July Trip

“Al Makhtufun” won the 1998 Best Short Documentary Film Award at the Mediterranean Film Festival for highlighting the issue of abducted Lebanese. The film raises two major issues: The abductee’s physical absence and his spiritual presence among his family members, and the parents silently wishing his return. The documentary looks at documents kept by Wadad, a mother who decides to step outside her comfort zone and share her papers and forms when other parents would not.

Bahij Hojeij’s documentary studies the infamous Green Line between east and west Beirut during the civil war.

Architecture in Beirut was the second greatest victim of the civil war, with pages of ancient and modern history erased by the end of the conflict. This documentary interviews citizens calling for a reconstruction plan that would preserve Beirut’s spirit of culture and openness.

WINE and WAR is a documentary about one of the the oldest winemaking regions on earth and the resilience of the Lebanese entrepreneurial spirit seen through the lens of war and instability.

‘Objects of War’ is a series of testimonials on the Lebanese war. Each person chooses an object, ordinary or unusual, which serves as a starting point for his / her story. These testimonials while helping to create a collective memory, also show the impossibility of telling a single History of this war. Only fragments of this History are recounted here, held as truth by those expressing them. In ‘Objects of War’, the aim is not to reveal a truth but rather to gather and confront many diverse versions and discourses on the subject. ‘Objects of War’ started in 1999 assembling the testimonials of eleven persons. It was first shown in 2000 . It continued in 2003 with ‘Objects of War n°2’, recording seven additional testimonials. This time however, and since then, the recorded material is left unedited, shown in its integrity. The work of collecting and assembling these stories continued with ‘Objects of War n°3 & n°4’ in 2006 and ‘n°5 & 6’ in 2014.

In 1975, the long slog of civil war has recently begun in Beirut. A high school student named Tarek is thrilled by all the chaos and upheaval because he no longer needs to go to school. Plus, he finds negotiations between West and East Beirut interesting. Tarek is accompanied by his buddy Omar as the two shoot Super 8 films of the tumult around them. The jovial mood takes a tragic turn when Tarek's parents start fighting over whether or not to flee Beirut.

At the climax of the Lebanese Civil War, two snipers entrusted to guard a stronghold overlooking the Green Line build a relationship as everything around them falls apart.

Oum Karim, a 60-year-old Beiruti lady, is used to preparing Lahm Bi Ajin (Lebanese ham pie) once per week.

1950s Soho beats with far more energy than its 21st century counterpart in this vivid time capsule.

It is difficult to characterize Slobodan Tišma. He is unique and versatile. He wanders with joy throughout the artistic landscape, drawing it with his words since the early sixties. He started as a poet, he was a conceptualist, an "invisible artist" and a rock musician ("Luna"/"La Strada"- former Yugoslav New Wave bands). Currently, he is a prose writer, and sometimes he engages in minimalistic performances. Wearing different masks he moved from one artistic space to another breaking the stereotypes and creating an aesthetic phenomenon out of his own existence. His mainstay is margin. Through trees and ocean he communicates with the universe. He loves the game of seeking, and hiding again. He is a persistent walker. With his silent steps he pops up daily in the corners of Novi Sad, searching for his own pleasure. Similar to his writings, this film has no formal completeness and comprehensiveness. It wonders who Slobodan Tišma is.

Stéphane had an accident which made him disabled. While he's having a very long recovery, he meets Carolina, a yoga teacher. This discipline, which helps him get his body back, changes his life. Stéphane is now in a personal quest. Here starts his journey.

In 2007, five-piece rock and roll band I Like Trains were the toast of the music industry. They were signed to a major label and playing sold out tours around the world. A Divorce Before Marriage picks up the story five years later where, due to the decline of the music industry and a change in their fortune, the band are now in a very different position. Suddenly I Like Trains find themselves lost in a very different musical landscape as jobs, family and life start to take over, forcing them to question their childhood dreams and ambitions. Told over a period of 4 years, this is a coming of age story about a band stuck in the middle.

The Pulitzer at 100, by Oscar and Emmy winning director Kirk Simon, is a ninety-minute independent documentary released in conjunction with the Pulitzer Centennial in April 2016. This film is told through the riveting stories of the artists that have won the prestigious prize. With Pulitzer work read by Helen Mirren, Natalie Portman, Liev Schreiber, John Lithgow and Yara Shahidi; journalists include Carl Bernstein, Nick Kristof, Thomas Friedman, and David Remnick; authors include Toni Morrison, Michael Chabon, Junot Díaz, Tony Kushner, and Ayad Akhtar; and musicians Wynton Marsalis, David Crosby, and John Adams also share their stories.

Hong Kong romance set in wartime

At the world's only ballet school for the blind, located in Sao Paolo, Brazil, a prima ballerina and her teen protege boldly take on the unique challenges of their visual impairments to develop new forms of self-expression through dance.

Are German women as unhappy as a lot of popular media in the early 1960s suggest? This television documentary wants to find out.

Elmar Hügler captures the preparations for and the actual ceremony of a wedding without commentary.

A court's decision to take away a mother's child after a divorce and grant the father sole custody leads to a clash of human law and written law.

Money has become the drug of our societies. Confronted with this phenomenon, citizens all over the world are inventing complementary currencies for social ends and are opening the debate: What is money for?

Two part biography of Greta Garbo - 1. The Temptress 2. The Clown. Reminiscences of her early life in Stockholm, with excerpts from her films. Narrated by Bibi Andersson.