In the run-up to parliamentary elections in mid-October, Polish filmmaker Marcin Wierzchowski travelled across his country to gauge the atmosphere in a society that is more divided than ever.
An immigrant worker at a pickle factory is accidentally preserved for 100 years and wakes up in modern day Brooklyn. He learns his only surviving relative is his great grandson, a computer coder who he can’t connect with.
Michael Spurlock decides to trade in his corporate sales career to become a pastor. Unfortunately, his first assignment is to close a country church and sell the prime piece of land where it sits. He soon has a change of heart when the church starts to welcome refugees from Burma. Spurlock now finds himself working with the refugees to turn the land into a working farm to pay the church's bills.
"The Boy Of The Fish" follows Noon, a young boy living in a Syrian refugee camp, who finds solace and a sense of freedom in a whale-shaped doll he names "Bahr." Set against the challenging realities of camp life, Noon’s journey is both a story of resilience and a testament to the boundless imagination of childhood. Through vivid symbolism and a unique soundscape, the film explores themes of loss, hope, and the longing for freedom amidst confinement. Shot entirely on an iPhone due to restrictions in the conflict zone, the film combines raw authenticity with poetic depth to capture the emotional landscape of a young soul navigating adversity.
Ali, a Kurdish refugee, travels to Athens in search of his missing brother. He discovers that his brother paid to be smuggled into Italy but then disappeared, so Ali tries to find his brother and get his way into Italy.
Cousins Chatila and Reda are saving to pay for fake passports to get out of Athens. When Reda loses their hard-earned cash to his drug addiction, Chatila hatches an extreme plan to pose as smugglers in an attempt to get them out of their desperate situation before it is too late.
By a little bay near Marseille lies a picturesque villa owned by an old man. His three children have gathered by his side for his last days. It’s time for them to weigh up what they have inherited of their father’s ideals and the community spirit he created in this magical place. The arrival, at a nearby cove, of a group of boat people will throw these moments of reflection into turmoil.
Refugees are captured by border patrol officers as one woman escapes to find herself surviving on her own in a foreign land.
A movie about sinners and their quest for salvation. But God is hard to find.
Hopsa Heisasa
After a Palestinian teen confronts Israeli soldiers at a West Bank protest, his mother recounts the series of events that led him to that fateful moment, starting with his grandfather’s forced displacement.
We meet ornithologist Anna in 1994 just as genocide is raging in Rwanda, perpetrated by the majority Hutus against the Tutsis. Anna manages to save the daughter of a colleague whose family has been murdered, and she takes her to Poland. But the woman returns to Rwanda to visit the graves of her loved ones. The director originally worked on the movie with her husband Krzysztof Krauze (My Nikifor – Crystal Globe, KVIFF 2005), but after his death in 2014 she eventually finished this challenging picture alone.
On January 10th, the investigative editorial team of CORRECTIV published research into a secret meeting of right-wing extremists, which no one was supposed to know about and which led to demonstrations and protests all over Germany. AfD politicians, CDU politicians, members of the WerteUnion, neo-Nazis and financially strong entrepreneurs came together in November 2023 in a hotel near Potsdam near the Villa on Wannsee, where the “final solution to the Jewish question” was once decided. They met to debate to expel millions of people from Germany, including non-German citizens with a migration background, as well as German citizens with a migration background and German citizens without a migration background who do not want to adapt to the ideological worldviews of those present. On January 17, 2024, the research premiered in the Berliner Ensemble as a staged reading with a political satirical character.
When a convicted felon fails to return from his prison leave and a young woman is found murdered, forensic psychiatrist Roman Mettler finds himself fighting for his existence. It was him who had composed the report permitting the leave.
A lonely boy, who lives in Amsterdam with his refugee mother from Kosovo, keeps getting into trouble while yearning for her acceptance. But the traumas caused by the war, which his mother hides away from him, turn his world upside down.
Anna, a young photojournalist from Berlin, travels to Serbia to make a photo documentary about refugees. Upon her arrival to Belgrade, Serbia's capital, Anna finds out that she can't go about her task the way she had planned. Through the cabdriver Dzeki, she meets the distrustful but interesting young refugee Maja who works at a nearby fast food restaurant. Miserable with her life in Serbia, Maja dreams of a new beginning somewhere abroad. In an attempt to successfully finish her project, Anna starts photographing Maja, secretly making a documentary about her. Blinded by the wish to change her life, Maja doesn't realize Anna's true intentions.
Orphaned in Africa as a child, Lilly escapes to England as a refugee, fleeing civil war in Ethiopia. Lost in this cold new world, Lilly embraces the immigrant community in London, attempting to reunite people with their scattered families. But as her friend Amina discovers, Lilly's mission isn't purely selfless: a passionate lost love affair is revealed.
July 1972 in Iran. Mohammed is arrested for illegal spreading of flyers. He is put in jail and tortured. After one year he is released and flees to Sweden. He arrives at a refugee camp where he is taught Swedish. He is surrounded by people without hope.
Fortuna, a 14-year-old Ethiopian girl, has had no news of her parents since they crossed the Mediterranean Sea. Together with other refugees, she is given shelter for the winter in a Swiss catholic monastery. While she waits for her fate to be decided by the Swiss authorities, Fortuna finds out she is pregnant. The choice she will have to make and the arrival of the refugees will give rise to concern within the religious community and will challenge their concept of Christian charity.
Our once beautiful homeland had become uninhabitable. Too dangerous to walk the streets, drive a car, visit friends. Many had already left Syria. Risking their lives on the open water. Giving all we had to the ruthless, opportunists who trade in the currency of human misery. We all spent what little money we had to reach anywhere, a safe place, a new life away from the bloodshed, the bombing, the murder. Europe was meant to offer us hope. Yet the borders closed one by one. We gave up everything, left all we had behind. Living on hand outs, with no shelter, no money and now no hope. I am here, trapped in Calais Jungle. I don’t know where my wife is. The police treat us like animals. They beat us and spray us with teargas everyday. We cannot move forward, we cannot go back. We have to get out of here. I look into the eyes on this camp and I can see it; The blank emptiness of desperation. In another life I was a teacher. Now I’m a refugee. My name is Adnan.