Tales from Arab Detroit

Documentary that shows the changing attitude towards immigrant labor in The Netherlands. The documentary follows three immigrants that arrived in Holland 30 years ago to work in a bakery.

Wednesday afternoon was deliberately chosen. There were a lot of customers in front of and in the brothers Özcan and Hasan Yildirim’s barbershop on 9 June 2004, when 700 three-inch carpenters’ nails turned into projectiles with a 250 metre range. 22 people were injured. The attack was infamous; the course of the investigations was equally scandalous: the victims were suspected. CCTV material was not analysed and Federal Minister of the Interior Otto Schily decisively ruled out a right wing background. It was only in 2001 that this crime was solved in the course of the revelations concerning the right wing extremist terrorist “National Socialist Underground” group. The trial continues until the present day.

This short documentary is about newcomers to Canada and what they eat. Funny, mouth-watering and visually delectable, it takes us into the specialty food shops where the ingredients are bought, and into the homes where the food is prepared and served in the traditional way.

Melbourne filmmaker Brian McKenzie spent 5 years working on this engrossing study of a not-so-typical Brunswick household. It's a laconic, observational documentary similar to the director's I'll Be Home For Christmas (MFF '85), in which McKenzie plays a central part, camera in tow, as he documents the lifestyle of Graham (a youth in his 20s), his family and friends. After having spent so long with the family, McKenzie becomes part of the furniture - a situation which enables him to dig deep into the subject's lives.

Documentary about sub-Saharan immigration in Spain and Argentina focusing especially on the Senegalese community

This film recreates the true story of Tom Sukanen, an eccentric Finnish immigrant who homesteaded in Saskatchewan in the 1920s and 1930s. Sukanen spent ten years building and moving overland a huge iron ship that was to carry him back to his native Finland. The ship never reached water.

A short documentary that follows Korean grandparents as they share their modern-day reckoning of their immigration story and grandparenthood.

Filmmaker Christopher Quinn observes the ordeal of three Sudanese refugees -- Jon Bul Dau, Daniel Abul Pach and Panther Bior -- as they try to come to terms with the horrors they experienced in their homeland, while adjusting to their new lives in the United States.

This documentary follows 8 teens and pre-teens as they work their way toward the finals of the Scripps Howard national spelling bee championship in Washington D.C.

Almost all Jews in South Africa originally came from Lithuania. As early as the 19th century, a handful of them reached the shores of South Africa. Those who made the trip became successful artists, entrepreneurs and activists, while those who stayed behind were massacred by Nazis and Lithuanian collaborators. The film explores how these bittersweet circumstances have constructed the identities of South African Litvaks. Personal recounts and anecdotes paint the tragedy of the Holocaust, hopes of a new life in South Africa, as well as unique bonds for the future. (Lithuanian Film Center)

Not Just Football

Documentary exploring the effect of mass immigration on the dwindling white community of the East End, from the perspective of those who remain and those who chose to leave.

Evaporating Borders is a poetically photographed and rendered film on tolerance and search for identity. Told through 5 vignettes portraying the lives of migrants on the island of Cyprus, it passionately weaves themes of displacement and belonging.

The story of Cuban refugees who risked their lives in homemade rafts to reach the United States, and what life is like for those who succeed.

With humor, insight, and compassion, this documentary shares the journey of two Italian brothers who have run a successful restaurant for over 40 years, the sacrifices they’ve made for their children, and what it means to immigrants when they fulfill the American Dream.

Huntingdon Mayor Stéphane Gendron wants to encourage immigration to save his town, which has been struggling ever since large-scale factory closures some years ago. Mayor Gendron’s project is a way in to a discussion about immigration and social and economic integration.

Many geneticists and archaeologists have long surmised that human life began in Africa. Dr. Spencer Wells, one of a group of scientists studying the origin of human life, offers evidence and theories to support such a thesis in this PBS special. He claims that Africa was populated by only a few thousand people that some deserted their homeland in a conquest that has resulted in global domination.

Artistic director of the National Theater Eric de Vroedt writes and directs a performance about his own mother Winnie, who passed away in 2020. This piece, titled The Century of My Mother, is a family story about the migration from the Dutch East Indies to the Netherlands. It is De Vroedt's way of examining the relationship with his mother and not having to say goodbye to her yet: 'I can let her live on stage, but when the curtain falls, when the play is completely finished, then she is really dead'.

Immigrant residents of a “shift-bed” apartment in the heart of New York City’s Chinatown share their stories of personal and political upheaval. As the bed transforms into a stage, the film reveals the collective history of the Chinese in the United States through conversations, autobiographical monologues, and theatrical movement pieces. Shot in the kitchens, bedrooms, wedding halls, cafés, and mahjong parlors of Chinatown, this provocative hybrid documentary addresses issues of privacy, intimacy, and urban life.

Oscar, not quite a child anymore, scavenges for scrap metal for his father. He spends his life in improvised landfills among what remains of leftovers. Worlds apart, yet close-by, there is Stanley. He tidies the church in exchange for a monetised hospitality, picks fruits, herds sheep: anything that keep his foreign body busy. Oscar, the young Sicilian, and Stanley the Nigerian don’t seem to have much in common. Except for the feeling of being thrown into the world, to suffer the same refusal, the same overwhelming wave of choices imposed on them by others.