Butterflies Can't Swim

Vengo Volviendo tells the story of Ismael, who was raised by his grandmother and seeks to leave Ecuador in order to migrate to the United States. Along the way, he encounters a host of interesting people and learns of some interesting tales.

Just married Hong Kong couple Chen & Lily emigrate to England, soon to become parents to a little baby boy and generally struggle through life. Chen works long days in a restaurant, while Lily does the housekeeping, daydreaming of setting up their own business, much to Chen's chagrin. When Chen lets his colleague Fok seduce him down a path of mounting gambling debts, he is recruited as a drug courier for a shadowy Chinese triad. Suddenly he realizes that getting their own enterprise could be their only means of escape.

On her first day of school, Sofia – a Brazilian teenager who has recently arrived in London – is bullied by a group of British students. Homesick and alienated from the world around her, she meets Lauren, a British-Nigerian teenager who shows her Sun Rah, a world entirely of her own making in a nearby park, where they make their home together.

A migrant working-class couple, after losing their daughter to an ill-fated destiny, seeks friends in each other.

On the one hand, there’s the desert eating away at the land. The endless dry season, the lack of water. On the other there’s the threat of war. The village well has run dry. The livestock is dying. Trusting their instinct, most of the villagers leave and head south. Rahne, the only literate one, decides to head east with his three children and Mouna, his wife. A few sheep, some goats, and Chamelle, a dromedary, are their only riches. A tale of exodus, quest, hope and fatality.

The story of Alex, who, with the help of his charismatic grandfather, embarks on a journey in search of his real self.

Afghani refugee Ali and his brother have just arrived in Turkey where, surrounded by many other refugees, his family tries to build a new life. The boys earn their living shining shoes. When one day their spot has been taken, their fragile existence and dreams of a better future hang by a thread.

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.

Originally edited in two versions. Version I, 70 minutes; version II, 90 minutes. (The only known existing version is not Markopoulos’s edit and contains additional titles, music and voice-over added later than 1961. 65 minutes.) Filmed in Mytilene and Annavysos, Greece, 1958. Existing copy on video, J. and M. Paris Films, Athens.

Shin-ae moves to her recently late husband’s hometown. Despite her efforts to settle in this unfamiliar and too-normal place, she finds that she can’t fit in. After a sudden tragedy, Shin-ae turns to Christianity to relieve her pain, but when even this is not permitted, she wages a war against God.

Nineteen year old Imri, a handsome ex-soldier, suffers from “Yellow Fever”. He was born in Israel but yearns to live in Japan.

Longing for a brighter future, two Senegalese teenagers embark on a journey from West Africa to Italy. However, between their dreams and reality lies a labyrinth of checkpoints, the Sahara Desert, and the vast waters of the Mediterranean.

Alex (25), is a young Haitian man living in Chile who is undocumented and does not speak Spanish. After a car accident he is helped and translated by Daniela (50), a passerby with whom he is going to live what could be his last 15 minutes of life.

A man encounters colorful characters while driving a taxi in Papua New Guinea.

To escape from a lack of perspective in Kosovo, Hana decides to resort to the services of Emir, an illegal smuggler in Serbia that will drive her to Hungary. On the way, complications arise as Emir's unscrupulous associates try to take advantage of Hana's vulnerability. In the midst of the frozen winter, Hana's courage and determination and Emir's principles and beliefs will be put to the test.

Soriba Samb is a Senegalese who has just received a much sought after internship to study filmmaking in Paris. Soriba heads to Paris, accompanied by the five-year old son of a friend who he believes to be still living in Paris. On arrival he struggles to find the boy’s father. In addition to coping with his new internship, Soriba has to also spend time tracking down the boy’s father ‘Issa’.

For years, together with his partners from the production company O Quadro, he has been betting on cinema as a tool to explore the typical issues of youth. In this film, Evandro Scorsin turns the cameras on himself as he deals with the dilemmas of the passing of time and the imposition of adulthood. In an exercise in autofiction where cinema and life merge, the film is also a cinematic love letter to the beloved masters (especially Nicholas Ray). Coming and going between two countries and times, it records the vertigo of displacement and the reinventions inherent to an immigrant experience.

An impressionistic look at Irish emigrants in London, representing the emigrant's journey, a confusion of anticipation, memories and experience.

A young man receiving medical treatment in the hospital reminisces about fishing in the small dory his grandfather owned.

Tahir Agha sells all his assets when his business in Maraş deteriorates. He immigrates to Istanbul with his wife Hatice, sons Selim, Murat, Kemal and daughter Fatoş, where he sets his mind to open a repair shop. But in the metropolis, things don't go as planned.