Poets Against the Bomb

Denim' is a poetic short film by writer, poet and performer Siana Bangura, exploring gentrification and social cleansing in South East London. Through a personal trip down memory lane, visiting the places that moulded her, we learn what happens when the city changes and leaves those who built it behind. Travelling through Bermondsey, Rotherhithe, Elephant & Castle, Walworth Road, Peckham, Brixton and of course Shoreditch, 'Denim' is both a personal tale and a wider social commentary.

A film that immerses its audience in subjective states of consciousness they might experience when they die, imagining what they can see and think and hear in a seamless but fragmentary flow of poetic images, words and music. The viewer undertakes a journey into their own interior world of dreams and projections in which time and space, and cause and effect logic, are turned on their heads. Text Messages from the Universe is inspired by The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a text which guides souls on their journey of 49 days through the 'Bardo', or intermediate state, between dying and rebirth.

World War II propaganda short which focuses on the dangers of inadvertent dispersal of military information.

Using historically-accurate, battle-filled re-enactments and interviews with expert historians and noted authors, this two-part documentary series brings to vivid life the captivating true stories behind Britain's bloody civil wars.

First film of Juan José Ponce’s trilogy about Federico García Lorca. Lunas de Nueva York looks back on Federico’s trip to New York in 1929, an essential journey for his life and career.

Third film of Juan José Ponce's trilogy about Federico García Lorca.

In 2002, Ju Anqi made a film about a tour by the poet Shu through Xinjiang, the most western-lying, autonomous Uyghur province of China. All that we know about Shu is that he plays a poet who sends himself on a business trip - an absurd, satirical starting point that sets the tone for the film. For a variety of reasons, it was not until 2013 that Ju started editing the rough, lyrical material that he had shot in what is now a very restless Xinjiang: it's like an excellent wine that has had time to mature. Structured around 16 poems which he wrote on the road, Shu’s physically exhausting journey takes him along endless rocky roads, passing shabby inns and through impressive landscapes from one prostitute to the next. In its documentary authenticity, Poet on a Business Trip is also an historic document that exudes an atmosphere of loss, providing an unsentimental yet melancholy glimpse of a country in transition and a mirror for the existential irreversibility of time. (c) iffr.com

An experimental documentary that explores Saudi Arabia's relationship with the U.S. and the role this has played in the war in Afghanistan.

What happens when non-violent leaders are pushed to support armed struggle against a brutal regime in a forgotten war? Thabyay: Creative Resistance in Myanmar follows four democracy revolutionaries who are finding creative means to fight against the military junta. Some take up arms while struggling to stay true to their commitment to non-violence, while others engage in “artivism,” using music, poetry and art to bring about a peaceful, free, democratic and truly inclusive future for all people in Myanmar.

In 1940 the Channel Islands became the only part of Britain to fall under Nazi rule. Now in this film Islanders speak from the heart about one of the most extraordinary periods in our history. Reliving in their own words the horror of the first air raids, the shock of occupation and the islands' gradual five year long decent into privation and starvation before experiencing the capitulation of the German forces and the joy of liberation.

As soon as Hitler's forces occupied the Channel Islands in 1940 he ordered a series of fortifications to defend the only British territory he ever conquered. The problem was he never stopped - pouring men, concrete and weapons into the islands. By 1944 his officers talked of the Fuehrer's inselwahn - his 'island madness' and the Channel Islands had become the most fortified place on earth.

In 1940, carried on a wave of rumour and panic, thirty thousand Channel Islanders fled their homes, their livelihoods and the islands for five long years in exile. Arriving in England with just one small case and only twenty pounds in cash, they were sent by rail across the country from Oldham to Glasgow. Children separated from parents, all cast adrift in an alien culture. Homeless and jobless, the adventures that befell them helped forge friendships the length and breadth of Great Britain which survive to this day. This is their story.

Through performatic acts and some exposition, a group of poets of that 1980's generation make great use of words, poems and rebellious acts criticizing the then current generation and its lack of admiration for the poetic works that were being created.

Three charming 20-something grandsons take a unique journey with their grannies to discover their historic and personal legacies through stories from the Second World War. Three grandsons embark an anarchic journey into the past – a complex road movie about intergenerational dialogue in Great Britain, Germany and Hungary. Granny Project is a seven-year-long investigation of three young men coming to terms with their heritage through the extraordinary lives of their grandmothers: an English spy, a dancer from Nazi Germany and a Hungarian communist Holocaust survivor. The film deals with classic values and taboo-like historical topics, and the method used is equally important as it gives an insight to the zeitgeist of the young today.

In 1941 Hitler deported over 2000 British men, women and children from the Channel Islands to the heart of Nazi Germany. It was a terrifying journey into the unknown and some killed themselves rather than go. Others had just hours to pack one bag, destroy their pets and leave. However, the initial horror of the camps and the struggle to survive in the primitive conditions was replaced with a determination not just to survive, but to thrive, as Hitler's crime created one of the most bizarre episodes of the war.

THE LIGHT AT WALDEN is a visual poem shot at Walden Pond, Massachusetts, interweaving pieces of Thoreau's texts and a war resister's personal journey on a wilderness island in Canada. The filmmaker, as a young man during the U.S. / Vietnam War, attempts to follow Thoreau's principles: building a cabin and living sustainably in the woods, "to front only the essential facts of life." This is one story among the nearly 125,000 war resisters in Canada.

La vraie valeur des choses

Made for Italian national television, Ellis Donda’s Il Corpo Rubato (The Stolen Body) is an experimental documentary on psychoanalisis in 70s/80s Italy, its analytical practices and forms of suggestion.

We all learned in schools that the WWI began with the assasination of Franz Ferdinand done by a young Bosnian Gavrilo Princip. In fact, the war was brewing much longer.

After his mother’s death, Adam finds his parents’ correspondence. We discover a love adventure entangled in the 20th century, when the world was cut in two and the war between Iran and Iraq marked the start of tragic conflicts in the Middle East. Mixing animation and found footage, we dive in a odyssey full of bombshells and secrets.