It’s the last dictatorship of Europe, caught in a Soviet time-warp, where the secret police is still called the KGB and the president rules by fear. Disappearances, political assassinations, waves of repression and mass arrests are all regular occurances. But while half of Belarus moves closer to Russia, the other half is trying to resist…
David Olusoga opens secret government files to show how the Windrush scandal and the ‘hostile environment’ for black British immigrants has been 70 years in the making.
One of the most striking contemporary Czech film-makers and literary figures, twice over winner of the Magnesia Litera Award, Martin Rysavý, is himself the central character of his new, philosophically tinged travelogue. He takes part in the Ukrainian Maidan, takes the Trans-Siberian Express across Russia, sails down the Kolyma river, comes across nomadic reindeer herdsmen, soldiers, mystics, artists and scholars. He tries to comprehend the present situation of two feuding countries of the former Soviet empire. The film's framework forms the director's conversation with a Prague optician, Jakub Thuri, shot during the director's check-up. Using travel materials on top, it allows a peep inside a traveller's consciousness wandering in recollections and trails of sensory perceptions from expeditions to far-away lands and finding a way how to grasp them, put them in order and pass them on.
Laika, a stray dog, was the first living being to be sent into space and thus to a certain death. A legend says that she returned to Earth as a ghost and still roams the streets of Moscow alongside her free-drifting descendants. While shooting this film, the directors little by little realised that they knew the street dogs only as part of our human world; they have never looked at humans as a part of the dogs’ world.
Moscow, Russia, December 2016. Edward Snowden, Larry Lessig and Birgitta Jónsdóttir meet for the first time in a secret place. Apparently, Russia is interfering in the US presidential elections while it mourns the death of its ambassador to Turkey. Snowden carefully chooses his interviews, so nobody really knows something about him. As the world prepares for Christmas, they gather to discuss the only issue that matters, their common struggle: how to save democracy.
A Liberian refugee SAM REAYAH and his family have been separated for five years and live in uncertainty waiting for family reunion. While Sam and his younger daughter Ruth continue their lives in Buduburam Refugee camp in Ghana, his wife Decontee and his older daughter Joyce have already started a life in Rochester, USA. The film explores the idea of home. Sam's family had a home in Liberia, but they had to give it up. They were forced to build homes elsewhere. They built a home in Ghana. They build a home in The United States. They built homes together, they build homes separate of each other. But which home does the heart want?
Starting in 1881 this film shows the personal battle between Lenin's Ulyanov family and the royal Romanovs that eventually led to the Russian revolution.
At the peak of Perestroika, in 1987, in the village of Gorki, where Lenin spent his last years, after a long construction, the last and most grandiose museum of the Leader was opened. Soon after the opening, the ideology changed, and the flow of pilgrims gradually dried up. Despite this, the museum still works and the management is looking for ways to attract visitors. Faithful to the Lenin keepers of the museum as they can resist the onset of commercialization. The film tells about the modern life of this amazing museum-reserve and its employees.
A computer screen, images from the four corners of the world. We cross borders in one-click while another trip’s story reach us in bits, through text messages, chats, phone conversations, and an immigration office’s questionnaire. It’s the journey of Shahin, a 20-year-old Iranian boy who, fleeing his country alone, lands in Greece, then winds his way to England where he claims asylum.
Young, inexperienced members of the Dutch Boarder Patrol undergo an intensive training on escorting refused asylum seekers to their homeland.
"Take my love" is a documentary film about "Las Patronas", a group of women who daily cook, pack and throw food to the migrants riding the "Beast" train.
Documentary that shows the changing attitude towards immigrant labor in The Netherlands. The documentary follows three immigrants that arrived in Holland 30 years ago to work in a bakery.
Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.
Fearing for their lives, Afshin, Alain and Patricia fled their country, without their parents, when they were only children. They had to start all over here in Canada in the hope of a better life. Combining real shooting and animated cinema, "Alone" bears the imprint of hope: how does a child manage to rebuild himself in a new country, when he has left everything behind?
The lifestyle, self-styling and political opinions of Chechen dictator Ramsan Kadyrov are examined in this documentary.
Traces the new Cold War between Russia and the West from the ban on American citizens adopting Russian children to the Kremlin’s anti-LGBTQ campaign, which positions the international marriage equality movement as a national threat.
In the 1930’s, the workers of the underground, headed by brigades of writers, are in charge to write in real time "the history of the Moscow Metro". Based on their narratives, partially unpublished, the film recounts the first lines construction of the most beautifiul underground in the world, in the light of this "big literary Utopia", stoped by the purges of 1937-38.
In 1966, Deann Borshay Liem was adopted by an American family and sent from Korea to her new home in California. There, the memory of her birth family was nearly obliterated, until recurring dreams led her to investigate her own past, and she discovered that her Korean mother was very much alive. Bravely uniting her biological and adoptive families, Borshay Liem embarks on a heartfelt journey in this acclaimed film that first premiered on POV in 2000. First Person Plural is a poignant essay on family, loss and the reconciling of two identities.
Canada as a refuge for LBGTQ+ immigrants: Yazan from Iraq, Nata from Central Africa, Aida from Iran and Eilyn from Colombia all had to flee their homelands, where violence, threats, hate and rejection prevented them from living their lives and expressing their sexual orientation openly. All they wanted was to be free. From Beirut to Montreal, Quebec City or Vancouver, this ensemble documentary follows the journeys of four people who are determined to change their future. From the terrifying realities they had to flee to the heartbreaking sacrifices they were forced to make, Renaître is a vibrant and luminous tribute to their quiet strength.
"From Mexico to Vietnam: A Chicano Story" is an inspiring documentary that chronicles the life of Jesus S. Duran, a Mexican immigrant who became a decorated U.S. Army soldier during the Vietnam War. Born in Juarez, Mexico, Duran moved to the United States as a child and enlisted in the Army in 1968. On April 10, 1969, while serving as an M-60 machine gunner with Company E, 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), he displayed extraordinary bravery by rescuing several wounded comrades during an intense enemy ambush in Tay Ninh, Vietnam. His valorous actions led to a posthumous Medal of Honor by President Barack Obama. Directed by Andrés Gallegos, the film delves into Duran's personal journey, his family's migration from Mexico, and the broader impact of the Vietnam War on the Chicano and Latino communities.