On The Side

Investigating slavery in Canada through the story of Marie-Josèphe Angélique, a Black slave accused of burning Montreal in 1734. After an epic trial, this untameable slave is tortured and sentenced to death. But was she really guilty of this crime or was she the victim of a bigger conspiracy? Why this voluntary amnesia about this unknown page of Canadian history?

Welcome to Africville gives voice to what may have been marginalized members of an Afro-Canadian community in 1969. It's intention is to be a catalyst to thought and reflection about the lives and struggles of people from that community whose stories still go untold. It is the fictional account of a family. We listen to the stories of three generations of women and their friend Julius on the day their community is to be destroyed by the municipal government of Halifax. This story is a portrait of four individuals coping with universal uncertainties and insecurities.

In 1968, five girls from Tuscany who dreamt of seeing the world were offered to tour the Far East as an all-girl band, finding themselves in the middle of the Vietnam War. Fifty years later, they tell the story of Le Stars' adventure amongst American soldiers, remote jungle bases and soul music.

The Amazon plays a vital part in regulating the planet's temperature. Yet, last year, forest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon soared by 85 per cent. Illegal logging and slash-and-burn agriculture are decimating the land. With huge profits to be made, the Amazon is a dangerous place to ask questions. Despite the threat, the Amazonian tribes want the world to hear their message.

With Olin's 85-year-old father as guide, we experience Norway's most adventurous valley, Oldedalen in Nordfjord. He grew up here, and here generations before him have lived in balance with nature.

Documents Ku Klux Klan activities in California, Georgia, Chicago, and Ohio.

"I've often wondered what makes beauty" - So says Monique Miller who personifies in this short documentary universal woman, anxious to please since childhood, vulnerable, according to the hours, to the eyes of others, to torture from the wait, to the obsession of the wrinkles of tomorrow.

Upending expectations and challenging the definition of womanhood, these “first women” found themselves at the forefront of progressive movements, organizing campaigns and leading paths to cultural change. Female historians share the names and stories of five of these pioneers: Martha Hughes Cannon, Jovita Idár, Jeannette Rankin, Mary Church Terrell and Zitkála-Šá.

Strasbourg was home to one of three Reich Universities founded by the Nazis, known as a project close to Hitler's heart. The university, founded in 1941, is infamous for the human experiments performed on KZ prisoners by the professors of the medical faculty. What did its dean, Johannes Stein, grandfather of documentarian Kirsten Esch, know of these crimes?

In 1988, 20-year-old Kirsi Marie Liimatainen travels from Finland to the GDR, to study Marxism-Leninism at the International Youth Academy. In summer of´89 the course ends and the students spread out over the world. Afew months later, the Berlin Wall falls. 24 years later Kirsi, sets out on a cinematic journey to Nicaragua, South Africa, Chile, Bolivia, Lebanon, Germany and Finland to meet up once more with her former fellow students. What remains of their dream of the liberation of the oppressed?

Jorge de Sena was forced to leave his country. First he moved to Brazil, and later to the USA. He never returned to Portugal. During his 20-year-long exile, he kept an epistolary correspondence with Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen. These letters are a testimony of the profound friendship between the two poets, letters of longing and of desire to “fill years of distance with hours of conversation”. Through excerpts and verses, a dialog is established, revealing their divergent opinions but mostly their strong bond, and their efforts to preserve it until their last breaths.

An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.

The Indians that the British failed to subdue were called "born criminals" and were parked in camps. Yolande Zauberman's film tells the story of a family. The grandparents, Hira Bai and Serjian, grew up in the jungle. This is where their tribes lived, which the British were unable to subdue.

An Iranian man and a French woman stroll around the city of Isfahan, Iran and find that their love is mirrored perfectly in the architecture and mosaics of the city's mosques.

Around the world, multinationals are taking advantage of carbon credits to allow them to burn their waste. Beneath the system’s environment-friendly veneer, entire ecosystems are under siege, human populations are in economic crisis, and greenhouse gases keep spewing into the atmosphere. Three years after making MYTHS FOR PROFIT, activist filmmaker Amy Miller follows up with this ambitious documentary (filmed on four continents) – a bold, highly intelligent work on the dark underbelly of green business. Even while working on a grand scale, she creates intimate portraits of numerous communities, never forgetting that global issues always affect individual lives. An essential appeal to conscience.

A film shot during the summer of 1968 in Oakland, California around the meetings organised by the Black Panthers Party to free Huey Newton, one of their leaders, and to turn his trial into a political debate. They tried and succeeded in catching America’s attention.

A photo montage of Cubans filmed by Agnès Varda during her visit to Cuba in 1963, four years after Fidel Castro came to power. This black & white documentary explores their socialist culture and society while making use of 1500 pictures (out of 4000!) the filmmaker took while on the island.

Documentary on the life and accomplishments of the members of this uniquely talented musical family. The film focuses on the Figueroa family’s history within the context of its creative universe, dating back to the 19th century. Through the use of photographs, historic film footage, recordings, sheet music, newspaper clippings, and posters, the musical trajectory of the family is brought to life and their role in transforming the musical history of Puerto Rico and the world is portrayed.

From dreamy aerial opening shots, we are sent on an expedition through the storied land of our fifth most populous state, Illinois, often called a miniature version of America. Deborah Stratman’s experimental documentary explores how physical landscapes and human politics can each re-interpret historical events. Eleven parables relay histories of settlement, removal, technological breakthrough, violence, messianism, and resistance. Who gets to write history—physical monuments, official news accounts, or personal spoken-word memories?

Margreth Olin has filmed 22 persons i their meeting with the well known voluntary healer Joralf Gjerstad. For 65 years more than 50.000 has gone to him to be healed from illnesses and ill-doings. He has never asked for a penny for this