Come Back, Sebastiana

A documentary that invites us to discover the strange path led by the explorer-ethnographer Marquis de Wavrin who, in the 1920s and 1930s, made ethnographic films in several countries of Latin America.

"The prevailing stigmatization of the 'villero' universe is fed back by the images. In order to dismantle this stigmatization, other images must be presented or we need to reveal what the existing ones seek to cover up. The slum is usually represented from a limited and deceitful visual panorama. This representation has an intention. Cinema and television are two image-producing devices that strengthen the stereotypes that we have about the people who inhabit these spaces. And what happens in the field of painting? Do clichés reign there too? This visual essay seeks to confront various works by national painters and sculptors, belonging to the Palais collection, with the kinetic images of current cinema and television, to reflect on both the differences and the similarities in the meanings and discourses that both regimes of images can produce." César González

The third installment in Dan Přibáň's series of travel documentaries describes the author's journey with his friends across South America in vehicles that are often notorious but cult in their own way. The charming dynamics of the group on screen are further enhanced by the high-quality craftsmanship.

A whimsical blend of live action and animation, "Saludos Amigos" is a colorful kaleidoscope of art, adventure and music set to a toe-tapping samba beat. From high Andes peaks and Argentina's pampas to the sights and sounds of Rio de Janeiro, your international traveling companions are none other than those famous funny friends, Donald Duck and Goofy. They keep things lively as Donald encounters a stubborn llama and "El Gaucho" Goofy tries on the cowboy way of life....South American-style.

This revealing portrait of Cuba follows the lives of Fidel Castro and three Cuban families affected by his policies over the last four decades.

Explores the lives of Sara, Gigi and Giovanna, three Latino transvestites who for years have lived on the streets of Manhattan supporting their drug addictions through prostitution. They made their temporary home inside broken garbage trucks that the Sanitation Department keeps next to the salt deposits used in the winter to melt the snow. The three friends share the place known as "The Salt Mines".

This documentary is a portrait of Point St. Charles, one of Montreal’s notoriously bleak neighbourhoods. Many of the residents are English-speaking and of Irish origin; many of them are also on welfare. Considered to be one of the toughest districts in all of Canada, Point St. Charles is poor in terms of community facilities, but still full of rich contrasts and high spirits – that is, most of the time.

One billion people on our planet—one in six—live in shantytowns, slums or squats. Slums: Cities of Tomorrow challenges conventional thinking to propose that slums are in fact the solution, not the problem, to urban overcrowding caused by the massive migration of people to cities. (Lynne Fernie, HotDocs)

J and Jacky are good friends who attend the same school. J is from a single-parent family, and will be taken care by Jacky’s family whenever his mother has to return to Mainland to renew her visa; such kind of story is not an isolated case. These families have been uprooted for a “better future” in Hong Kong, but is this “future” that the children really long to have? A Chinese saying: “How does one understand the joy of fish, if one is not a fish?” Will the adults really understand what the children want?

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.

Megacities is a documentary about the slums of five different metropolitan cities.

In the midst of a catastrophic steel industry collapse, a remarkable grassroots community effort leads to a national healthcare program that helps more than 200 million children...and counting.

Images of Argentinian companies and factories in the first light of day, seen from the inside of a car, while the director reads out documents in voiceover that reveals the collusion of the same concerns in the military dictatorship’s terror.

The last two surviving members of the Piripkura people, a nomadic tribe in the Mato Grosso region of Brazil, struggle to maintain their indigenous way of life amidst the region's massive deforestation. Living deep in the rainforest, Pakyî and Tamandua live off the land relying on a machete, an ax, and a torch lit in 1998.

Award-winning documentary maker Bryan Bruce investigates New Zealand's housing crisis and what might be done to solve it. Bruce consults with recognised world experts (in Canada, Ireland and Germany) to discuss their global research – this time on foreign capital and housing affordability and the effect of immigration on house prices. Bruce also looks at some of the many possible solutions (available particularly in Germany) that would provide families with stability of tenure that don’t involve private ownership.

A look at the rampant HIV epidemic rate in Swaziland.

Chennu committed his first crime when he was 15 years old: being a street kid. And he entered hell: Pademba Road. The adult prison in Freetown. In hell, Mr. Sillah is in charge, and there is no hope. Chennu got out after four years. Now he wants to go back.

In the 1950s, Seattle had plans to build one of the densest networks of freeways in the world. It would have displaced thousands, especially the poor and people of color. Over the next two decades, a broad coalition of communities came together and halted these plans. Testimonies from that era are juxtaposed with interviews of activists who participated in the revolt, giving a picture of what Seattle could have been had the people not stood up to the highway lobby and their representatives.

A film about the cross coalition of communities that stopped a planned network of freeways from being built in Seattle in the late 60s and early 70s. It weaves together archival material with the filmmaker's personal narrative about living next to freeways, and features interviews with participants from the freeway revolt.

Florian Hartung and Dirk Pohlmann have reconstructed a previously unknown dimension of the collaboration between Nazis and the CIA in the Cold War. Drawing upon recently released documents, the film exposes for the first time a perfidious, worldwide net that reaches deep into the power structures of the Federal Republic of Germany. Lending their authority to the fact-finders’ mission are high-ranking statesmen, journalists and historians.