Silenced Shakespeare

Are tourists destroying the planet-or saving it? How do travelers change the remote places they visit, and how are they changed? From the Bolivian jungle to the party beaches of Thailand, and from the deserts of Timbuktu, Mali to the breathtaking beauty of Bhutan, GRINGO TRAILS traces stories over 30 years to show the dramatic long-term impact of tourism on cultures, economies, and the environment.

Kirby Dick's provocative documentary investigates the secretive and inconsistent process by which the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) rates films, revealing the organization's underhanded efforts to control culture. Dick questions whether certain studios get preferential treatment and exposes the discrepancies in how the MPAA views sex and violence.

Bruce Lee expert John Little tracks down the actual locations of some of Bruce Lee's most iconic action scenes. Many of these sites remain largely unchanged nearly half a century later. At monasteries, ice factories, and on urban streets, Little explores the real life settings of Lee's legendary career. This film builds on Little's earlier film, Pursuit of the Dragon, to present a comprehensive view of Lee's work that will change the way you see the films.

According to the official history of Afghanistan, ruthless destruction has always prevailed over art and creation; but there is another tale to be told, the forgotten account of a diverse and progressive country, seen through the lens of innovative filmmakers, a story that survives thanks to a few brave Afghans, a small but very passionate group that secretly fought to save a huge film archive that was constantly menaced by war and religious fanaticism.

In Maija Blåfield’s documentary, eight former North Koreans talk about what it was like to watch illegal films in a closed society. In addition to the 'waste videos', South Korean films were also smuggled into the country via China.

Street art, creativity and revolution collide in this beautifully shot film about art’s ability to create change. The story opens on the politically charged Thailand/Burma border at the first school teaching street art as a form of non-violent struggle. The film follows two young girls (Romi & Yi-Yi) who have escaped 50 years of civil war in Burma to pursue an arts education in Thailand. Under the threat of imprisonment and torture, the girls use spray paint and stencils to create images in public spaces to let people know the truth behind Burma's transition toward "artificial democracy." Eighty-two hundred miles away, artist Shepard Fairey is painting a 30’ mural of a Burmese monk for the same reasons and in support of the students' struggle in Burma. As these stories are inter-cut, the film connects these seemingly unrelated characters around the concept of using art as a weapon for change.

Born in Campo de Criptana, a small village in the Spanish region of La Mancha, Sara Montiel (1928-2013) conquered Mexico, Hollywood, and the hearts of people. The recognition of an unparalleled professional career, an intimate dialogue with a tireless worker who took the stage at the age of twelve and never got off. A movie star who seduced millions of viewers around the world, a singer who reinvented a musical genre, a woman who broke the mold…

Sangduen Chailert, or Lek, as she is generally known, has already rescued over 200 elephants. She has dedicated her life to saving the Asian elephant and founded a special camp, The Elephant Nature Park to protect them. We follow this winner of Time Magazine’s “Asian Hero of the Year” Award in her work. Lek is on a mission to save the Asian elephant in her native Thailand. This film looks at the plight of the Asian elephant, as it goes from being a widely used domestic animal, to becoming a burden on modernizing communities. With experts predicting its extinction within four decades, Lek’s work is needed now more than ever and she has gathered a large group of supporters and volunteers in her quest for a better future for the Asian elephant. This moving film demonstrates Lek’s natural understanding of and rapport with these huge animals and will stir the viewers emotions as it highlights the often desperate state some elephants are kept in.

Canadian actor and filmmaker Connor Jessup (Closet Monster, Falling Skies) profiles Apichatpong Weerasethakul, a maverick of Thai cinema who explores the slippery nature of time and consciousness with a sublimely idiosyncratic, often surreal approach to film form.

A short documentary chronicling the personal lives and narratives of Thai "ladyboys," who are born men but present themselves as women, living openly in Thai society. The film interviews ladyboys from all walks of life-- performers, filmmakers, activists-- to learn what it's like to live in a society with visible gender fluidity, and to explore if Thailand is really as open to and accepting of sexual diversity as it seems.

An investigation into the nature of the sex trade in Thailand.

Argentina, 1968. In the midst of the Cold War, the dictatorship of Juan Carlos Onganía (1966-70) organizes the 9th Mar del Plata Film Festival in order to show the world its friendly face, while exercising censorship and repressing dissidence.

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.

Ashley Bell and a team of elephant rescuers led by world renowned Asian elephant conservationist Lek Chailert, embark on a daring 48-hour mission across Thailand to rescue a 70-year old captive blind Asian elephant and bring her to freedom.

Spain, 1975. Franco's death opens the door to the possibility of uncensored cinema. After two years of relaxed censorship, it is abolished in 1977, and the “S” rating is created to protect viewers from films that may “offend their sensibilities.”

A documentary about the making of the controversial Life of Brian and the surrounding accusations of blasphemy.

For many years, Buenos Aires, Argentina, was one of the best places in the world for a film buff; but from the mid-sixties onwards, successive authoritarian governments shaped the will of the spectators, dictating what could be seen and what could not, so that the true cinema lovers, in their desire to watch films, had no choice but to embark on the most extraordinary and strange adventures.

Forty years later, Guillermo Montesinos, the actor who played José María el Cepa in The Cuenca Crime (1980), directed by Pilar Miró, returns to the various locations where the shooting of the mythical film, narrating the infamous Grimaldos case (1910), took place.

Lucie en Thaïlande

Ninlawan Pinyo is the matriarch of a Thai American family, who hustled for her fortune by founding a naem pork sausage factory in Chiang Mai, Thailand.