In a mesmerizing confessional built from home video and animation, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio explores the mental prisons and personal trauma created by immigration policy.
Football is both the place, the crystallization of sporting passion and the witness of identity imaginations. It is also an interesting and relevant area for discussing the migration issue. From the 1930s to the present day, football, notably with the composition of the French team, has reflected the plurality of the French population. Raymond Kopa, Michel Platini, Zinedine Zidane, Basile Boli... these four footballers alone illustrate the four major waves of immigration that France has experienced.
The heir to a Burger Baron franchise, the filmmaker chases clues through rural Alberta, capturing the trials and tribulations of Arab immigrants while uncovering the saga of a rogue fast-food chain with mysterious origins and a cult following.
Working men and women leave through the main gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France. Filmed on 22 March 1895, it is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years. Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways. The first version features a carriage drawn by one horse, while in the second version the carriage is drawn by two horses, and there is no carriage at all in the third version. The clothing style is also different between the three versions, demonstrating the different seasons in which each was filmed. This film was made in the 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.
The sound of centuries-old Adhan in Turkey, the sound of centuries-old church bells and the polyphonic music of Europe echo in our memory. Our traditions and our future determine our present. In the present tense, the sounds of the war's sirens are mixed with the sound of Adhan and church bells. How can people hear themselves? How can humans exist?
A documentary about the continuing case of Samsung semiconductor plant. The film is a story about nameless people wearing white coat, hat and mask worked in a clean room exposing eyes only.
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.
On a Summer afternoon, Pedro packs the last few boxes before having to leave his apartment in New York. 12 years ago, Pedro and Ana had arrived in America from Portugal, in search of a dream. Now, Ana's voice describes, from the other side of the ocean, that same country to which they are returning. As the rooms are emptied, Pedro bids farewell to one life, welcoming another. But the dream that brought him will remain forever in the city that never sleeps, awaiting his return.
Forbidden: Undocumented and Queer in Rural America is an award-winning 2016 documentary about Moises Serrano, who grew up queer and undocumented in Yadkinville, North Carolina.
Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.
Christof Wackernagel, best known in Germany as an actor and former member of the Red Army Faction ("RAF") lives in Mali. In his compelling portrait, Jonas Grosch shows a man who simply cannot stand still if he senses injustice. The courage to stand up for one’s beliefs coupled with vanity? However one chooses to look at it, it is easy to imagine what made him connect with the "RAF". With his irrepressible will for freedom, Christof Wackernagel gets entangled in the horrors of day-to-day life in Africa.
In buildings where foreign workers lived in Germany, there were strict rules of conduct, defined by the house rules and supervised by the building superintendents. Many rights regarding the freedom of movement, communication and behavior were abused. Interviews with the tenants and with the "orderlies" which point out absurd situations and clashes caused by these restrictions.
Twenty-third sovereign of the Alawite dynasty established in Morocco since the seventeenth century, Mohammed VI took over from his father Hassan II in 1999, and from the moment of his coronation, he positioned himself as a "king of the poor", close to the people. Naturally shy, he prefers to act rather than speak, defining a modern style of governance that has earned him great popularity from the start. Married to a young computer engineer, he asserted a policy of liberalization of morals and even made a critical review of the period of repression led by his father during the years of lead. However, he faces opposition from conservatives, which leads to the election of the Islamist PJD (Party of Justice and Development) as head of government, following the Arab Spring of 2011.
They were children when they left, dreaming of a life without worry: freedom and wealth. But what awaited them was a nightmare. One of them began to change, leading him to commit a lethal knife attack in Turku, Finland. By following the lives of two of the attacker’s friends, the film delves into the experiences of an entire generation of young Moroccan men who feel like they do not belong anywhere. While their families push them to travel to Europe to find a better life, Europe casts them out.
We approach to invisible details for our eyes, figures disappearing as we move away from them, diluted in space. Parts that are integrated into the whole landscape. The remoteness as disappearance. The human figure betrays us here negligible small in the vastness of the territory, the voracity of the active vacuum that surrounds him. Images captured in the Atlas region in Morocco.
A mix of Rock and Roll and Blues are the secret for successful rebellion. When I took my camera to the middle of France where the GM&S factory was threatened by a permanent shut down, I felt like something extraordinary was about to take place. And it did. The lyrics were written by workers who have had enough! The tune was composed by people not afraid to go against even the rules of revolt! The volume was loud enough to attract the media. Their working-class concert spread across France like wild fire. I sat out of sight, camera in hand, filming like catching fish in a barrel.
A look at the work of a group of reporters and photographers from EFE, a Spanish news agency founded in 1939, which is celebrating its eightieth anniversary. A journey around the world —Mexico, Congo, USA, Libya, France, Spain, China and the Chilean Patagonia— with the purpose of honoring all people who work in the shadows, tirelessly seeking the truth in the era of social networks and fake news.
In 1975, a seven-months pregnant Vietnamese refugee, Giap, escapes Saigon in a boat and, within weeks, finds herself working on an assembly line in Seymour, Indiana. 35 years later, her aspiring filmmaker son, Tony, decides to document her final day of work at the last ironing board factory in America.
In Greensboro, NC, a small church community offers sanctuary to Juana Ortega, a Guatemalan grandmother threatened with deportation after 25 years of living and working in the United States.
'Do you feel cheaper?' We are filming young Lithuanian men working in Sweden. They do not want to be caught on camera, they do not want to participate in creating yet another media image of guilt and pity. They film us. We empty a bottle of moonshine, we dance on their porch. They might let us film them tomorrow. Second Class is a time document about class, respect, the value of work and human being.