A promising debut feature tells the story of a young woman returning from America to discover the realities of life in Macedonia, that looks as if it will explode with all the soldiers, corrupt crooks and terrorist idealists.
An animated short documentary crafted by people on the move in the refugee camp of the island of Lesbos (GR), following the story of Orhan, a Syrian Kurd who fled war with his family in 2013, seeking safety in Turkey—only to find that peace was still a distant dream.
100 years since the beginning of First World War. Locality - French cemetery in Bitola. State protocol. There are deputies, ministers, ambassadors, military attaches, consuls, honorary consuls, media present - Priests - Orthodox, Catholic, Muslim. - Military band. Jean Batiste Valerie, an old man of about 77 years of age, arrives in Bitola for the first time. Tiny, petite, with thin and gray hair, arrives late at the sad ceremony held in honor of the fallen French soldiers in the First World War. According to correspondence and information from the French army, his predecessor with the same name and surname must be located somewhere nearby. The ceremony had already begun.
Gaza is a 14-year-old boy who lives on the Aegean coast of Turkey. Together with his domineering father, he helps smuggle refugees from war-torn countries to Europe, giving them temporary lodgings and scant food until they attempt the crossing. Gaza dreams of escaping this life, but can't help being drawn into a dark world of immorality, exploitation and human suffering. Can you avoid becoming a monster when you've been raised by one? Onur Saylak's debut feature, adapted from the award-winning novel of the same title by Hakan Günday, one of the first novels to document the refugee crisis in Europe, "More" is the gripping story of a boy that gets to grow up in a world where there's no room for innocence.
Parvaneh is a young Afghan immigrant who recently arrived at a transit centre for asylum seekers in the Swiss Alps. The only things she has got to know yet are the rural area surrounding the centre and the centre itself.
A woman reads the newspaper with such intensity that she gets literally devoured by it. Painted on its pages she witnesses some of the tragic events of our times, drowns in ocean trash and is threatened by the elements unleashed by climate change. Yet in her despair she transforms this darkness into movement and art, so she plants the seeds of hope.
The arrival of the young teacher Damjan in one village in western Macedonia shakes the usual daily life of its inhabitants who belong to different religions.
In contemporary London, miserly British-Indian businessman Eshan Sood is compelled by three ghosts to reflect on his life and to consider the needs of those around him.
The Kurdish Iraqi poet and actor Zeravan Khalil travels with his dog through an Alpine gorge after fleeing from IS war and genocide. As he remembers the abomination, he writes a poem with the title “You drive me mad” in Kurmanji Kurdish. In his home country, Yazidic Kurds are forbidden to work in his profession. Then he eats his apple and wanders through Europe’s middle with more hope.
The circularity of violence seen in a story that circles on itself. In Macedonia, during the war in Bosnia, Christians hunt an ethnic Albanian girl who may have murdered one of their own. A young monk who's taken a vow of silence offers her protection. In London, a photographic editor who's pregnant needs to talk it out with her estranged husband and chooses a toney restaurant.
15-year-old Ahmet, from a remote Yuruk village in North Macedonia, finds refuge in music while navigating his father’s expectations, a conservative community, and his first experience with love — a girl already promised to someone else.
A group of Macedonian partisans are hiding away in the mountains from Bulgarian fascist authorities that occupy Macedonia.
The story takes place in Ohrid, at the end of XI century. Slavic population gives resistance to Byzantium and the Christian dogma leads to the persecutions and murders. The villages are plagued with outbreak of smallpox, and all the people with the symptoms were thrown into the lime. The film follows the fate of Abraham's family as the story of survival in the Balkan intersections.
A group of crotchety codgers attempt to revive the punk-rock band they all played in 17 years earlier in "Punk Is Not Dead".
Nacht Grenze Morgen
In an isolated mountain village in 19th century Macedonia, a young feral witch accidentally kills a peasant. She assumes the peasant's shape to see what life is like in her skin, igniting a deep seated curiosity to experience life inside the bodies of others.
Serafim is a vampire hunter - who wanders through Macedonian villages and destroys the vampired dead man for money. His apprentice is young fellow named Fidan, who Serafim teaches the rough and dangerous vampire craft, along with the alphabet and the insecure life in Macedonia. Vampire man and his student in their surroundings get in struggle with: Macedonian vampires, Turkish Authority and with Komiti (Macedonian Revolutionaries), also with Avdzi - Taburi (paid hunters of Komiti). Fidan experiences damnation of the vampire skill, who doesn't know if Serafim is a God's angel or servant of Devil.
Following a violent incident, Eissa, a 17-year-old African migrant in Egypt, strives to beat the clock to save his loved ones whatever it takes.
A young painter comes to the monastery where he's supposed to paint Virgin Mary. There he meets and falls in love with a beautiful novice named Agripina, eventually modeling his artwork by her appearance. This gets him in trouble with the church canons and Mother Superior, and he leaves.
The story of an asylum seeker in England who, when confronted with the hostile immigration system in the UK, is forced to live on the fringes of society and rely on his bike to survive. Based on the lived experience of co-writer Ayman Alhussein.