After twelve years in exile, Syrian journalist and filmmaker Daham Alasaad returns to Homs, devastated by the war in Syria. Once the city of his childhood, it is now a relic of an authoritarian regime, where different communities (Sunnis, Christians, Alawites) are trying to rebuild their lives together after terrible years of division and destruction. Thanks to Daham Alasaad's close relationship with the city's inhabitants, the director highlights some very moving characters, torn between grief, fear, the need for justice, and the desire for peace and reconciliation. By opening up naturally to the camera, they allow viewers to experience what Syrians of all backgrounds are going through today. "Homs-Syria, Life After" is a personal and political investigation into the ability of this symbolic city to rebuild hope on the ruins of a Syria ravaged by more than fifteen years of war and facing an uncertain future.
Composed from the conversations that the director holds with people passing by in the street under his Warsaw apartment, each story in 'The Balcony Movie' is unique and deals with the way we try to cope with life as individuals. All together, they create a self-portrait of contemporary human life, and the passers-by present a composite picture of today's world.
Reto Astrolabio
Stelvio: Crossroads of Peace
Minuta ticha
A journey into four classical elements through the four main characters of the film. The main characters in the movie represent each of their own elements.
In 1954, a German-Austrian expedition led by Mathias Rebitsch set off for the difficult-to-access Karakoram Mountains, geographically north of the Himalayas. They come across the Hunza, a people who live in the valley of the same name and believe they are descended from the soldiers of Alexander the Great. The documentary conveys impressions of the poor life of the Hunza people, the harvest, a court hearing, festivals and the children's everyday school life. Finally, the expedition sets off again and sets up its main camp on the moraine ridge of a glacier, where they measure the glacier and the earth's magnetic field. Finally, some men from the research community set off for a sub-peak of Batura.
A deft portrait of gender lines in the sex industry, this short lip-sync documentary tells the stories of men who buy sex
Platonicamente confusi
Rotterdam 2040 is a film about the city’s future, departing from the principle of Gyz La Rivière that you can’t look ahead without considering your past (something that hasn’t always been Rotterdam’s strongest feature). At high speed, La Rivière reconstructs the history of Rotterdam from the time before the bombings until now, and expands the developments to the year 2040 (100 years after the bombing and the 700th anniversary of the city). La Rivière made a specific choice to expose his personal vision, which is sometimes radical or a little absurd. So no experts and no talking heads, but an assault of old and new imagery, held together by La Rivière as the narrator of the film. Although Rotterdam 2040 deals with architecture and urban renewal, it is actually a film about people. The subjective experience of the city by its (future) occupants mainly determines the parade of architectural blunders and suggestions for the future. All tongue-in-cheek of course.
Maruxak: Vente con nosotras
Filmed in six countries during fifteen years , "The Last Transhumance" takes us into the world of shepherds who walk with their animals very long distances in search for food: an ancient way of life not compatible with the modern world.
In under 3 hours for the annual Joel Haver’s “Make a Movie During the Oscars”, Clenny Kwok documents the crowd of Chatswood on one normal day.
Peuple de Loire
Shot over the course of ten years on both film and video, the film consists of a series of carefully composed tableaux of people and environments. Pedestrians shuffle across a bustling Beijing street, steelworkers linger outside a deserted factory, tourists laugh and scamper across a crowded beach, worshippers kneel to pray in a remote village. With a painterly eye for composition, Wang captures China as he sees it, calling to a temporary halt a land in a constant state of change.
Every night in December people in a small suburb of Philadelphia flock to a holiday light show. They drive at a snails pace through the 2 mile stretch of beautiful light displays, listening to holiday music, soaking up the Christmas spirt. But at the end of each night one man drives the stretch alone, turning off all of the lights, ending the joy day after day. This is his story.
Every Christmas, Bruce Mertz lights up the neighborhood with the 50,000 lights covering his house. For decades he's obsessively added to his display, creating beautiful, towering fixtures that people travel across the country to see. In this offbeat, touching portrait, we learn what drives him, and discover how a kid who grew up on a farm with no electricity became Mr. Christmas.
The key to the communal laundry room in the block of flats on the Rue de Genève 85 in Lausanne serves a much greater function than merely unlocking the door. This encounter between a symbol of typical Swiss mentality with a penchant for order and the tenants who have been housed here by the city’s social services department is not something to be taken for granted. Although the laundry room is normally located in the cellar, the tenants in this building share a tiny laundry room off the entrance hall because the cellar is reserved for prostitution. To maintain order and cleanliness, the landlord hires Claudina, a new “laundry woman”.
Il Centro per i Giovani - volti, racconti ed esperienze sotto la mascherina
Venerdì Santo - Bronte