HRFF Zurich Next edition: December 2023

For over 20 years, Amin has been hiding a secret that threatens to ruin the life he has built for himself since arriving in Copenhagen. Haunted by the traumas of his past - that he reveals implicitly - he decides to share his story for the first time, with the director, a close friend, who encourages him to come clean. The story then reveals Amin’s harrowing voyage, from his childhood in post-communist Afghanistan to his present as a respected academician in Denmark, about to marry his partner. Created mainly with remarkable images of animation so as to maintain the anonymity of its protagonists, the film takes us on the trying journey of a refugee to find asylum abroad, and invites us into his relationship with homosexuality. Told in the first person, Flee conveys a feeling of closeness and the sensation of genuinely accessing the captivating memories of the main character. It succeeds in subtly interweaving genres, while retaining a healthy touch of humour. A poignant intimate tale, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. (Astrid Silva, Visions du Réel)

Images: © FinalCutforReal

On the desert island of Ostrov, lost out in the Caspian Sea, a handful of inhabitants live without roads, electricity or jobs, abandoned by the Russian state since the fall of the Soviet Union. Caviar fishing, once the heart of the island’s economy, is now illegal. To feed his family, Ivan regularly goes to sea and, although he has already been imprisoned twice by the authorities for poaching, he remains convinced that Putin will one day save him from misery. Like the majority of Ostrov’s inhabitants, he continues to follow the beliefs and traditions of a country to which he no longer really seems to belong. In this slightly dystopian atmosphere, Svetlana Rodina and Laurent Stoop weave the portrait of a family forced to imagine a future for itself amidst the ruins or to turn towards the outside world, towards Russia and its current events. A documentary with poignant images on an island full of mysteries and contradictions, which reflects the vast expanse of the Russian territory where the myth of a national identity and unity still seem to find a place. (Camille Kaiser, Visions du Réel)

If it's a game, then it's one of the most dangerous. Every day, teenagers flee war-torn countries, attempting to cross European borders in search of a better future. Hostile nature, fences or armed guards - every step they take towards their final destination might also prove a step towards death. A stunning coming-of-age film in which lives are consumed on the clandestine roads of a fortress continent. (FIFDH Geneva)

Bagdá is surrounded by self-confident role models in her family. However, outside on the streets, in the venues and clubs, the old machismo continues to dominate. Bagdá and her fellow comrades-in-arms confront it defiantly. (MUBI)

Struggling with his profession as a teacher, Ugyen is sent to Lunana in northern Bhutan for his final year of training. With a warm welcome, the local children try to win him over but they do not have much time. (Trigon Film)

In Ahmed Necdet Cupur's film, Les Enfants terribles are his own siblings, all of whom want to escape the life their parents have planned for them, as he did. Mahmut is barely a man but his wedding to bride far too young is already falling apart. Zanep has fire in her veins and is determined not to marry her cousin. Instead, she will do whatever it takes to go to University. The parents struggle to assert their authority and wonder what is happening to the world around them. Les Enfants terribles is a timeless epic disguised as a domestic drama. Zanep and Mamhut fight a war of independence with determination and strategy, in a game of attack and retreat, while never forgetting their main aim: to be able to choose their own path. Ahmed Necdet Cupur captures these heroic fights with consideration and respect through the characters’ subtle emotions. Directed with sobriety, Les Enfants Terribles is a memorable family roman which reflects Turkish society and its current mutations. (Rebecca de Pas, Visions du Réel)

Samuel grew up on a farm in the Kenyan countryside, where tradition is valued above all else. He moves to Nairobi in search of a new life, where he finds belonging in a community of fellow queer men where he meets and falls in love with Alex. Their love thrives even though Kenyan laws criminalize anyone who identifies as LGBTQ, and together they face threats of violence and rejection. Samuel’s father, a preacher at the local church, doesn’t understand why his son is not yet married and Samuel must navigate the very real risk that being truthful to who he is may cost him his family’s acceptance. Filmed over five years, I Am Samuel is an intimate portrait of a Kenyan man balancing pressures of family loyalty, love, and safety and questioning the concept of conflicting identities. (Human Rights Watch Film Festival)

Strict rules prevail at a remote boarding school in the mountains of Anatolia where Turkish teachers educate gifted Kurdish pupils from the surrounding area. Once a week, the boys are allowed to shower and, like everything else here, this process is monitored. One night, twelve-year-old Memo asks his friend Yusuf if he can sleep in his bed. But, afraid of gossip, Yusuf refuses. The next morning, Memo is sick and cannot attend class. The school’s heating has broken down and an icy winter’s day takes its course. Memo’s condition worsens. He is no longer responsive and Yusuf is only allowed to talk when prompted. Gradually, the events of the previous night are revealed.
Ferit Karahan’s finely spun drama illuminates a microcosm marked by poverty and fear. Surrounded by snow and frost, the emotional coldness which prevails between teachers and pupils in this authoritarian educational institution become almost physically tangible. (Berlinale)

Images: © Diren Düzgün

Series are extremely popular. Besides the usual candidates such as Netflix or Sky, producers in Latin America, the Middle East and in North Africa serve coherent regional markets as well. Series are a form of «Soft Power» that mirror geopolitical and power play issues away from cinema screens. For the audience too, who look beyond local references. This evening combines information and entertainment whilst in a relaxed salon atmosphere. With Anisha Imhasly (Advisor for Diversity and Transcultural Issues) and Ali Sonay (Assistant Lecturer, Institute for Islamic Studies and Modern Oriental Philology, Bern University).

After two and a half years in captivity, Imad, his little brother Idan, and their mother Ghazala are released into a displaced persons’ camp in Kurdistan. Healing from the trauma is hard for all of them, but it seems Imad is having a particularly tough time. Not yet five, he has already spent over half his life enduring terror, abuse, and “training” meant to make him heartless. Speaking only Arabic, he cannot communicate with his family, and the only means of expression at his disposal is violence. He hits and spits, and his only game is pretending to be an ISIS fighter who shoots, blows things up, and kills. This poignant film follows him as he takes hesitant steps on the hard road to recovery, guided and held by his mother, his grandmother, and an incredibly supportive therapist. (Docaviv)

Thirty years ago, aliens arrive on Earth -- not to conquer or give aid, but -- to find refuge from their dying planet. Separated from humans in a South African area called District 9, the aliens are managed by Multi-National United, which is unconcerned with the aliens' welfare but will do anything to master their advanced technology. When a company field agent (Sharlto Copley) contracts a mysterious virus that begins to alter his DNA, there is only one place he can hide: District 9. (rottentomatoes)

Images: © 2009 Columbia TriStar Marketing Group, Inc.

A village at the Georgian Black Sea with friendly people believing to know each other. One day, Eliko is found hanged and his granddaughter Moe is called to organise the funeral. She is confronted with a web of lies and the tragic consequences of Eliko’s hidden love life with Amnon over the last twenty-two years. The truth however freed Moe’s capability to love and provokes the villagers to take a stand. (Swiss Films)

Images: © Maximage Sister distribution

Meera films the testimony of a rape victim with her iPhone before confronting the police for their inaction. For Meera, thorough journalism is the key to justice. That's why she founded the only newspaper in the whole of India published entirely by Dalit women, the so-called "untouchables" – the very lowest caste. Every day, they report on the most explosive issues and fight for social change, even if it means risking their own safety. WRITING WITH FIRE follows at close quarters a determined group of women who question the social system and boldly break with tradition. (ZFF)

Images: © Black Ticket Films

A powerful man, who is also the former Prime Minister of Georgia, buys some 100-year-old trees. His men uproot them, some of them as tall as 15-storey buildings, and bring them to his private garden: through villages, over hills and across the Black Sea. To archieve this, other trees must be cut, electric cables moved and new roads paved through mandarin plantations. The film takes the concept of uprooting from its metaphorical meaning to an oppressive, tangible and yet surreal reality. An ode to the rivalry between men and nature. (Swiss Films)

Just how far is it acceptable to push actors in the name of cinema? And at what point do you cross the boundary where acting becomes sexual assault? These are the questions raised by the testimony of six young women who were manipulated and sexually abused during an audition. They knew beforehand that the film they were auditioning for was about incest, and they were familiar with the director’s controversial work. But during the audition, without prior discussion, they were groped, beaten, and forced to undress. These traumatizing experiences resurfaced when a few years later it transpired that the footage of the auditions had been made into a documentary.

The women aren’t just fighting back through the courts. They have banded together to tell their story on camera, in a sort of antidote to the toxic audition. The director of The Case You, Alison Kuhn, is one of them. This neutralizes the camera’s potentially predatory eye and turns the lens into a liberating channel to express anger and demand justice. (IDFA)

Images: © Lenn Lamster

Alain, played by the captivating Grégoire Colin, arrives in Stepanakert, capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, to assess the airport and open this self-proclaimed republic to the world. But Alain knows nothing about this strange territory or its inhabitants, and things don't go according to plan... Selected at Cannes, Armenian director Nora Martirosyan's first film impresses with its formal mastery and its restrained and delicate screenplay. (FIFDH Geneva)

Images: © SISTER PRODUCTIONS

Sascha Rijkeboer is a pop activist, visibilist, Instagram story-quing and featured at this years Human Rights Film Festival Zurich with a new Spokenword programme. Sascha performs texts that deal with the identity of trans and non-binary people, transmasculinity and the constraints of a heteronormative society. A mix of themes are reflected upon: Our own privileges, the complexity of a pluralist society offering a million subject formats, but a set of coercive rules too. But most and for all, the performance invites us to laugh out loud about being different, not being, as well as being «normal».

If it's a game, then it's one of the most dangerous. Every day, teenagers flee war-torn countries, attempting to cross European borders in search of a better future. Hostile nature, fences or armed guards - every step they take towards their final destination might also prove a step towards death. A stunning coming-of-age film in which lives are consumed on the clandestine roads of a fortress continent. (FIFDH Geneva)

For over 20 years, Amin has been hiding a secret that threatens to ruin the life he has built for himself since arriving in Copenhagen. Haunted by the traumas of his past - that he reveals implicitly - he decides to share his story for the first time, with the director, a close friend, who encourages him to come clean. The story then reveals Amin’s harrowing voyage, from his childhood in post-communist Afghanistan to his present as a respected academician in Denmark, about to marry his partner. Created mainly with remarkable images of animation so as to maintain the anonymity of its protagonists, the film takes us on the trying journey of a refugee to find asylum abroad, and invites us into his relationship with homosexuality. Told in the first person, Flee conveys a feeling of closeness and the sensation of genuinely accessing the captivating memories of the main character. It succeeds in subtly interweaving genres, while retaining a healthy touch of humour. A poignant intimate tale, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. (Astrid Silva, Visions du Réel)

Images: © FinalCutforReal

The wealth of the world is unequally distributed. One of the profiteers is the canton of Zug, a tax haven in the heart of Switzerland, where more and more wealth is accumulating – and missing elsewhere? Since the middle of the 20th century, the small town on the shores of an idyllic lake has risen to become an important business location. Filmmaker Luzia Schmid remembers her childhood in Zug and lets those people speak who have experienced the changes at first hand: her father, her sister, a trustee, a politician and other contemporary witnesses, critics and profiteers. A personal economic film that embeds tax policy both historically and globally, exposes barefaced ambivalences and dares to question morality. (Zurich Film Festival)

Struggling with his profession as a teacher, Ugyen is sent to Lunana in northern Bhutan for his final year of training. With a warm welcome, the local children try to win him over but they do not have much time. (Trigon Film)

Bagdá is surrounded by self-confident role models in her family. However, outside on the streets, in the venues and clubs, the old machismo continues to dominate. Bagdá and her fellow comrades-in-arms confront it defiantly. (MUBI)

If it's a game, then it's one of the most dangerous. Every day, teenagers flee war-torn countries, attempting to cross European borders in search of a better future. Hostile nature, fences or armed guards - every step they take towards their final destination might also prove a step towards death. A stunning coming-of-age film in which lives are consumed on the clandestine roads of a fortress continent. (FIFDH Geneva)

«Ihr sagt, ihr seid für uns da, aber in Wirklichkeit sind wir alleine!» In einem Heim in Genf für Mädchen aus schwierigen familiären Verhältnissen zanken sich die Heimleiter*innen und die jungen Frauen täglich. Auch zwischen den Teenagern knallt es oft, sie beleidigen einander, schreien, schlagen zu und versöhnen sich wieder. Der Filmemacher Fred Baillif, selber ehemaliger Sozialarbeiter, beweist mit seinem zweiten Spielfilm erneut sein grosses Talent in Laien-Schauspielführung und für den gewieften Wechsel zwischen Inszenierung und Improvisation. Über zwei Jahre hat er mit den tatsächlich im Heim wohnhaften Mädchen im Vorfeld gearbeitet und jede einzelne ihre Geschichte erzählen lassen. Eindrücklich verwebt er diese oft von sexualisierter Gewalt geprägten Traumata mit dem emotional intensiven Heim-Alltag in der «Ersatzfamilie». Gleichzeitig entlarvt der Film gravierende Mängel des Schweizerischen Jugendschutzsystems und die Überforderung der Sozialarbeiter*innen. (slb)

A group of teenage girls have been placed in a residential care home with social workers. This forced “family” experience creates unexpected tensions and intimacies. An incident triggers a chain of over-reactions. The fall-out reveals the weaknesses of the retrograde juvenile system, as well as the demons that haunt “La Mif”. A social drama, mirroring our ill-mannered morals. (Swiss Films)

Nour has just been hired as a nurse at the chemical plant where her father, a worker's union representative and loyal employee, works. In the midst of the factory's health inspection, a journalist is carrying out an investigation on waste management. These two young women discover little by little that the factory, a pillar of the local economy, is hiding plenty of secrets. Between lies about pollutant emissions, false medical records and accident cover-ups, Nour will have to choose: keep quiet or betray her father to let the truth be heard.(Festival de Cannes)

«Ihr sagt, ihr seid für uns da, aber in Wirklichkeit sind wir alleine!» In einem Heim in Genf für Mädchen aus schwierigen familiären Verhältnissen zanken sich die Heimleiter*innen und die jungen Frauen täglich. Auch zwischen den Teenagern knallt es oft, sie beleidigen einander, schreien, schlagen zu und versöhnen sich wieder. Der Filmemacher Fred Baillif, selber ehemaliger Sozialarbeiter, beweist mit seinem zweiten Spielfilm erneut sein grosses Talent in Laien-Schauspielführung und für den gewieften Wechsel zwischen Inszenierung und Improvisation. Über zwei Jahre hat er mit den tatsächlich im Heim wohnhaften Mädchen im Vorfeld gearbeitet und jede einzelne ihre Geschichte erzählen lassen. Eindrücklich verwebt er diese oft von sexualisierter Gewalt geprägten Traumata mit dem emotional intensiven Heim-Alltag in der «Ersatzfamilie». Gleichzeitig entlarvt der Film gravierende Mängel des Schweizerischen Jugendschutzsystems und die Überforderung der Sozialarbeiter*innen. (slb)

In the city of Zinder, Niger, in the heart of the Sahel, young people form gangs to deal with the lack of work and prospects. These groups called “Palais” come from the Kara Kara district, historically home to lepers and outcasts. Zinder-born director and activist Aicha Macky returns to her hometown to tell the story of this disenfranchised youth. She talks with these men, whose bodies and the territory in which they live are profoundly scarred by the violence that has passed through them—a pervasive violence the roots of which go back to the time of colonisation. Among them: Siniya Boy, a member of the “Palais Hitler”, who wants to set up a security company with his fellow bodybuilders; and Bawa, a former Palais leader who turned taxi driver, haunted by memories of the atrocities committed. Their friends live off black market petrol, smuggled from the Nigerian border. Aicha Macky paints a moving portrait of Zinder, which she dedicates to the youth of her country. (Visions du Réel)

A 10-year-old Roma boy living in Sweden attempts to come to terms with the mysterious Resignation syndrome that has put his two sisters in a coma. The tight-knit family is trying to rebuild a normal life far from their native Kosovo where they were victims of persecution. While their entire future hangs in the balance of a pending asylum request, the little boy dreams of building a spaceship to leave it all behind. (Swiss Films)

Cat in the Wall tells the true story of how a cat, stuck in a wall, changes the lives of aspirational migrants, benefit fraudsters and gentrified Brexiteers.
As documentarians, Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova have always been fearless. The duo’s rage permeates their first foray into fiction, Cat in the Wall. An examination of society’s absurdities and unfairness through the eyes of Irina, a single Bulgarian mother whose place in London is challenged in every way, turning her into a metaphoric “cat in the wall”, just like the real one. (Locarno Film Festival)

“You are strong wolves. Wolves don´t cry. Wolves bite. They howl. And they protect their home.”

Eight year old Max and his younger brother Leo don't have much, but they have each other and their mother Lucía. And they share a dream as well: To visit Disneyland one day. The family has recently emigrated to the USA from Mexico, and while Lucía tries to finance their new life by doing odd jobs, the two brothers spend their days in their sparsely furnished one-room flat. The walls of the room, which they are forbidden to leave, become a projection screen for imaginative adventures and open a window on their new life. Director Samuel Kishi Leopo recalls aspects of his own childhood in Los Lobos and resituates them in a currently highly charged context – brutally honest and yet poetic, melancholic and full of hope. (Berlinale 2020)

In a small Arctic town struggling with the highest suicide rate in North America, a group of Inuit students' lives are transformed when they are introduced to the sport of lacrosse.
An unflinching and uplifting story of how northern youth transformed a town.
From the producers of Angry Inuk and Beginners.

Merab is a dreamy and passionate young dancer, of whom his coach thinks to be a bit too soft: after all, traditional Georgian dancers are supposed to embody strength. Hailing from a family of dancers, Merab has trained with his dance partner Mariam since childhood, and everything seems to develop towards a relationship even beyond the ballroom. One day, when a new dancer appears on the scene, electricity fills the room. The mysterious Irakli’s ability to dominate the characters he dances with precision not only attracts the coach’s attention. While Merab and Irakli compete for a sought-after place in the main ensemble of the Georgian State Ballet, an affection between the two begins to bloom, becoming ever more difficult to supress. AND THEN WE DANCED is a light-hearted narration about yearning, self-realisation and the rebellion of a liberal generation in a conservative and highly homophobic society. (ZFF 2019)

Summer 1998 – Kabul under Taliban rule. Zunaira and Mohsen are young and in love. Despite the daily violence and misery, they hope for a better future. One day, a foolish gesture causes life to take an irrevocable turn.

“You are strong wolves. Wolves don´t cry. Wolves bite. They howl. And they protect their home.”
Eight year old Max and his younger brother Leo don't have much, but they have each other and their mother Lucía. And they share a dream as well: To visit Disneyland one day. The family has recently emigrated to the USA from Mexico, and while Lucía tries to finance their new life by doing odd jobs, the two brothers spend their days in their sparsely furnished one-room flat. The walls of the room, which they are forbidden to leave, become a projection screen for imaginative adventures and open a window on their new life. Director Samuel Kishi Leopo recalls aspects of his own childhood in Los Lobos and resituates them in a currently highly charged context – brutally honest and yet poetic, melancholic and full of hope. (Berlinale 2020)

Shimu, 23, works in a garment factory on the outskirts of Dhaka. Faced with increasingly harsh working conditions, she decides to form a trade union. Regardless of the management's threats and disagreement of the husbands: together, the female workers decide to go through with it. The young director Rubaiyat Hossain accurately depicts both the difficult conditions in which our clothes are made and the boundless courage of these women. Based on a true story, the film is carried by admirable performances. (FIFDH 2020)

In 2016, outsider candidate Rodrigo Duterte upset the political establishment in the Philippines by winning the presidency and promising vengeance and violence. Within hours of taking office, bodies piled up in the streets. Rappler, the country’s top online news site, investigated the murders and revealed a government-sanctioned drug war targeting poor addicts instead of lucrative dealers. In an attempt to suppress independent reporting, Duterte unleashed a powerful disinformation campaign that spread like wildfire throughout social media.
Filmmaker Ramona S. Diaz follows key players from two sides of an increasingly dangerous war between press and government. Representing the journalists is fearless Rappler CEO Maria Ressa, who, despite arrests and harassment, continues to publish articles holding a lawless regime accountable. On the other side, influencers such as pop-star-turned-government-secretary Mocha Uson start incendiary social media movements and General Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa spearheads a public execution campaign against addicts. As each side digs in, we become witness to an epic and ongoing fight for the integrity of human life and truth itself—a conflict that extends beyond the Philippines into our own divisive backyard. (Sundance 2020)

Days of Cannibalism accounts the social impact of a completely different economic model on a traditional society. When Chinese entrepreneurs arrive in Lesotho, in the district of Thaba Tseka, everything changes. Old structures begin to disintegrate, and latent violence threatens to explode. What is it going to be: to eat or to be eaten? (Visions du Reel 2020)

In the besieged Syrian city of Ghutta, which suffered the worst chemical attack recorded in the last 25 years, the inhabitants have built a makeshift hospital in the cavernous depths of the earth. As the conflict rages on, pediatrician Amani Ballour tries to do her job, despite some patients refusing to be treated by a woman. Above all, it is about saving lives, comforting people, obtaining medicines, feeding staff and the patients. After winning an Oscar for Last Men in Aleppo, Feras Fayyad returns to the FIFDH with this documentary, also nominated for the Oscar. (FIFDH 2020)

When night falls in rural Germany, old VW-caravans decorated with flashy lights line the highway roads which lead through potato fields and dark forests. Inside these buses prostitutes from Eastern Europe and Africa await their clients who are passing by. The film portrays these women who came from far away in search for money and a better life. Until one day, in the ghostly atmosphere, a murder of one of the sex workers happens and shakes up the whole scene causing everybody to take action. A film about a microcosm that describes a society at the outer edge of globalized capitalism. (Locarno 2019)

In 1999, nine-year-old Emmanuel Sanford-Durant and his family began filming their daily lives in America’s most dangerous neighbourhood — just 17 blocks behind the U.S. Capitol. They’ve been filming ever since. Made in a unique collaboration with filmmaker and journalist Davy Rothbart, and spanning two decades, 17 BLOCKS illuminates a nation’s ongoing crisis through one family’s raw, stirring, and deeply personal saga.

“War is when some people shoot. And other people shoot the people who shot first. When they start to shoot, mum wakes us up and we go to the corridor. And when they stop, we go back to sleep.”
Outside, the streets echo with the sound of gunfire and exploding grenades. Inside their house, four siblings, together with their mother, cats and turtle, attempt to maintain some semblance of peace and normality in their everyday lives. War has been raging in Ukraine’s Donbas for five years. Nastja says it has made her easily irritable and angry. Her sister Myroslava, who dreams of studying cinematography, remarks that war is like a void. To fight back against the black hole, she decides to make a film, one about her family’s life in wartime, about the fears and small joys. Director Iryna Tsilyk observes everyday life under the shadow of war and one family’s collective creative response in a testament to resilience and the power of cinema. (Berlinale 2020)

Activist Greta Thunberg began making the international news in 2018, with her Friday climate strikes. While this film documents the fearless Swedish teen's meteoric rise and how much her efforts have affected and inspired people around the world, it also captures the moments of her daily life and considers her detractors and their attacks on her Asperger’s Syndrome. Arriving at a time of global crisis—when the portents of a pandemic, wildfires, hurricanes, and other climate change evidence are undeniable—the film has an urgency we cannot ignore.

Fleeing war-torn Syria, two doctors and their children have to face extremely painful consequences and choices. The intricacies and the hypocrisies of bureaucracy split the family apart. The kids, still underage, are stuck in Turkey. The father is shipped off to Canada while the mother struggles in Denmark trying to get her children to join her. A film as moving as necessary. (Visions du Reel 2020)

Brazil, 1971, César Benjamin is 17 years old. After a student demonstration, he is tortured and sentenced to 13 years in prison. Thanks to a campaign led by his mother Iramaya and backed by Amnesty International, the teenager is released after 5 years in solitary confinement. Exiled in Sweden, César will never speak of this tragedy, just as the fiery Iramaya becomes the figurehead of "Mother Courage" in Brazil. In the form of a moving letter to her father, who refused to appear in the film, Carol Benjamin uses video archives and letters to reconstruct the pieces of a family puzzle and a tragedy that is also one of a whole country. Her film letter pits words against the silence, memory against oblivion, but is above all a love letter to a father and his courage. (FIFDH 2020)

One of the major challenges of our times is how the global community is going to deal with artificial intelligence (AI). Who will control this technology? Has the train left the station, never to be stopped? What sort of society do we want to create and live in? Who knows the destination we are heading to?
With great access to influential voices on this subject, iHuman presents a wide range of views, from tech optimism in Jurgen Schmidhuber “the father of AI,” to more cautious voices like technology journalist Kara Swisher and human rights lawyer Philip Alston. Animated computer graphics visualize a polymorphous, self-developing structure with ever-greater autonomy guiding us forward.
AI can infinitely increase our potential for great good but it is already capable of contributing towards total surveillance states and a distortion of truth. AI development is hurtling forward with tech companies affiliated to the defence industry and algorithms in law enforcement enhancing existing biases. Will we allow the use of such powerful technology to open an unchecked Pandora’s Box dictating our future? (IDFA 2019)

In a small Arctic town struggling with the highest suicide rate in North America, a group of Inuit students' lives are transformed when they are introduced to the sport of lacrosse.
An unflinching and uplifting story of how northern youth transformed a town.
From the producers of Angry Inuk and Beginners.

Summer 1998 – Kabul under Taliban rule. Zunaira and Mohsen are young and in love. Despite the daily violence and misery, they hope for a better future. One day, a foolish gesture causes life to take an irrevocable turn.

Merab is a dreamy and passionate young dancer, of whom his coach thinks to be a bit too soft: after all, traditional Georgian dancers are supposed to embody strength. Hailing from a family of dancers, Merab has trained with his dance partner Mariam since childhood, and everything seems to develop towards a relationship even beyond the ballroom. One day, when a new dancer appears on the scene, electricity fills the room. The mysterious Irakli’s ability to dominate the characters he dances with precision not only attracts the coach’s attention. While Merab and Irakli compete for a sought-after place in the main ensemble of the Georgian State Ballet, an affection between the two begins to bloom, becoming ever more difficult to supress. AND THEN WE DANCED is a light-hearted narration about yearning, self-realisation and the rebellion of a liberal generation in a conservative and highly homophobic society. (ZFF 2019)

For two decades, the Enache family—nine kids and their parents—lived in a shack in the wilderness of Bucharest Delta: an abandoned water reservoir, one of the biggest urban natural reservations in the world, with lakes and hundreds of species of animals and rare plants. When the authorities decide to claim back this rare urban ecosystem, the Enache family is evicted and told to resettle in the city—a reality they know nothing about. Kids that used to spend their days in nature have to learn about city life, go to school instead of swimming in the lake, and swap their fishing rods for mobile phones. Their identity has been questioned and transformed, along with their sense of freedom and family ties.
Radu Ciorniciuc’s heartbreaking debut is a thoughtful study of gentrification, seen through the eyes of a family trying to adapt to the new life they never asked for. Is it better to go back to their “paradise lost,” with its life free yet harsh, or to become part of the society that offers comforts but comes with pressures and conflict? (Sundance 2019)

What would Jesus preach in the 21st century? Who would his apostles be? The filmmaker and his team return to the origins of the gospel and stage it as a passion play for an entire population. Together with Yvan Sagnet, a former farm worker and activist from Cameroon, Milo Rau creates a new gospel for the 21st century: A manifesto of solidarity for the poorest, a cinematic uprising for a fairer, more humane world.

“You are strong wolves. Wolves don´t cry. Wolves bite. They howl. And they protect their home.”

Eight year old Max and his younger brother Leo don't have much, but they have each other and their mother Lucía. And they share a dream as well: To visit Disneyland one day. The family has recently emigrated to the USA from Mexico, and while Lucía tries to finance their new life by doing odd jobs, the two brothers spend their days in their sparsely furnished one-room flat. The walls of the room, which they are forbidden to leave, become a projection screen for imaginative adventures and open a window on their new life. Director Samuel Kishi Leopo recalls aspects of his own childhood in Los Lobos and resituates them in a currently highly charged context – brutally honest and yet poetic, melancholic and full of hope. (Berlinale 2020)

In modern Iran, Maryam, 22, accidentally kills her husband, Nasser, 65. She is sentenced to death. The only person who can save her is Nasser's daughter Mona, born of a previous marriage. All it would take is for Mona to agree to appear on a TV reality show and forgive Maryam in front of millions of viewers. But forgiveness proves hard to come by once the truth about the past resurfaces... A rare and unusual Iranian film, which skillfully portrays showbiz society. (FIFDH 2020)

The Molenbeek district of Brussels. A believed jihadi capital to some but familiar home to the 6 year-old boys Aatos and Amine. This is where they listen to spiders, discover black holes and quarrel over who gets to command the flying carpet that is to take them to the lands of their ancestors. They live in the same building, yet come from different worlds.  Together they search for answers to the big questions. Aatos wants a god of his own, as Amine already has Allah but the question is complicated by his friend Flo’s belief that people who believe in God have gone crazy. (catndocs)

The Molenbeek district of Brussels. A believed jihadi capital to some but familiar home to the 6 year-old boys Aatos and Amine. This is where they listen to spiders, discover black holes and quarrel over who gets to command the flying carpet that is to take them to the lands of their ancestors. They live in the same building, yet come from different worlds.  Together they search for answers to the big questions. Aatos wants a god of his own, as Amine already has Allah but the question is complicated by his friend Flo’s belief that people who believe in God have gone crazy. (catndocs)

Charting her experiences of civil war and migration to her rise as a popular but controversial star, this documentary film traces the life of the singer and pop icon M.I.A. Born in Sri Lanka to the founder of the Tamil independence movement, Mathangi ‘Maya’ Arulpragasam – alias M.I.A. – fled to London with her mother and siblings at the age of nine. Her original plan being to become a documentary filmmaker, she returned to Sri Lanka as an art student and began filming her family members. Her journey and her experiences with Sri Lanka’s military regime have shaped her artistic and political attitudes. She began making music and has developed a culture clash aesthetic inspired by street art, hip-hop and various migrant communities in London that has lead to worldwide success. However, her support for the Tamil rebels and her ‘bad girl’ identity have been harshly criticised by mainstream media, politicians and conservative members of the public. Using archive material from the last 22 years, most of which was shot by Maya herself, Steve Loveridge reveals how Maya uses pop music as a political mouthpiece and does not shy away from being an outsider. (Berlinale)

"Good Kenyan girls become good Kenyan wives,” but Kena and Ziki long for something more. Despite the political rivalry between their families, the girls resist and remain close friends, supporting each other to pursue their dreams in a conservative society. When love blossoms between them, the two girls will be forced to choose between happiness and safety. (trigon)

Stephane, only just arrived from Cherbourg, joins the anti criminality brigade of Montfermeil in a sensitive district of the Paris suburbs. Paired up with Chris and Gwada whose methods are sometimes "special" he rapidly discovers the tensions between the various neighborhood groups. When an arrest starts to get out of hand, a drone is filming every move they make.

Much of the seafood in our daily lives – sushi, frozen fish, shrimp cocktail, and the vast amount that goes into pet food – has been caught by slaves. Thailand is one of the world’s largest seafood exporters with a huge fishing fleet that requires thousands of fishermen. Decades of overfishing has decimated fish stocks in the region and today the Gulf of Thailand is one of the most barren parts of the ocean. Thai captains now scramble to find crews willing to travel thousands of miles to find fish. Human traffickers have started to fill the labour shortage by selling men from Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and other impoverished nations to fishing companies for as little as a few hundred dollars each. Once at sea, these captive men go months, even years, without setting foot on land, earning little or no pay – becoming slaves at sea. Ghost Fleet follows a small group of activists who risk their lives on remote Indonesian islands to find justice and freedom for the enslaved fishermen who feed the world’s insatiable appetite for seafood. Bangkok-based Patima Tungpuchayakul, a Thai abolitionist, has committed her life to helping these ‘lost’ men return home. Facing illness, death threats, corruption, and complacency, Patima’s fearless determination for justice inspires her nation and the world. (Berlinale)

How did a war in Iraq founded on deception end up with the court marshall of the truth teller? This question frames XY Chelsea, a documentary set in the aftermath of the release from prison of Chelsea Manning, a former U.S. Army soldier and intelligence analyst convicted of violating the Espionage Act in 2013, after leaking classified U.S. documents to WikiLeaks. Manning’s information revealed illegal practices—such as torture and abuse of detainees and the unreported deaths of over 15,000 civilians—engaged by the U.S. military.
While imprisoned, Manning, a trans woman, also began to transition medically. The film offers insight to her motivations for whistleblowing, and ultimately, for taking on the U.S. government. What is seemingly a portrait of a polarizing figure in recent American history also doubles for the blueprint on how patriotic Americans can resist an unlawful ruler. (Tribeca Film Festival)

For Wang, now a first-time mother, investigating the policy of forcibly restricting family size in China spawns traumatic recollections from her own family’s recent past. These stories, in turn, unleash a dizzying number of revelations from journalists, officials, parents, and activists about the widespread enforcement of sterilization, child abandonment, and state-sponsored kidnappings. With chilling clarity, Wang’s new documentary reveals how relentless propaganda brainwashed and terrorized countless Chinese citizens into committing unspeakable crimes against fellow villagers and family members. Through interviews with both victims and instigators, along with revelatory data regarding the sheer number of abandoned children (nearly all of them infant girls), One Child Nation breaks open decades of silence on a vast, unprecedented social experiment that shaped—and destroyed—countless lives. (Sundance Film Festival)

When Pablo arrives at his family’s house outside Guatemala City, everyone is already waiting tensely for this beloved brother, son and husband to appear. Everyone at the clan’s villa is horrified: Pablo has fallen in love with another man, Francisco. In doing so, he is calling into question all the values by which this deeply religious evangelical family lives. In spite of resistance from his relatives, Pablo moves in with Francisco, who is closely linked to the city’s subculture and leads a completely different, liberated existence. Pablo loses his old home, but somehow never really settles in the new one. His wish to unite the two worlds turns out to be a dead end. Putting their faith before everything else, his relatives are adamant that Pablo can be ‘healed’. With help from their ultra-religious community, the family does everything in its power to get their prodigal son back on track, no matter the cost.
In his very personal second film, Jayro Bustamante makes use of a consistently direct cinematic style to describe one individual’s bid to break away and find their identity and a sense of belonging. In a deeply repressive society God loves the sinner, but not the sin itself. (Berlinale)

In the streets of Sicily, beautiful, gutsy Letizia Battaglia pointed her camera straight into the heart of the Mafia that surrounded her and began to shoot. The striking, life-threatening photos she took documenting the rule of the Cosa Nostra define her career. Battaglia married young and had children, yet her restless spirit refused to renounce her passions. Breaking with tradition, she devoted herself to photojournalism. Battaglia’s lens was defiant: though her life was in danger she fearlessly captured everyday Sicilian life—from weddings and funerals to the brutal murders of women and children—to tell the narrative of the community she loved that had been forced into silence. (Sundance Film Festival)

Ryszard Kapuscinski (1932-2007) was one of the 20th century’s principal and most colourful war reporters. He reported on 27 revolutions during his career, was imprisoned 40 times and sentenced to death four times. He was primarily active in Africa as a correspondent for a Polish news agency. When civil war erupted in Angola in 1975, he was the only foreign reporter on the ground. His book Another Day of Life describes how that diamond and oil-rich country was used as a Cold War pawn.
Kapuscinski’s writing style is subjective, sometimes even surreal. This animated adaptation does complete justice to his form of literary reportage. Hallucinatory impressions of chaotic firefights are recorded in a graphic-novel-like style. Interviews with the main characters were made in real life, 40 years later – some have become successful, others have gone mad. This is a story, but no work of fiction. (Rotterdam Film Festival)

PRISONER OF SOCIETY
OVe | Rati Tsiteladze | Georgia 2018 | 16’
An intimate journey into the world and mind of a young transgender woman trapped between personal desire for freedom and the traditional expectations of her parents amid the growing tensions provoked by LGBT politics in Georgia.

GARDI
OVe | Lendita Zeqiraj | Kosovo, Croatia, France 2018 | 15
Several women from different generations of the same family loudly confront each other with their views on life, love, desire, and the patriarchy, while the only boy is looking for an escape.

ALL THESE CREATURES
E | Charles Williams | Australia 2018 | 13'
An adolescent boy attempts to untangle his memories of a mysterious infestation, the unravelling of his father, and the little creatures inside us all.

SOEURS JARARIJU
OVe | Jorge Cadena | Switzerland 2018 | 22’
Viviana and Yandris, two teenage sisters from the Wayuu ethnic group in Colombia, discover their traditions through ancestral rituals. When their father dies, the sisters leave their country in an act of courage.

BROTHERHOOD
OVe | Meryam Joobeur | Tunesia, Canada 2018 | 25'
Mohamed is deeply shaken and suspicious when his estranged eldest son returns home to rural Tunisia with a mysterious young wife. A wrenching drama is infused with the emotional complexities of a family reunion, the consequences of past wounds, and misunderstanding.

Suliman and three further members of the ‘Sudanese Film Club’ have decided to revive an old cinema. They are united not only by their love of cinema and their passionate desire to restore old film stock and draw attention to Sudanese film history once more, but also by the fact that they have all enjoyed a film education in exile. Tirelessly, they try to get the cinema’s owners on their side and make the place operational again, but repeatedly find themselves up against considerable resistance. In the meantime, they sit together and talk about the past – including their experiences of persecution and even torture as oppositional artists. They also read out old letters written while in exile and dream of a Sudan in which art and intellectual thought can be free. ‘We are smarter than them, but not as strong,’ is how they unanimously summarise their situation. It is in laconic moments such as these that the viewer is able to perceive the friendship, as well as the bond and ideological solidarity that exists in the struggle for common ideals. Suhaib Gasmelbari puts the history of Sudanese cinema at the centre of his film and at the same time sheds light on the current situation in a country shaken by ongoing crises. (Berlinale)

All around the world, human rights activists, journalists and lawyers
collect evidence of human rights violations – with the help of victims. Using mobile devices to film and photograph their experiences, they become digital witnesses. Amateur videos of bombs exploding, people being abused or even shot dead are distributed almost in real time via social media. Digital investigators use various forensic methods, from internet tracking to DNA analysis, to analyse and verify this deluge of images, supporting them with other evidence and scientific expertise. These criminological investigations have only one purpose: to bring to justice those who violate human rights. We meet investigative teams who use these cutting-edge technologies to document their research into the war in Ukraine, the destruction of Mali’s cultural heritage, the search for mass graves in Colombia and the “Black Friday” bomb attacks in Gaza. We witness the entire investigative procedure, from training and visiting the scene of the crime, securing and analysing forensic evidence, to presenting their evidence in court. (IDFA)

Kenyan farmer Kisilu Musya records climate change’s roller-coaster ride of flash floods and devastating droughts. For the past five years, he’s kept a video diary documenting the damaging effects of wild weather on his family’s life and livelihood. Convinced that planting trees is the answer to counteracting global warming in his community, Kisilu organizes local farmer groups, makes endless presentations and, with the support of his wife and Norwegian filmmaker Julia Dahr, takes his message all the way to the COP—the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change. But is anyone listening? This emotional, earnest and essential film about climate change is driven by Kisilu’s point of view. It gives voice to a natural leader who expects politicians to be doing as much as he is—to care and to be interested in hearing from those directly affected by the environmental transformations taking place on this planet we all share. (Hot Docs)
Introduction by Georg Klingler, Greenpeace Switzerland

Israeli human-rights lawyer Lea Tsemel is a force that won’t be deterred. Having defended Palestinians against a host of criminal charges in Israeli courts for nearly five decades, she is a staunch supporter of compassion within the court system. Frequently subjected to harsh criticism in the press and in the public view, Tsemel remains optimistically steadfast in her belief that justice can be served.In this impressive documentary, Rachel Leah Jones and Philippe Bellaïche masterfully juxtapose two of Tsemel’s cases, one professional and the other personal: the defense of a minor accused of attempted murder and a past case in which she defended her activist husband from an accusation of treason against the state. Delicately animated sequences conceal defendants’ identities as Tsemel frankly addresses their best possible chances for acquittal, while interviews with Tsemel’s adult children reveal her unique ability to see the humanity of those accused. Advocate is an original, provocative film that both exposes the human fallout of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and provides hope for a peaceful resolution. (Sundance FF)

"Good Kenyan girls become good Kenyan wives,” but Kena and Ziki long for something more. Despite the political rivalry between their families, the girls resist and remain close friends, supporting each other to pursue their dreams in a conservative society. When love blossoms between them, the two girls will be forced to choose between happiness and safety. (trigon)

First-time filmmaker Bing Liu's documentary Minding the Gap is a coming-of-age saga of three skateboarding friends in their Rust Belt hometown hit hard by decades of recession. In his quest to understand why he and his friends all ran away from home when they were younger, Bing follows 23-year-old Zack as he becomes a father and 17-year-old Keire as he gets his first job.

The Molenbeek district of Brussels. A believed jihadi capital to some but familiar home to the 6 year-old boys Aatos and Amine. This is where they listen to spiders, discover black holes and quarrel over who gets to command the flying carpet that is to take them to the lands of their ancestors. They live in the same building, yet come from different worlds.  Together they search for answers to the big questions. Aatos wants a god of his own, as Amine already has Allah but the question is complicated by his friend Flo’s belief that people who believe in God have gone crazy. (catndocs)

Charting her experiences of civil war and migration to her rise as a popular but controversial star, this documentary film traces the life of the singer and pop icon M.I.A. Born in Sri Lanka to the founder of the Tamil independence movement, Mathangi ‘Maya’ Arulpragasam – alias M.I.A. – fled to London with her mother and siblings at the age of nine. Her original plan being to become a documentary filmmaker, she returned to Sri Lanka as an art student and began filming her family members. Her journey and her experiences with Sri Lanka’s military regime have shaped her artistic and political attitudes. She began making music and has developed a culture clash aesthetic inspired by street art, hip-hop and various migrant communities in London that has lead to worldwide success. However, her support for the Tamil rebels and her ‘bad girl’ identity have been harshly criticised by mainstream media, politicians and conservative members of the public. Using archive material from the last 22 years, most of which was shot by Maya herself, Steve Loveridge reveals how Maya uses pop music as a political mouthpiece and does not shy away from being an outsider. (Berlinale)

A film about the unprecedented Swiss grassroots movement of regular citizens who rise to aid thousands of refugees stranded at the European borders. In rich and safe Switzerland people from all backgrounds leave their regular life behind to support people in need. There is a Swiss farmer and his wife who keep cows in the Swiss Alps, a former commander of the Swiss Army, an elder rich lady residing at the lakeside, and a successful comedian and entertainer. These unexperienced volunteers take on an adventure that will change their lives for ever.

The young Nuria flees the civil war in Colombia. She arrives at dawn on a mysterious island in the furthest reaches of the Amazon. Nuria gradually understands that her father, who supposedly died in a landslide caused by an oil company, may be hiding in their house. The violence and collective memory of Latin America intertwine in this bewitching film, tinged with magical realism. (FIFDH Geneva)

Stephane, only just arrived from Cherbourg, joins the anti criminality brigade of Montfermeil in a sensitive district of the Paris suburbs. Paired up with Chris and Gwada whose methods are sometimes "special" he rapidly discovers the tensions between the various neighborhood groups. When an arrest starts to get out of hand, a drone is filming every move they make.

First-time filmmaker Bing Liu's documentary Minding the Gap is a coming-of-age saga of three skateboarding friends in their Rust Belt hometown hit hard by decades of recession. In his quest to understand why he and his friends all ran away from home when they were younger, Bing follows 23-year-old Zack as he becomes a father and 17-year-old Keire as he gets his first job.