The Last Laugh

We met in first grade in Ms. Locklear’s class. During the summer of 2006, we decided to search for our beloved teacher. We chose not to use the internet or the telephone, but instead to rely on face-to-face contact with people. Looking for Ms. Locklear is a documentary chronicling our search, which led us far from home and into the company of a host of characters.

Yu Xiuhua was raised to hope for little from her life in the rural Chinese province of Hubei. At 19, Xiuhua’s mother encouraged her to marry a man nearly twice her age, fearful no one else would accept a wife with Xiuhua’s condition — cerebral palsy. But as her 20th anniversary approaches, Xiuhua’s poetry goes viral, and she becomes the voice of a rising feminist movement throughout China.

Amanda Montejo is a trans woman, make up artist, Guadalupana and a witch. This documentary portrait explores different facets of her spirituality and fragments of her past, revealing the duality of her being.

One man's search for the prolific funk legend, Sly Stone.

The capture of Naples, the first great European city to be liberated, revealed the magnitude of the tasks involved in re-creating the means of livelihood and the machinery of government in a devastated, starving and disease-ridden city.

A Eurovision singer, Iceland's strongest woman, a male model, a plumber who wants to direct movies. They all work in the shopping mall that this documentary focuses on ... most of them want to get out, even just to the bigger mall down the road.

Documentary that goes behind the curtain, exploring the intimate relationships and untold stories that shape the pro wrestling industry.

As a Greek tombstone of unknown origin is discovered underneath the floorboards in an old village house in Turkey, an almost forgotten story from the country’s creation unravels; the forced population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923. The engraved Cyrillic letters tell of a woman, Chrysoula Rodaki, who died in 1887. And so the search for her descendants begins: It leads director Kerem Soyyilmaz to local archives, where his own family's role in history is laid bare; to abandoned ghost towns and through the memories of older villagers - all while Soyyilmaz meets massive support for his quest from Greeks on the other side of the border. The stone becomes a portal to the past - and for a while, the trauma becomes redeemed when the previous owners of the village house return.

The Rastreadoras de El Fuerte are a group of mothers of disappeared persons in northern Sinaloa who, in the absence of the authorities, twice a week go out with picks and shovels in search of the remains of their children; a testimony of the abandonment of the State, the aggressions of the drug traffickers, the indifference of society and the pain, but also of the strength and courage that keep these women together, and of their empowerment to mobilize society in community organization.

Sirkka-Liisa died alone with no one left to miss her. Elina happened to buy her home after her death and ended up with all Sirkka-Liisa's possessions from books to photos. What would happen If Elina threw all her things away?

Two Finnish filmmakers and an international team of divers embark on a quest to find the lost WWII German U-boat, U-479, in the Gulf of Finland. Despite Soviet claims of its sinking by the submarine Lembit, unanswered questions prompted the filmmakers to investigate the mystery firsthand.

A documentary about the famous athlete and movie enthusiast who made Serbia's first sound film, Innocence Unprotected. The Nazi occupation of Belgrade prevented the film from gaining wider acclaim. Director Makavejev intersperses clips of the original film with interviews of surviving cast and crew members, as well as newsreel and archival footage.

Esther van Neerbos searches for missing people with her dogs. Her dogs are specially trained to recognize the smell of death. Thanks to Esther's efforts, many bodies are recovered and she puts an end to the uncertainty in which those left behind live.

Kherson, Ukraine's embattled city, has endured invasion, occupation, and liberation. On February 24, 2022, Russian tanks entered Kherson, leading to brutal occupation marked by violence. Despite being outnumbered, local defense forces resisted, and citizens protested under the slogan "Kherson is Ukraine!" An underground resistance formed, led by brave individuals like journalist Valentyna and others who risked arrest and torture to support the cause. After nine months, Ukrainian forces liberated Kherson, but Russian destruction left the city in chaos. Shelling and drone attacks became relentless, and in June 2023, a dam explosion flooded the city, causing further devastation. Despite these challenges, Kherson's spirit remained unbroken, with citizens embracing arts and resilience. By August 2024, drone attacks specifically targeted civilians, yet the city resisted, determined to rebuild and reclaim its identity, refusing to succumb to ruin.

Paradise Morbid

The story of women's struggle against sexual discrimination and for inclusion in the democratic process in (West) Germany after WW II.

An innovative and charismatic influencer is suddenly exiled from her community of creative partners and colleagues when she states an opinion that she did not know was “unacceptable” in their eyes.

"TDS, derrière l'écran des travailleuses du sexe" is a deep dive into the lives of Betty, Anaïs, Noochka, Manon, and Barty. They have all ventured into the world of selling sexual content online. What pushes someone to take the step of signing up on these platforms? What are their motivations? What are the consequences on their personal lives? Why do some choose to stick with it for years, while others decide to stop for good?

The viewpoints of women from a country that no longer exists preserved on low-band U-matic tape. GDR-FRG. Courageous, self-confident and emancipated: female industry workers talk about gaining autonomy.

In 1945, the second- and third-year students of a Hiroshima girls' school are taken away to work in war factories. The remaining 220 girls of the first year try to make the best of their new-found status as the only teenagers in an almost deserted town, even amid the deprivations of wartime. On the seventh of August, an American bomber changes their lives forever. Broadcast on the 43rd anniversary of Hiroshima in memory of "the girls who lost their lives to the atom bomb." (Source: Anime Encyclopedia)