Em Trânsito is a reflexion on the growing number of cars in Recife, Northeast Brazil, used by the political speech to exemplify progress and happiness, though in fact it only affects the usage of space and the life of the people ‚ those who have and those who do not have a car.
La Reina, a child beauty queen who endures difficult preparations in order to become the prettiest and win the crown.
Sangue na Guelra is about PROJECT 12/15 created by the Intercultural School of Amadora in a suburb of Lisbon to fight the dropout of sixty young people between 12 and 15 years, divided into four classes. The documentary was shot between January and June 2013 and without sentimentality or sensationalism shows the journey of these young people in the school which gives them a last chance to acquire a minimum of basic knowledge. Through the film, we discover the relationship and the conflicts they have with each other and with their teachers. The humanistic aspect has been privileged in a documentary that seeks to engage the viewer directly into reality through aesthetics without artifice.
Vannacht worden we wrouwen is about two young girls, best friends who, during their pyjama parties, say they will never change; but they are in an changing age; will their friendship change along with the transformations of their bodies and minds?
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Village Modèle é inspirado na cidade propaganda norte-coreana de Kijong-dong, onde até 2004 havia transmissões em gigantes altifalantes durante cerca de 20 horas por dia com propaganda; uma cidade que se julga ser uma cidade fantasma, criada para impressionar os vizinhos do Sul.
La Voce di Berlinguer reproduces the speech that the mythical leader of the Italian Communist Party gave in Turin, in 1981, where he mentioned the need to restructure the morals of the state and the happiness of the people; an intelligent and powerful speech that makes even more sense today.
Pipeline is a film about modern Europe, about two of its edges, or to put it more precisely ‚ two of its extremes. This is a film about Europe, which spans from the barren land of eternal winters of Siberia to the complaisant Bay of Biscay, where even the laws of nature form fundamentally different paradigms of human existence. What can possibly connect such ostensibly different lives? Tangibly, it does so through the pipeline “Western Siberia ‚ Western Europe”. The pipeline has, however, not only connected but also inextricably merged “this” Russia with “that” Europe.
In 1975, Pasolini had already mentioned the Disappearance of the Fireflies and the imminent triumph of the Castle of Lies. Forty years later, French director Vincent Dieutre travels to Sicily for the first time looking for a new political hope. This documentary shows places, words, and bodies looking for the surviving fireflies. Here, Sicily isn’t a remote place but part of the contemporary complexity that blends the Internet with the new landscapes of love, the illegal migrants and the touristic shores on the south. Sicily seen as a metaphor of what is Europe today.
In 1869, John McGregor, a Scottish explorer, set out on a journey along the Jordan River from its source to the Sea of Galilee aiming for a personal transformation that would come out of the passage through the Holly Land. In the summer of 2011, the Israeli directors Effi Weiss and Amir Borenstein retraced McGregor’s steps and found mostly tourists and vacationers along the river’s path. The varied encounters, view of the landscape, and random conversations raised questions of kinship and ownership, closeness and distance, and the ability ‚ or inability ‚ to see the place through the biographical and ideological veils that have shaped us.
Teenagers at a secondary school in the Canadian provinces. A time between childhood and adulthood where boundaries are tested and overstepped. This particular aspect of their daily reality ‚ breaking rules, discipline problems at school and conflicts with other students ‚ shine through in the long conversations conducted between the adolescents and their social workers. School is also where they have moral guidelines for how to live together in society laid out for them. The film’s own approach has nothing to do with social education however. Its calmly observed conversations and carefully composed images of the teenagers in their free time articulate a sense of interest and empathy for this odd period in life.
2011 12 30, a date; a woman draws the outline of her body on a wall to say something we’ll only understand at the very end.
A documentary portrait of the Gare du Nord. Countless people pass through the station and cross it, whether they come from the Paris suburbs, provincial France or abroad. The film, like the station, is the locus of fleeting encounters in which each person relates his or her life in a few words before taking a train and vanishing. In it the crowd of travellers comes to life through intersecting stories, one life then another, while globalisation forges destinies subjected to geography and the economy
Blending fiction with documentary form Denis Côté visits those who get their hands dirty in a sort of blue collar, ethnographic study of different hoods and job titles. The result is an open-ended exploration of the energies and rituals of various workplaces. From one worker to another and one machine to the next; hands, faces, breaks, toil: what kind of absurdist, abstract dialogue can be started between human beings and their need to work? What is the value of the time we spend multiplying and repeating the same motions that ultimately lead to a rest ‚ a state of repose whose quality defies definition?
Bambi was born in a small village in Algeria, in 1935, in the body of a boy named Jean-Pierre Pruvot. In the 50s, as Cabaret Carrousel de Paris travelled to Alger for a performance, she took the opportunity to migrate to France where she began using her stage name ‚ Bambi. In Paris she was part of the vibrant night life of the cabarets in town. Now aged 77, Bambi remembers the life of a transsexual then, her friendships, the scandals and a surprising encounter with the love of her life. A story of rejection and courage documented with an impressive number of photographs and archive films.
Bim Bam Boom Las Luchas Morenas, is about three Mexican sisters, professional wrestlers, whose lives, lived according to their own ideas, are a struggle but also a lot fun.
The Arab Spring is in Crop told by someone who hasn’t lived it in loco, a photojournalist from the biggest newspaper in Egypt, Al-Ahram, who was in the hospital and has only seen what was broadcasted on TV; entirely shot within the building of the newspaper, we hear the narrator telling us about the story of the country from the images and the power of its use.
It took Mehran Tamadon, Iranian filmmaker exiled in France, laic and an atheist, three years to persuade four compatriots, advocates of the Iranian regime, to spend a few days with him in a country house so that they could all experience living on a plural society. During the time spent together, which the film documents, some controversial topics are discussed: advantages and disadvantages of a secular society, the use of veil, abortion and freedom of press. The guests are masters of rhetoric and skilful in twisting the host’s words. The plural society is due to fail its test as neither side is willing to let go of fundamental convictions, but was the experience really a failure?
Jessy is a short documentary about Jessica Cristopherry, a glamorous character that the Brazilian actress Paula Lice, invented as a child. Now an adult, Paula is finally going to bring Jessy to life and for that she relies on those who know best about how to be a woman: a group of drag-queens who will help her transformation and to whom this film pays a beautiful tribute.