little brother out of it all so that he won't experience the same as himself. But one day Bastian is abused by their father. The brothers choose to move to Norway, far away in the beautiful mountains. Their friendship outshines everything! They are together and far away from their evil father...

Filmed in documentary style, Daughter is the story of four girls who face family problems and turn to heavy drug use in order to cope with their sad realities.

The exploding cork. Endless tiny bubbles floating up and up in the glass. An indulgence. A celebration. A seduction. A triumph. This is the essence of Champagne, isn’t it? But it’s not just bubbles in a glass that makes the wine, or the mystique. Only sparkling wine produced within the boundaries of the Champagne region is truly “Champagne.” At first glance, the region is not an obvious source of romance. Champagne’s history is grim and bloody, swept by war and destruction from Attila the Hun to the filthy trenches of WWI and the Nazi depredations of WWII. The environment for winemaking is desperately hard — northerly latitude, chalky soil, copious rain, frost, rot. Yet it’s these difficulties that help make the wine unique.

'9-Man' is an independent feature documentary about an isolated and exceptionally athletic Chinese-American sport that's much more than a pastime. Since the 1930s, young men have played this gritty streetball game competitively in the alleys and parking lots of Chinatown. At a time when anti-Chinese sentiment and laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act forced Chinese restaurant workers and laundrymen to socialize exclusively amongst themselves, nine-man offered both escape and fraternity for men who were separated from their families in China and facing extreme discrimination and distrust. Pivoting between oil-spotted Chinatown parking lots and jellyfish-filled banquet scenes, the film captures the spirit of nine-man as players not only battle for a championship but fight to preserve a sport that holds so much history.

This film explains what James Ensor (1860-1949) meant for the development of art and makes palpable where he got his inspiration from.