Checks & Balances

A moving portrait of Chilean singer-songwriter and political activist Victor Jara (1932-73) that chronicles the life of the talented artist who was imprisoned, tortured and machine-gunned by the country's dictatorship.

On June 3, 1973, a man was murdered in a busy intersection of San Francisco’s Chinatown as part of an ongoing gang war. Chol Soo Lee, a 20-year-old Korean immigrant who had previous run-ins with the law, was arrested and convicted based on flimsy evidence and the eyewitness accounts of white tourists who couldn’t distinguish between Asian features. Sentenced to life in prison, Chol Soo Lee would spend years fighting to survive behind bars before journalist K.W. Lee took an interest in his case. The intrepid reporter’s investigation would galvanize a first-of-its-kind pan-Asian American grassroots movement to fight for Chol Soo Lee’s freedom, ultimately inspiring a new generation of social justice activists.

Since the beginning of her career, Sinéad O’Connor has used her powerful voice to challenge the narratives she was surrounded by while growing up in predominantly Roman Catholic Ireland. Despite her agency, depth and perspective, O’Connor’s unflinching refusal to conform means that she has often been patronized and unfairly dismissed as an attention-seeking pop star.

In Bern, Madame Mercedes has been working for 35 years in her car as a prostitute. An intimate and subtle portrait about ageing as a prostitute, a documentary about a vanishing chapter of habits in Switzerland.

Grandchild fraudsters scare their victims on the phone with so-called "shock calls". The losses run into millions. Month after month. Many victims are left severely traumatized. But the scam has a weak point. And the izzy team has found it. During a year-long investigation, izzy figurehead Cedric Schild pretends to be an elderly person and supposed victim on the phone. This not only makes for a few laughs, but also drives the perpetrators crazy - at the same time, the editorial team penetrates deep into the structures of the criminal clans. Thanks to more than 1200 minutes of recorded conversations from real shock calls, the izzy film "Die Enkeltrick Betrüger" shows all the tricks used by fraudsters for the first time and thus makes an important contribution to prevention. In cooperation with the law enforcement authorities, the perpetrators are arrested in front of the cameras.

He has sold 120 million albums since 1960, that is to say more than 60 years of career and more than 7000 concerts all over the world, but Salvatore Adamo remains humble, concerned about others, his family and his public. Can one write a story with so many good feelings? Without a doubt, he brings to those who follow him always a deep peace and joy. In this documentary, Salvatore Adamo tells the story of his career and his special relationship with his audience. To the sound of his most beautiful melodies, he confides without taboo on his musical journey, his inspirations and his musical and artistic universes in a broad sense.

A man tells the story of his three cats.

Die Hügel von Istanbul

In the heart of Sicily, where the Mafia still rules, one man and his family-run TV station, has become the lone voice against corruption and organized crime.

A Litany for Survival' explores the shades between love, rage, and rebellion as a black person surviving in America. Two months before the shocking revelation of Daniel Prude's murder video surfaced, BLM activists organize at the Mayor's house to make their case for equal human rights in the heavily segregated city of Rochester, NY.

In the sixties, Peter Handke was one of the first to show how the business works: the writer as angry young man and pop star of the literary scene. As soon as he was on the bestseller lists, he turned his back on the hype. For many years, he has lived and worked in his house in a Parisian suburb, more quietly and more hospitably. Peter Handke's precise, free gaze becomes perceptible in his texts, his conversations, the cosmos of his notebooks.

North German community journalists: an endangered species. Their Mission: to find and process local stories – and the desperate search for them. Their nemesis: digitalisation. Their everyday business: amateur football, toad migrations and the community bus.

Juliette Gréco, l'insoumise

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).

This film examines how media empires, led by Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, have been running a "race to the bottom" in television news, and provides an in-depth look at Fox News and the dangerous impact on society when a broad swath of media is controlled by one person. Media experts, including Jeff Cohen (FAIR) Bob McChesney (Free Press), Chellie Pingree (Common Cause), Jeff Chester (Center for Digital Democracy) and David Brock (Media Matters) provide context and guidance for the story of Fox News and its effect on society. This documentary also reveals the secrets of Former Fox news producers, reporters, bookers and writers who expose what it's like to work for Fox News. These former Fox employees talk about how they were forced to push a "right-wing" point of view or risk their jobs. Some have even chosen to remain anonymous in order to protect their current livelihoods. As one employee said "There's no sense of integrity as far as having a line that can't be crossed."

Der Glanz von Berlin

Andy is a loyalist of the Ka'bah Youth Movement (GPK) which is one of the 'civil militias' under the United Development Party (PPP) based in Yogyakarta. In 2019, Andy decided to support Prabowo Subianto to become the President of Indonesia. During the unstable political tension in Indonesia, Andy was required to maintain the condition in Yogyakarta.

Widely considered an important milestone in Indian Architectural history, the Kanade brothers are a testimony of how life and work can coexist with honesty as the fundamental driving factor. The film ‘Kanade’ gives an insight into the journey and experiences of Shankar & Navnath Kanade as architects and teachers.

Sigrid Koetse, award-winning actor and grande dame of Dutch theater, lived most of her life in the public eye and was always surrounded by a crowd of admirers. With this short documentary, filmmaker Wytse Koetse shows how his aunt spends her days nowadays, lonely in her Amsterdam home.

Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behaviour, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also how the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it.