contrafluxo

October 7, 2023: Hamas terrorists attack Israel, murder and take hostages. Israel reacts with severity. The goal: the destruction of Hamas. But with the war in Gaza, Israel is awakening the great trauma of the Palestinians: the expulsion of 1948. How can the lack of empathy on both sides be explained?

Documentary film about the discrimination against zainichi, directed by Yoshihiko Okamoto.

Algériennes, Trente ans après

On September 16, 2022, in Teheran, the murder by police of the young Mahsa Amini, arrested for "wearing a headscarf contrary to the law", sparked off an unprecedented insurrection. Within hours, a spontaneous movement formed around the rallying cry: "Woman, life, freedom". For the first time, women, joined by men and students, took the initiative and removed their veils, the hated symbol of the Islamic Republic. The Iranian population, from all regions and social categories, rose up in protest. Social networks went wild. The diaspora (between 5–8 million Iranians) took up the cause, and the whole world discovered the scale of this mobilization: could the theocratic regime be overthrown this time?

What does the looming A.I. revolution mean for us as individuals and as a society?

In this short documentary, filmmaker Aidan Porier asks his friends what it means to be human. Here's what they said...

After Paul Oakenfold and Tiësto lift DJs to rock star icons, a new generation wrestles with excesses that threaten to upend a musical movement. Festivals replace raves, EDM "drops" take over, a company goes bankrupt and DJs "press play."

A Black American is troubled by the legacy of American slavery and the misuse of Christianity to justify it. He travels throughout Texas discovering how the Juneteenth reveals faith and a fight for freedom in an unjust society.

What would American democracy look like in the hands of teenage girls? In this documentary, young female leaders from wildly different backgrounds in Missouri navigate an immersive experiment to build a government from the ground up.

The story of young Afghan girls learning to read, write and skateboard in Kabul.

39/45 : Amours interdites

Le Théorème de Sadeck

From the moment we got engaged and set a wedding date, we began thinking about the reasons we chose one another. What was so special about this relationship that we decided to spend our lives together? Would our love be the same if we were born in another time or at another place? What is love exactly? Driven by those questions, we decided to embark on a one year journey around the world to research whether love, one of the highest values in our lives, is universal, or it is completely conditioned by the circumstances around us.

An Okinawan photographer, Mao Ishikawa spent her early 20s working as a barmaid in establishments catered specifically to African American GIs stationed in Okinawa. “There was love,” as the tagline reads, her photography book, 『Red Flower – The Women of Okinawa』 captured the diaristic intimacy of friendships, love affairs, and wild nights shared amongst her social circle of that time.

A poetic and personal cinematic meditation on displacement and loss, SKIN OF GLASS follows filmmaker Denise Zmekhol’s journey after discovering that her late father's most celebrated work as an architect, a modernist glass skyscraper in the heart of São Paulo, Brazil, has become occupied by hundreds of homeless families.

Palermo, Sicily, Italy, 2017. Twenty-five years after the murders of anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone, on May 23, 1992, and Paolo Borsellino, on July 19, 1992; and on the occasion of the tributes held in memory of both heroes, skeptical photographer Letizia Battaglia, chronicler of their titanic combat, criticizes the opportunism of shady characters who, like businessman Ciccio Mira, profit from the commemoration of both tragedies.

Marina Carrère d'Encausse lifts the veil on the intimate questions that preoccupy her as well as society at large: those related to the end of life. The doctor-journalist introduces Antoine, her partner, who is suffering from Charcot's disease, an incurable illness, and who wishes to choose how he ends his life. Is the current law in France sufficient? Should it simply be better enforced, allowing better access to palliative care? Should assisted suicide and euthanasia be legalized? Marina meets with patients concerned about the end of life, caregivers, and politicians in France, as well as in Belgium, Switzerland, and Canada, countries where euthanasia and assisted suicide are legal.

October 1st, 1957. Dusk descends on Tiananmen Square, Peking. Fireworks crackle light across the night sky, above a city alive with National Day festivities and celebrations. Two intrepid New Zealand film-makers - Rudall and Ramai Te Miha Hayward - are there, documenting the life and times of communist China. The distinction of being the first English speaking foreigners to film unfettered in communist China was significant. The invitation to visit China was facilitated through the New Zealand China Friendship Society. They filmed in Canton, Shanghai, Peking (Beijing) and Wuhan. It was a small window of opportunity for Westerners to gaze on a country that was largely a mystery to the outside world since 1949. The unfortunate irony was that two of the documentaries; “Wonders of China”, and “Inside Red China”, were considered to be communist propaganda, and were not distributed outside of New Zealand.

In the 1920s, former coal miner Harry Hoxsey claimed to have an herbal cure for cancer. Although scoffed at and ultimately banned by the medical establishment, by the 1950s, Hoxsey's formula had been used to treat thousands of patients, who testified to its efficacy. Was Hoxsey's recipe the work of a snake-oil charlatan or a legitimate treatment? Ken Ausubel directs this keen look into the forces that shape the policies of organized medicine.

What could a person gain by cycling across Canada? The cyclists on this trek know nothing about cycling. It is clear from the start that a lot of learning will take place throughout the seven-week journey this summer. The elements of wind, sun, spandex and road construction tame the wildest spirits on the team. Everyone has a wall to go through, but how badly does each one want to smash through it. Does the fear of what lies on the other side prevent someone from finishing the trip?