After getting caught in a fight, Vahid needs to sell one of his kidneys to avoid a prison sentence of many years. While waiting for the liberating call from a buyer, a wish for a better life starts to grow within him.
Social & External
An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.
Megacities is a documentary about the slums of five different metropolitan cities.
An account of the journey that King Alfonso XIII of Spain made to the impoverished shire of Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in the region of Extremadura, in 1922.
Bettina and Frank are from Saxony, without a job and are on vacation for the first time. They go to the sunny beach, where the unemployed Bulgarians Tenscho and Radka open a boutique to earn money with the Germans.
Documentary about the making of ’Spring Break Zombie Massacre.’
Enforced disappearances, torture, secret prisons, mass graves, no trial and no justice. The history of Western Sahara, the area south of Morocco with an as yet undefined political status, is marked by a dark sequence of human rights violations. And it’s still forgotten. The documentary tells the story of Sahrawi people through the voices of special women who’ve been victims of violence, both in Western Sahara and in the refugee camps in Algeria. Through their testimonies, diaries and old photographs, the movie reconstructs the history of Western Sahara from a female and intimate point of view.
Wangala is a short documentary about women's resistance to the Moroccan occupation. Samira was born in the camps, in the middle of the desert, the only place that was given to them after the arrival of the invader. Through the concepts of torture, refuge and exile, we try to create a mosaic of experiences that explain the current situation of Sahrawi refugees in the camps, in exile and in the occupied territory.
A documentary film depicting five intimate portraits of migrants who fled their country of origin to seek refuge in France and find a space of freedom where they can fully experience their sexuality and their sexual identity: Giovanna, woman transgender of Colombian origin, Roman, Russian transgender man, Cate, Ugandan lesbian mother, Yi Chen, young Chinese gay man…
Iran, 2008. As President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's motorcade creeps through the teeming streets of Qom Shrine, thousands of people jam hand-written letters into the hands of his handlers. Hearing their President deliver a speech is a thrill, but more promising to these men and women is the hope that their letters - expressing pleas for loans, medical attention, housing and jobs - will be answered. Since his 2005 election on a populist, "man of the people" platform, Ahmadinejad has encouraged Iranians to send him such letters; according to a staff member, he has received about 10 million of them, and has been able to respond to nearly 76 percent. In one letter, a 16-year-old boy says his family has no money and goes to bed hungry every night. According to the staff member, the boy will be helped. As other letters are read, the worker says that "In Islam, charity is a necessity."
Deep beneath the surface in the Syrian province of Ghouta, a group of female doctors have established an underground field hospital. Under the supervision of paediatrician Dr. Amani and her staff of doctors and nurses, hope is restored for some of the thousands of children and civilian victims of the ruthless Syrian civil war.
In the 1990s many people in Kurdistan were taken into custody and interrogated under torture; their killers disposed of the bodies by throwing them out of helicopters, or burying them in acid-filled wells. Thousands were murdered/disappeared by paramilitary forces—such as Jitem and Hizbul-Kontra—that were financed and supported by the state, though they have always stuck to the line: “We didn’t do it.” The documentary looks at the case of seven people, including four children, who were disappeared from the town of Kerboran [Dargeçit] in 1995, and tells the story of their families’ tireless search for their bones
Juan Méndez Bernal leaves his house on the 9th of april of 1936 to fight in the imminent Spanish Civil War. 83 years later, his body is still one of the Grass Dwellers. The only thing that he leaves from those years on the front is a collection of 28 letters in his own writing.
French visual artist-director JR situates his latest social-art intervention in a Southern Californian supermax prison, where he has imagined an enormously ambitious collaboration with the facility’s inmates.
Oxana is a woman, a fighter, an artist. As a teenager, her passion for iconography almost inspires her to join a convent, but in the end she decides to devote her talents to the Femen movement. With Anna, Inna and Sasha, she founds the famous feminist group which protests against the regime and which will see her leave her homeland, Ukraine, and travel all over Europe. Driven by a creative zeal and a desire to change the world, Oxana allows us a glimpse into her world and her personality, which is as unassuming, mesmerising and vibrant as her passionate artworks.
The most crude and atrocious institutional violence of the Spanish State hides behind a true dark figure, an abyss into which this documentary peers through 30 firsthand accounts.
Gangstresses, a documentary by Harry Davis, tells the story of violence, poverty, and survival in the streets from a female perspective. Over a two-year period, Davis interviews female hustlers, drug dealers, rappers, porn stars, prostitutes, mothers, and daughters. Among them are Champagne, a well-known African American porn star who has a small child; Mama Mayhem, a street hustler; Uneek, a rapper from the Bronx; and Vanessa Del Rio, a famous porn actress. Musicians Lil' Kim, Mary J. Blige, Ice T, and Tupac Shakur also share personal stories of survival. The documentary conducts follow-up research on the women's complicated lives, offering glimpses of both tragic reality and hopeful recovery.
In the aftermath of a tragic fire in a Romanian club, burn victims begin dying in hospitals from wounds that were not life threatening. A team of investigative journalists move into action uncovering the mass corruption of the health system and of the state institutions. Collective follows journalists, whistle blowers, and authorities alike. An immersive and uncompromising look into a dysfunctional system, exposing corruption, propaganda, and manipulation that nowadays affect not only Romania, but societies around the world.
Throughout the Islamic world, each year hundreds of women are shot, stabbed, strangled or burned to death by male relatives because they are thought to have “dishonoured” their families. They may have lost their virginity, refused an arranged marriage or left an abusive husband. Even if a woman is raped or merely the victim of gossip, she must pay the price. Crimes of Honour documents the terrible reality of femicide – the belief that a girl’s body is the property of the family, and any suggestion of sexual impropriety must be cleansed with her blood. We meet women in hiding from their families, a brother who describes his reasons for killing the sister he loved, and a handful of women who have committed themselves to the protection of young women in danger of losing their lives.
David Asmmann's Football Under Cover documents the hard work involved in setting up an exhibition soccer match, known as a "friendly," between a German girls squad and Iranian women's team. In addition to showing how the two groups come from very different cultures, the documentary showcases what playing the game means to the members of both teams, and displays how passionate the fans of these two squads are.
The autobiographical account of the tormented life of a witness of the century: Louisa Ighilahriz, activist and leading figure in Algerian independence. A student, she joined the independence struggle at the age of 20, joining the ranks of the FLN on the eve of the Battle of Algiers in late 1956 under the name Lila. She took part in the high school students' strike, then fled into the maquis when she was actively sought after. She was part of the French FLN support network of "suitcase carriers" during the Battle of Algiers. Seriously wounded alongside her network leader, Saïd Bakel, during an ambush in 1957, hospitalized and then imprisoned, she suffered numerous tortures in French prisons. She will be saved from certain death by an anonymous person, she will seek, for forty years, to find him just to show him her gratitude... Emblematic of the painful Franco-Algerian history, Louisa's story is poignant and imbued with humanism.
Emma is an attractive girl in her 20s who has been blind for 20 years. A new type of eye operation partially restores her sight, but she is having problems: sometimes she doesn't "remember" what she's seen until later. One night she is awakened by a commotion upstairs. Peering out of her door, she sees a shadowy figure descending the stairs. Convinced that her neighbour has been murdered she approaches the police, only to find that she is unsure if it was just her new eyes playing tricks on her.
Medicine, money and morality clash when a hospital's Heart Transplant Selection Committee has only minutes to decide which of three patients on the transplant list will receive a heart that has suddenly become available.
Filmmaker Christopher Quinn observes the ordeal of three Sudanese refugees -- Jon Bul Dau, Daniel Abul Pach and Panther Bior -- as they try to come to terms with the horrors they experienced in their homeland, while adjusting to their new lives in the United States.
Five men wake up in a locked-down warehouse with no memory of who they are. They are forced to figure out who is good and who is bad to stay alive.
He’s a Wardriver: a hacker who steals from banks, not people—until he’s noticed. Now the money turns violent, and the woman caught in it could save him or kill them both.
Utah and his girlfriend Opal, are drug addicts living on the streets in rural Ohio. After getting recruited by body broker Wood and offered treatment in Los Angeles, Wood takes Utah under his wing and introduces him to treatment center mogul Vin. Wood and Vin bring Utah in on their lucrative and illegal dealings, where saving lives comes second to the bottom line.
A wide-ranging, definitive look at Hawk’s life and iconic career, and his relationship with the sport with which he’s been synonymous for decades, featuring unprecedented access, never-before-seen footage, and interviews with Hawk and prominent figures in the sport including Stacy Peralta, Rodney Mullen, Mike McGill, Lance Mountain, Steve Caballero, Neil Blender, Andy MacDonald, Duane Peters, Sean Mortimer, and Christian Hosoi.
A teenage girl and her father travel to a remote alien moon, aiming to strike it rich. They've secured a contract to harvest a large deposit of the elusive gems hidden in the depths of the moon's toxic forest. But there are others roving the wilderness and the job quickly devolves into a fight to survive.
A pioneering family fights back against a gang of vicious outlaws that is terrorizing them on their newly-built farm on the plains of Montana.
In the near future, society collapses and water becomes scarce. When a greedy water baron starts violently clearing out survivors, Kendal, a 17-year-old teenager, fights the baron's henchman to keep a well open.
Ten of Muhammad Ali's former rivals pay tribute to the three-time world heavyweight champion.
Nine filmmakers each profile a young girl from a different part of the world to weave a global tapestry of youth in the 21st century.
In this documentary, wealthy entrepreneur Bryan Johnson puts his body and fortune on the line to defy aging and extend his life beyond all known limits.
CIA Agent Bill Pope is on a mission to track down a shadowy hacker named 'The Dutchman'. When he gets mysteriously killed, an experimental procedure transfers his memories into a dangerous ex-convict. When he wakes up Pope's memories, his mission is to eliminate The Dutchman before the hacker launches ICBMs and starts World War III.
It's the final weeks of the most consequential presidential election in history. America is poised to elect either its first female president or its first viable independent candidate. Reporting history as it's made, an idealistic young journalist teams up with her idol, legendary journalist Nick Booker, to uncover a conspiracy that places the fate of the election, and the country, in their hands.
Ren Amari is the driven inventor of a revolutionary new drug. OtherLife expands the brain's sense of time and creates virtual reality directly in the user's mind. With OtherLife, mere seconds in real life feel like hours or days of exciting adventures. As Ren and her colleagues race around the clock to launch OtherLife, the government muscles in to use the drugs as a radical solution to prison overcrowding. They will create virtual cells where criminals serve long sentences in just minutes of real time. When Ren resists, she finds herself an unwilling guinea pig trapped in a prison cell in her mind. She must escape before she descends into madness, and then regain control of OtherLife before others suffer the same fate.
With a magical new invention that promised to revolutionize blood testing, Elizabeth Holmes became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, heralded as the next Steve Jobs. Then, overnight, her 10-billion-dollar company dissolved. The rise and fall of Theranos is a window into the psychology of fraud.
Robert McCall, who serves an unflinching justice for the exploited and oppressed, embarks on a relentless, globe-trotting quest for vengeance when his former partner is murdered.
A detailing of the rise to prominence and global sporting superstardom of six supremely talented young Manchester United football players (David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Phil and Gary Neville). The film covers the period 1992-1999, culminating in Manchester United's European Cup triumph.
Iverson is the ultimate legacy of NBA legend Allen Iverson, who rose from a childhood of crushing poverty in Hampton, Virginia, to become an 11-time NBA All-Star and universally recognized icon of his sport. Off the court, his audacious rejection of conservative NBA convention and unapologetic embrace of hip hop culture sent shockwaves throughout the league and influenced an entire generation. Told largely in Iverson's own words, the film charts the career highs and lows of one of the most distinctive and accomplished figures the sport of basketball has ever seen.