Believe It or Not #12

The testimonies of the Mashteuiatsh Puakuteu women's committee punctuate this intimate short film about mourning and healing. Throughout the doll-making workshops, the women share their doubts and hopes and build a space filled with strength and solidarity.

Short film about the importance of sport in the GDR

Ahmed Alian, Ertuğrul Yunus, and Mamoru Hasegawa are three Muslim men living in Japan, in a journey of self-reflection. Their various perspective and differences in religious practices brings out important discussion about an everyone's specific experience of one single religion.

Short film about the tanks of the NVA (army of the German Democratic Republic)

Documentary film about a theater project at a school for mentally disabled children. For four months, the film crew observed the rehearsals of the students and teachers.

Documentary about the training of young dancers at the ballet school of the German Opera House in Charlottenburg.

Using six examples, this documentary film shows how children and young people cope with the experience of dying and death in their immediate environment.

Three young people, one Jewish and two Christian, set out to search for traces of Jewish life and Jewish history in Germany.

Die Kuh aus der Pipette

A mockumentary about four people and their idiosyncratic ways of saving the planet.

Short film against the oppression of women. At first, differences in education are presented and then how the relationship between women and men looks like in the professional world.

Short film about the GDR (DDR) and the FRG (BRD)

In the north of the Philippines lies the area of Banaue, known for its rice cultivation. Roger lives here in a small village. Roger is thirteen and has five brothers and sisters. As the oldest, he is responsible for the daily firewood. To get this, Roger sets off into the mountains every other day. At seven in the morning, they start. A truck takes Roger and his four friends out into the steep, forested slopes above the rice terraces. With them on the back of the truck are the 'scooters', homemade wooden scooters with which the firewood is driven down to the valley. Once they reach the top, they cut down smaller logs, chop them up and pack their scooters full of them. After this strenuous work, the great fun begins. On bumpy paths and at breakneck speed, they make their way back to the village. Races and tricks are part of the fun, of course.

During the Feria of Nîmes, a bullfight is filmed from the perspective of the animal, relegating the matador and public to off-screen spectators. A ritual at the frontiers of mysticism, carried by the sacrificial figure of the bull, revealer of our humanity.

80º North follows a group of international artists as they explore the Arctic island chain of Svalbard. Set against dramatic natural backdrops, the artists share their hopes, fears and insights on encountering an environment undergoing radical change.

Landlocked mountain towns aren’t always known for their water culture. For San Diego native and Montana transplant Jack Christiansen, the waterways of the Rockies present the perfect opportunity to reimagine the sport he grew up learning to love: surfing.

A Tibetan woman collects water near her family's yak farm and brings it back home 80-pounds full, in a ritual that takes her an hour to complete. A selection from Peabody Award-winning documentarian Bari Pearlman’s Nangchen Shorts series.

Mapu Kutran

The needs of a black body are defined by whom? Have you ever tried to look into my eyes?

BOSTON FIRE finds grandeur in smoke rising eloquently from a city blaze. Billowing puffs of darkness blend with fountains of water streaming in from offscreen to orchestrate a play of primal elements. The beautiful texture of the smoke coupled with the isolation from the source of the fire erases the destructive impact of the event. The camera, lost in the immense dark clouds, produces images for meditation removed from the causes or consequences of the scene. The tiny firemen, seen as distant silhouettes, gaze in awe, helpless before nature’s power.