Nine fictitious documentaries and films reflect the mood of late 1970s Germany, particularly the two-month period in 1977 when a businessman was kidnapped by the RAF (Red Army Faction). The kidnap had been made to orchestrate the release of the original leaders of the RAF, aka the Baader-Meinhof.
Mögöbalu, Les Maîtres des Tambours d'Afrique
The story of Kenyan athlete David Rudisha, the greatest 800m runner the world has ever seen, and his unusual coach, the Irish Catholic missionary Brother Colm O'Connell.
Le Goût de la savane : Herbivores et carnivores, festins croisés
Albert Camus died at 46 years old on January 4, 1960, two years after his Nobel Prize in literature. Author of “L'Etranger”, one of the most widely read novels in the world, philosopher of the absurd and of revolt, resistant, journalist, playwright, Albert Camus had an extraordinary destiny. Child of the poor districts of Algiers, tuberculosis patient, orphan of father, son of an illiterate and deaf mother, he tore himself away from his condition thanks to his teacher. French from Algeria, he never ceased to fight for equality with the Arabs and the Kabyle, while fearing the Independence of the FLN. Founded on restored and colorized archives, and first-hand accounts, this documentary attempts to paint the portrait of Camus as he was.
In the 18th century, the Barbary threat became serious. In July 1785, two American boats were returned to Algiers; In the winter of 1793, eleven American ships, their crews in chains, were in the hands of the dey of Algiers. To ensure the freedom of movement of its commercial fleet, the United States was obliged to conclude treaties with the main Barbary states, paying considerable sums of money as a guarantee of non-aggression. With Morocco, treaty of 1786, 30,000 dollars; Tripoli, November 4, 1796, $56,000; Tunis, August 1797, 107,000 dollars. But the most expensive and the most humiliating was with the dey of Algiers, on September 5, 1795, “treaty of peace and friendship” which cost nearly a million dollars (including 525,000 in ransom for freed American slaves). , with an obligation to pay 20,000 dollars upon the arrival of each new consul and 17,000 dollars in annual gifts to senior Algerian officials...
An ethnographic documentary following four Ju/’hoansi (!Kung) men during a multi-day giraffe hunt in the Kalahari Desert, filmed during the Smithsonian–Harvard Peabody expedition of 1952–53.
This fascinating film tells the story of one man's struggle to protect a small population of gorillas on the slopes of Mount Kahuzi in Zaire and of his incredible relationship with Kasimir, the great silver-backed male, and his family.
Rites and operation of the circumcision of thirty Songhai children on the Niger. Material of this film has been used to make "Les Fils de l'Eau".
This 17-minute documentary is featured on the 3-Disc Criterion Collection DVD of The Battle of Algiers (1966), released in 2004. An in-depth look at the Battle of Algiers through the eyes of five established and accomplished filmmakers; Spike Lee, Steven Soderbergh, Oliver Stone, Julian Schnabel and Mira Nair. They discuss how the shots, cinematography, set design, sound and editing directly influenced their own work and how the film's sequences look incredibly realistic, despite the claim that everything in the film was staged .
In the remote village of El Echo that exists outside of time, the children care for the sheep and their elders. While the frost and drought punish the land, they learn to understand death, illness and love with each act, word and silence of their parents. A story about the echo of what clings to the soul, about the certainty of shelter provided by those around us, about rebellion and vertigo in the face of life. About growing up.
Extravíos
Every year, on the steppes of the Serengeti, the most spectacular migration of animals on our planet: Around two million wildebeest, Burchell's zebra and Thomson's gazelles begin their tour of nearly 2,000 miles across the almost treeless savannah. For the first time, a documentary captures stunning footage in the midst of this demanding journey. The documentary starts at the beginning of the year, when more than two million animals gather in the shadow of the volcanoes on the southern edge of the Serengeti in order to birth their offspring. In just two weeks, the animal herd's population has increased by one third, and after only two days, the calves can already run as fast as the adults The young wildebeest in this phase of their life are the most vulnerable to attacks by lions, cheetahs, leopards or hyenas. The film then follows the survivors of these attacks through the next three months on their incredible journey, a trip so long that 200,000 wildebeest will not reach the end.
Algérie 1988-2000 : Autopsie d'une tragédie
Between 1954-1962, one hundred to three hundred young French people refused to participate in the Algerian war. These rebels, soldiers or conscripts were non-violent or anti-colonialists. Some took refuge in Switzerland where Swiss citizens came to their aid, while in France they were condemned as traitors to the country. In 1962, a few months after Independence, Villi Hermann went to a region devastated by war near the Algerian-Moroccan border, to help rebuild a school. In 2016 he returned to Algeria and reunited with his former students. He also met French refractories, now living in France or Switzerland.
In this film, four key witnesses, who live in Algeria today, as full-fledged Agerians, show us what this colonization was really like, so "beneficial" that they themselves perceived it as the oppression of one people by another. Three of them, who today would be called "pieds noirs," in other words, those Europeans to whom France, the occupying power, gave the best land, taken from the indigenous populations, work, and exclusive rights, not shared by the entire population, lived rather well compared to the majority of the "natives." The fourth was far from all that and lived in Argentina. Annie Steiner, Felix Colozzi, Pierre Chaulet, and Roberto Muniz explain to us what led them to show solidarity with the struggle of the weak, the humiliated, and to risk their freedom and their lives by committing to liberate Algeria.
Pink Tokyo
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.
After seven years in prison, a female student in Tehran is hanged for murder. She had acted in self-defence against a rapist. For a pardon, she would have had to retract her testimony. This moving film reopens the case.
Ten years ago, the paths of Abou, Laura, Cadiatou and Jacques have crossed Emmanuelle’s. She was their French teacher at a high school in Marseille. Together they took part in a film, Children of the Princess of Cleves, in which, while analyzing the classic text, they expressed their hopes, dreams, and fears. In En Nous, the director re-connects with the protagonists : memories blend with stories of their lives and the daily obstacles they must overcome whilst trying not to lose hope. Now, the sentence of the Princess of Cleves rings poignantly true: “I know nothing can be more difficult than what I undertake”.