Byaase Sunucha

A Japanese man and a gay bar-owner in Hong Kong drink beer as they talk about their childhood and experiences.

It Ain't Necessarily So captures a budding Japanese jazz singer and her biracial vocal instructor who struggle to agree on the proper way to sing Gershwin’s “I Loves You Porgy.” Humor is no stranger to jazz singers Eiko Katayama and Kazue Hiraoka who star alongside Masa Fox, their English teacher. "Master at capturing hyper-awkward moments... brilliantly explore how representations of culture and identity ain’t necessarily how they appear." --Wilda Wong, San Diego Asian Film Festival

After an unprecedented global pandemic has turned the majority of humankind into violent infected beings, Morgan, a man gifted with the ability to speak the infected's new language, leads the last survivors on a hunt for patient zero and a cure.

The aging, conservative population of a small, sleepy village in the Italian Alps are surprised to see that a former French professor has settled there with his young wife and their three children to produce goat cheese, in order to escape the wrongs of civilization. At first they are suspicious of his unconventional ideas and lifestyle, then are conquered by the enthusiasm, kindness, helpfulness of the young family and start to see in them a possible rebirth of the place. But little by little misunderstandings, envy and conflicts take over.

Come back to this day, next year. Ain't nothing, chief.

In a world embracing change, Ajeng distances herself from her Javanese roots. She explores the consequences as she grapples with the clash between tradition and modernity. "Wicanten" is a poignant reflection on the evolving dynamics of language and its profound impact on personal and cultural connections.

An exiled poet returns to his native homeland of Pangasinan province after many years of absence. Through a mystical soul journey, he reclaims his primal connection to the water (danum), to the land (dalin), and to the people (katooan) where in the end he finds a home to anchor his wandering soul.

In the middle of a French exam, 17 year old Charlie struggles to find the words to be true to himself…and his best friend.

Taking place after alien crafts land around the world, an expert linguist is recruited by the military to determine whether they come in peace or are a threat.

dadme la muerte que me falta

Osman can understand his mother tongue, Kurdish, but cannot speak it, and he speaks Turkish, which happens to be his second language, but cannot understand it. As a result of this condition of his, Osman starts to fail at handling two concurrent tasks. Just like he cannot respond to his patrons while he is working, he cannot engage in a conversation with his friends whilst they are having coffee together. Even though he wants to get married, he fails at sustaining a long-term relationship with women whom he meets. Osman’s life starts to change after a customer tells him that she could help him with his obsession.

Be. Belonging. Words on vintage flash cards shuffle past in a stream-of-consciousness that shows the mind working, assigning labels and names to things through love and language. In the space of a moment, perception embarks on an epic journey of tongues, through Cantonese and English sounds and Ektachrome memories that form the characters and identity of this American-born Asian filmmaker.

Ulivia explores what is accessible via the Internet in relation to Inuktitut. A complex language with several dialects which varies from one generation to the next. Inuktitut is threatened by dominant languages. Are there solutions so that these technologies are allies and not enemies?

"Mother Tongue" chronicles the first time a documentary film about Guatemalan genocide in Guatemala was translated and dubbed into Maya-Ixil—5.5% of whom were killed during the armed conflict in the 1980s. Told from the perspective of Matilde Terraza, an emerging Ixil leader and the translation project’s coordinator, "Mother Tongue" illuminates the Ixil community’s ongoing work to preserve collective memory.

I speak français

This short documentary examines an innovative educational program developed by John and Gerti Murdoch to teach Cree children their language via Cree folklore, photographs, artifacts, and books that were written and printed in the community. Made as part of the NFB’s groundbreaking Challenge for Change series, Cree Way shows that local control of the education curriculum has a place in Indigenous communities.

Secessionnist movements in Canada outside Quebec.

The Cherokee language is deeply tied to Cherokee identity; yet generations of assimilation efforts by the U.S. government and anti-Indigenous stigmas have forced the Tri-Council of Cherokee tribes to declare a State of Emergency for the language in 2019. While there are 430,000 Cherokee citizens in the three federally recognized tribes, fewer than an estimated 2,000 fluent speakers remain—the majority of whom are elderly. The covid pandemic has unfortunately hastened the course. Language activists, artists, and the youth must now lead the charge of urgent radical revitalization efforts to help save the language from the brink of extinction.

Taqralik Partridge asks what if every language that had been lost to English — every word, every syllable — grew up out of the ground in flowers? Taqralik’s grandmother’s Scottish Gaelic and her father’s Inuktitut unfold in memories of her family, of pain, and of love.

They just arrived in France. They are Irish, Serbs, Brazilians Tunisians, Chinese and Senegalese ... For a year, Julie Bertuccelli filmed talks, conflicts and joys of this group of students aged 11 to 15 years, together in the same class to learn French.