A better life is elsewhere

Switzerland still carries out special flights, where passengers, dressed in diapers and helmets, are chained to their seats for 40 hours at worst. They are accompanied by police officers and immigration officials. The passengers are flown to their native countries, where they haven't set foot in in up to twenty years, and where their lives might be in danger. Children, wives and work are left behind in Switzerland. Near Geneva, in Frambois prison, live 25 illegal immigrants waiting for deportation. They are offered an opportunity to say goodbye to their families and return to their native countries on a regular flight, escorted by plain-clothes police officers. If they refuse this offer, the special flight is arranged fast and unexpectedly. The stories behind the locked cells are truly heartbreaking.

As thousands of migrants attempt to cross the French-Italian border on foot through treacherous mountain routes, the state cracks down on the local communities that come to their aid in this revealing look at an unfolding human rights crisis.

As daylight breaks between the border cities of El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico, undocumented migrants and their relatives, divided by a wall, prepare to participate in an activist event. For three minutes, they’ll embrace in no man’s land for the briefest and sweetest of reunions.

On Our Doorstep delves deep into an aspect of the refugee crisis that rarely reached the press. With NGOs being blocked by red tape and the absence of any positive action by French or British authorities, the film is a behind-the-scenes look at the unprecedented grassroots movement that rose to aid the refugees in Calais, and the community that sprang up there, before it was forcefully demolished. This is the story of what happens when young and inexperienced citizens are forced to devise systems and structures to support 10,000 refugees; and are left unguided to face the moral and emotional conflicts, blurred lines and frequent grey areas of giving aid to vulnerable people. People who do not want to be there. It questions whether the aims of the volunteers were met, and whether these aims ultimately served the refugees' needs.

By land, by air, and by sea, viewers can now experience the struggle that millions of creatures endure in the name of migration as wildlife photographers show just how deeply survival instincts have become ingrained into to the animals of planet Earth. From the monarch butterflies that swarm the highlands of Mexico to the birds who navigate by the stars and the millions of red crabs who make the perilous land journey across Christmas Island, this release offers a look at animal instinct in it's purest form.

On the border, the line as principle of property and belonging reaches an extreme dimension where it physically defines the sphere of its relations. Those who transgress it reconstruct these imaginary lines on a daily basis, redefining the traditional geography and occupying the non-spaces where others live in a temporary form of existence. These others, the non-citizens, are phantasmtic, exchangeable parts of a flexible market. Made invisible, they are permanently controlled persons. Under the pretext of a greater civilian security, they are kept clear from the public spaces reserved for the citizens with rights and pushed into non-public spaces, which are run by state and military surveillance, multinational operations servicing a European market and non-governmental organisations.

Viacrucis Migrante

Two countries, two restaurants, one vision. At Gabriela Cámara's acclaimed Contramar in Mexico City, the welcoming, uniformed waiters are as beloved by diners as the menu featuring fresh, local seafood caught within 24 hours. The entire staff sees themselves as part of an extended family. Meanwhile at Cala in San Francisco, Cámara hires staff from different backgrounds and cultures, including ex-felons and ex-addicts, who view the work as an important opportunity to grow as individuals. A Tale of Two Kitchens explores the ways in which a restaurant can serve as a place of both dignity and community.

Viramundo shows the saga of the northeastern migrants that arrive in São Paulo, beginning with a train arriving and ending with a train leaving São Paulo in a cycle repeated every day. Viramundo's aim was to question why the military coup d'état in Brazil happened without any popular resistance or revolution or reaction of the society.

Those who do not know the Sahara think there is only sand in the desert. But in the desert there are children who play and draw and make movies, and who would like to not have to think about the war. In the desert there's a European colony, an occupied country called Western Sahara, where there are thousands of Sahrawi refugees living a hard life in exile. "Little Sahara" tells their story, the story of a supportive, resilient people who try to thrive and grow in the Hamada, where everything has a hard time growing.

Christmas Island, Australia is home to one of the largest land migrations on earth—that of forty million crabs journeying from jungle to sea. But the jungle holds another secret: a high-security facility that indefinitely detains individuals seeking asylum.

The Serengeti is a vast ecosystem, home to a dazzling variety of life, and the site of the largest migration on the planet. Woodland, riverbank forests and swamps provide cover for dozens of mammal species and more than 350 varieties of bird. The fate of these animals is intimately bound with the ever changing landscape. The passage from the rainy season to the dry season means there is no rest and no stability. Those who dwell here must remain in constant motion to survive. For months they live in hope of the returning rains that will put an end to their struggle and reward their efforts.

Capturing life on the Italian island of Lampedusa, a frontline in the European migrant crisis.

The EU is investing billions to establish African states as its new border guards. It also supports dictatorships that close their borders in return.

A silent documentary which follows a branch of the Bakhtiari tribe of Persia as they and their herds make their epic seasonal journey to better pastures.

Enduring 28 days of relentless construction labor, Frank struggles to prep a house for painting amidst Phoenix's scorching pandemic summer.

Every day dozens of decommissioned school buses leave the United States on a southward migration that carries them to Guatemala, where they are repaired, repainted, and resurrected as the brightly-colored camionetas that bring the vast majority of Guatemalans to work each day. Since 2006, nearly 1,000 camioneta drivers and fare-collectors have been murdered for either refusing or being unable to pay the extortion money demanded by local Guatemalan gangs. LA CAMIONETA follows one such bus on its transformative journey: a journey between North and South, between life and death, and through an unfolding collection of moments, people, and places that serve to quietly remind us of the interconnected worlds in which we live.

The parallel stories of four Pakistani immigrants in Greece become the trigger for the director to explore the story of his father, a worker in the Perama Shipyard. The background unfolds a most deadly shipwreck, Libyan immigrants found in limbo, as well as a (possibly racist) crime, which was committed during the shooting of this film.

Women from Turkey and Mecklenburg are working together side-by-side at a fish-processing factory in Lübeck. As they work, they share stories about their lives, including their sorrows, griefs, hopes, and dreams, while expressing their longing for home and feelings of being lost in a foreign place.

A humorous observation in Barcelona’s immigrant neighbourhood El Raval. Four barber shops, four places of remembrance, strange time and space capsules inhabited by people who left their home to find a better one, while the Spaniards are about to leave their own country themselves.