War

An allegorical tale of female emancipation set amidst the Syrian conflict in Damascus, about a family who decides to stay behind in the besieged area. When a shell rips a giant hole in the roof of the building where 14-year-old Zeina and her family live, they are suddenly exposed to the outside world. One day a young boy living nearby lowers a rope through the opening in the family’s roof and Zeina discovers her first taste of freedom. More

Mahmoud and Fawzi have been living in the Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan. Though they both have no sense of what the future holds for them, they focus their energy together on their first love: soccer. Despite the dire circumstances in the camp, they practice day in and day out, believing firmly that playing professionally is their ticket to freedom. More

Gilles Caron, at the peak of a dazzling career as a photojournalist, suddenly disappeared in Cambodia in 1970. He was barely 30 years old. In the space of 6 years, he was one of the major witnesses of his time, covering for the greatest magazines the Six Day War, May 68, the North Irish conflict or the Vietnam War. When director Mariana Otero discovered Gilles Caron's work, a photograph caught her attention, echoing his own story, the disappearance of a loved one who left behind only images to be deciphered. More

FOR SAMA is both an intimate and epic journey into the female experience of war. A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. More

Patagrande, Rambo, Leidi, Sueca, Pitufo, Lobo, Perro and Bum Bum. Eight stray teenagers, each bearing a code name, form a paramilitary squad on a remote hilltop. They are instinctively drawn towards hedonism and ferocity. A messenger delivers instructions from the Organisation: they are to look after a dairy cow called Shakira and an abducted woman from the USA known as Doctora. But their carefree time comes to an end when death pays them a visit and their position is compromised, forcing them to relocate deeper into the jungle. More

Camille, a young idealistic photojournalist, goes to the Central African Republic to cover the civil war that is brewing up. What she sees there will change her destiny forever. - By adopting the lead character’s first name for the film’s title, Boris Lojkine’s approach shows all its humility. More

Vlada works as a truck driver during the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999. Tasked with transporting a mysterious load from Kosovo to Belgrade, he drives through unfamiliar territory, surrounded by the consequences of the war. When his job is over, Vlada needs to return home and face the consequences of his actions. More

Nuria, 12, Fabio, 9, and their mother Amparo arrive in a small island in the middle of Amazonia, at the border of Brazil, Colombia and Peru. They ran away from the Colombian armed conflict in which their father disappeared. One day, he reappears in their new house. The family is haunted by this strange secret and discovers the island is peopled with ghosts. More

The origins of the Colombian drug trade, through the epic story of an indigenous Wayúu family that becomes involved in the booming business of selling marijuana to American youth in the 1970s. When greed, passion and honour collide, a fratricidal war breaks out that will put their lives, their culture and their ancestral traditions at stake. More

Summer 1943, Piedmont, Italy. Milton loves Fulvia who plays with his love: she only likes the depth of his thought and the letters he writes to her. One year later, Milton has joined the Resistance and fights beside other partisans. He learns during a conversation that Fulvia was secretly in love with his best friend Giorgio, a partisan like him. Milton decides to go find Giorgio in the Langhe region of Italy with all its misty hills…But Giorgio has just been arrested by the Fascists. More

When his father dies, anti-regime partisan Chandra must travel to his remote mountain village after nearly a decade away. Little Pooja is anxiously awaiting the man she thinks is her father, but she’s confused when Chandra arrives with Badri, a young street orphan rumoured to be his son. Chandra must face his brother Suraj, who was on the opposing side during the Nepalese civil war. The two brothers cannot put aside political feelings while carrying their father's body down the steep mountain path to the river for cremation. More

Nabat and her husband Iskender, an old and sick ex-forestry worker, live in a small isolated house far from the village. War has been raging for some time and their son has been killed at the front. Their sole means of survival is the sale of milk from their only cow that Nabat takes to the village every couple of days. As the shadow of war envelopes the region the village is slowly deserted by its inhabitants. Following Iskender’s death Nabat has to survive in a now abandoned village under the regard of a she-wolf. More

Movie director Hussein would like to shoot a film in his homeland of Iraqi Kurdistan about the Anfal military operation of the 1980s that led to the murder of more than 182,000 Kurds. The viewer follows the entire crew’s efforts to achieve the goal of making the film despite the numerous problems that accompany the shoot. More

In the Ottoman province of Hijaz during World War I, a young Bedouin boy experiences a greatly hastened coming of age as he embarks on a perilous desert journey to guide a British officer to his secret destination.In 1916, in the Hejaz Province of the Ottoman Empire, the young Bedouin Theeb (Jacir Eid) is learning from his elder brother Hussein (Hussein Salameh) the skills for everyday survival in their harsh environment. More

Wandering aimlessly after losing his memory in a car accident, a manis taken in by the inhabitants of a farm in the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon,whose secret business is the drugs they manufacture in a laboratory onthe closely guarded property. The presence of this nameless strangerhas consequences for the clandestine community.Little separates beauty and horror here. A latent sense of dangerpervades the vast swathes of sublime landscape. A catastrophe looms.Tensions also rise in the cramped quarters of the house. More

Rahima (23) and Nedim (14) are orphans of the Bosnian war. They live in Sarajevo, a transitional society that has lost its moral compass, including in the way it treats children of the people who were killed fighting for the freedom of their city. After crime-prone adolescent years, Rahima has found comfort in Islam and she hopes her brother will follow in her footsteps. Their life of bare survival becomes even more difficult after Nedim gets into a fistfight with the son of a local strongman and breaks his expensive mobile phone. More

A nocturnal drive along a rural highway into a city at dawn that is somehow moving in the wrong direction. It is only after a while that you notice that the vehicles are travelling backwards, receding back into the dusk of reality. This mysterious metaphor forms the starting point for a journey into the unknown history of Cambodian film. Nearly 400 films were made in Phnom Penh between 1960 and 1975, only 30 of which survive today. The Khmer Rouge burnt them or allowed them to decay along with many of the country’s studios and cinemas. More

Western frontiers of the USSR, 1942. The region is under German occupation, and local partisans are fighting a brutal resistance campaign. A train is derailed not far from the village, where Sushenya, a rail worker, lives with his family. Innocent Sushenya is arrested with a group of saboteurs, but the German officer makes a decision not to hang him with the others and sets him free. Rumours of Sushenya’s treason spread quickly, and partisans Burov and Voitik arrive from the forest to get revenge. More

War is imminent, but pregnant Nour refuses to admit it. Her husband, more rational, persuades her to leave. Convinced they will be able to return shortly, they bring with them only the bare necessities. Little do they know that they are leaving behind the fond memories of a paradise lost. The dramatic reconstruction in a minimalist approach of a key day in the life of a couple who has since emigrated. More

Present-day Chad. Adam, sixty something, a former swimming champion, is pool attendant at a smart N’Djamena hotel. When the hotel gets taken over by new Chinese owners, he is forced to give up his job to his son Abdel. Terribly resentful, he feels socially humiliated. The country is in the throes of a civil war. Rebel forces are attacking the government. The authorities demand that the population contribute to the "war effort", giving money or volunteers old enough to fight off the assailants. The District Chief constantly harasses Adam for his contribution. More

Twelve-year-old Tedo lives with his young mother in Keto in an isolated hut on the outskirts of Tiflis. Tedo and Keto are refugees from Abchasia. The civil war has claimed everything they ever owned, including Tedo’s and Keto’s hopes for a bright future as an intact family unit. Tedo was just four years of age when they were obliged to flee from Abchasia. At the time, they had to leave behind Tedo’s father – his weak heart made it impossible for him to take on such a strenuous journey. More

Seventeen year old Lejla works with her friend Anci (25), in a noble hotel restaurant on the top of Sarajevo. One day Lejla meets Milos (43), a businessman who spent his student years in Sarajevo, before moving to Switzerland. At nightfall, Milos and Lejla rest in the hotel restaurant together and get closer to each other. Without knowing, what they will discover that next morning. More

En avril 2006, 13 000 personnes de l’ethnie Dajo se réfugient dans la plaine de Gouroukoun, à l’Est du Tchad. Tous sont des survivants de la guerre du Darfour. Ils y construisent un camp, s’y enferment et s’y inventent une survie. L'auteur s’est enfermé à son tour dans cette prison sans mur. Des images patientes racontent l’interminable temps de l’attente. Une vie au ralenti qui s’égrène, comme suspendue dans le dénuement. More

When her mother dies, Fausta is forced to face her fears, that she got as ababy with the milk of her mother. Fausta now sets out on a journey – a journey that will lead her out of her fear and into freedom. Peruvian director Claudia Llosa’s film addresses a dark era of her country’s history. It won the Golden Bear in Berlin and was nominated for the Oscars in 2010. More

The young man fell from the sky Communication relay burns Flee from the city and its commotion, return to nature Become part of another story That of the legend of the prince In the hope of a love Hiding behind the hollow in a tree Nothing magic is improbable What happened yesterday, may happen again tomorrow. More

Three women in a bus in Lebanon. They have the same destination: a men's penitentiary. The first woman wants to visit her husband whom she hasn't seen since their day of marriage. The second one has only one goal: to get her husband who has to serve a long sentence to sign the divorce papers and thus gain back her freedom. The third woman is afraid. She carries the gun that her husband, a prison guardian, has forgotten at home. A straight road seems to be leading them quickly to their destination: from Beirut centre to the Mermel prison in the desert. More

Anberber has studied in Germany and returns post-graduate to Ethiopia. He is full of hope that he can support his country with his newly acquired knowledge. It's a story about hope and disillusionment, about foreignness and homeland. More

"Snow does not fall to cover the hill, but for every beast to leave its trail.” Eastern Bosnia, 1997. Six women, a grandfather, four girls and a young boy live in war ravaged and isolated village of Slavno. Their families and friends had been killed and their bodies had never been found. The first snow brings full isolation and risk for life in the village. More

Esma (Mirjana Karanovic) is living with her 12-year-old daughter Sara (Luna Mijovic) in Grbavica, a quarter of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo. Saras class plans to go on a school trip. Since children of fallen warriors in the last war are not supposed to pay, Sara thinks that she is one of them (because her mother told her that her father got killed in war). Esma has two things to deal with and that is the explanation to her only child that she was raped and that Sara's father is not a fallen warrior, and she has to collect the money for her daughter to go to the school trip. More

More than 4 000 km through the immense forest équatorial... Beyond the technical and human performance (seven months of turning under extreme conditions), it is with a diving in the heart of a bloodless but splendid country that the film delivers throughout course of this majestic river. More

After a forty-year civil war, the radio in Chad announces that the government has decided to grant amnesty to all war criminals. Outraged by the news, Gumar Abatcha orders his grandson Atim (Ali Bacha Barkai), a 16-year-old youth, to trace the man who killed his father and to execute him. Atim obeys him and, armed with his father's own gun, he goes in search of Nassara (Youssouf Djaoro), the man who made him an orphan before he was born. It does not take long before he finds him. Nassara is running a bakery. More

The gripping story of two Kurdish soldiers, Asad and Rashid, who celebrate with their comrades the downfall of Saddam on 9th April 2003 before being ordered to take food supplies to another remote part of the country. As they hit the road, they come across a lost 7-year-old arab boy called Saddam crying at the side of a highway. They decide to save him and protect him until they find his parents. In the process one of them gets killed. More

While much of Cambodia's cultural heritage was eradicated through the deaths of many artists during the Khmer Rouge era, the country's main theatrical structure, Preah Suramarit National Theatre remained standing throughout the Cambodian Civil War, even occasionally being used by the communist regime for official visits and propaganda pageants. Ironically, it was while the theatre was undergoing repairs in 1994 that it caught fire, was heavily damaged and has never been restored. More

This is Ariel's world: the small, slightly seedy shopping center in downtown Buenos Aires, where the Italian shopkeepers scream all day, the Koreans sell feng-shui and old Osvaldo sells nothing. Where Ariel's mother runs a lingerie shop and his brother deals in import-export. It's a comfortable little world, in spite of an undercurrent of malaise and uncertainty. Many young people are looking their immigrant roots to obtain a coveted foreign passport, the key to a world full of promise. More

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Seibei Iguchi (Hiroyuki Sanada), a low-ranking samurai and family man, leads a life without glory as a bureaucrat in the mid-XIX century Japan. A widower, he has charge of two daughters (whom he adores) and a senile mother; he must therefore work in the fields and accept piecework to make both ends meet. New prospects seem to open up when Tomoe (Rie Miyazama), his long-time love, divorces a brutal husband. However, even as the Japanese feudal system is unraveling, Seibei remains bound by the code of honour of the samurai and by his own sense of social precedences. The consequences are cruel. More

This film directed by Pjer Zalica was the best shown at the 2005 Global Lens Film Festival. It is now available on dvd in the USA courtesy of First Run Features. It includes a video introduction by the director. Fuse is set in Tesanj, a Bosnian town close to the Serbian border, two years after the civil war officially ended. Corruption and hatred are palpable and most townfolk are engaged in one type of illegal activity or another. More

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Seventeen-year-old Nhâm lives with his mother, little sister and sister-in-law Ngu in a remote village in Vietnam. His father died in the war, his brother moved away to find work elsewhere. The three work day after day in the rice fields. Between Nhâm and Ngu evolves a quiet, deep relationship. But the beautiful Quyen, who has lived in the USA for years and now returns to her native village even if only for a short time, turns Nhâm's head. Quyen seems to be only marginally aware of Nhâm's growing admiration and not at all aware of Ngus' wordless jealousy. More

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A Greek-American filmmaker, known simply as «A», returns to his hometown in northern Greece for a screening of his latest controversial film. His real reason for coming back, however, is to track down three long-missing reels of film by Greece's pioneering Manakia brothers who in the early years of cinema traveled through the Balkans, ignoring national and ethnic strife and recording ordinary people, especially craftsmen, on film. More

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In this last film Ritwik Ghatak himself plays Nilkantha Bagchi, an alcoholic, in the character's own words «a broken intellectual». His wife leaves him taking away his books and records which were his only properties left. When Bagchi insisted she shouldn't, Durga replied that she is taking this away so that his son grows up with these books and music, but he managed to keep a fan which he sells to buy country liquor to start his unusual and abstract ride. More

Mohamed Malas was born in 1945 in Syria's Kuneitra, not far from the border with present-day Israel, which destroyed the important Kuneitra traffic junction in the Six-Day War. Now Malas flashes back to the time between 1936 and 1967. In Al Leil he depicts the childhood of a boy who, as an adult, reconstructs the footsteps of his father, the times of constant absence. One day he hadn't appeared at all after having fought for democracy for years and hardly found time for his family, for his private life. The boy grew up with his mother. More

Mira, a young woman from Russia, comes to Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, to visit her father, a player who often loses and finally even has to give away Mira to an old man. But Daler, a young player, falls in love with Mira and simply abducts her into his rather weird world. Daler is the boss of the local, thoroughly rotten aerial cableway. Its faded yellow cabins are suitable for every cargo: tourists as well as for hay, beer crates, stolen goods and even as a love-home for a clandestine rendez-vous. More

Cythera, in Greek mythology, is the isle of dreams where one can dedicate oneself to happiness (or the pursuit thereof). In this quest within a quest, the tale of the father's return is told as if from the point of view of his son Telemachus and as if Telemachus were a filmmaker, as well as a middle-aged man with a son of his own. A film director, tired of the illusions and fictions of his profession, searches for a story of substance by attaching himself to an old man, a recently returned political exile. More

The film that captivated more than 8,000 people on an unforgettable evening in Locarno's Piazza Grande with its cinematic magic and message of peace. In the summer of 1944, a group of residents from their home village of San Miniato in Tuscany secretly sneaked out to meet the American liberators. According to instructions, those who remain behind seek shelter in the church and fall victim to a retaliatory strike by the Germans. More

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THE TRAVELLING PLAYERS is a film of epic proportions. The action takes place during the years 1939-52 and is seen as a series of individual, often inexplicable events or tableaux, commentated by monologues, by slogans written on the walls, or by songs. It reveals the period's turbulent history while focusing on a travelling company of actors who spend those fourteen years wandering through provinces, cities and villages, performing, in increasingly threadbare circumstances, a 19th century pastoral melodrama, Persiadis' Golfo the Shepherdess. More

The background of Andrei Tarkowski's first feature film is the Second World War, with the 12-year-old boy Iwan at the centre. As part of the official programme of films, it is still astonishing today how the Russian managed to shoot a film that stood across the system and showed the war from the perspective of a boy. Iwan seems totally hardened after losing his family and escaping a camp, he sees little prospects and quite simply wants to avenge the death of his loved ones. Tarkowski shows his masterly skills in cinematography in this early oeuvre. More

Sanjuro, soldier of fortune―unemployed, unbathed, generally unprincipled, with only the threadbare clothes on his back and his razor-sharp swords. But vagrant as he sees, his faded garments bear the crests of a samurai, labeling him as a member of the superior, warrior class. His wandering takes him to a foreboding village, one under the yoke of two gangs―bitter rivals―who are constantly at war with each other. Decent citizens are too terrified to venture into the streets, and the police are helpless. More

Hiroshima mon amour concerns a series of conversations or one enormous conversation over a 36-hour long period between a French actress (Emmanuelle Riva), referred to as Her, and a Japanese architect (Eiji Okada), referred to as Him. They have had a brief relationship and are now separating. The two debate memory and forgetfulness as She prepares to depart, comparing failed relationships with the bombing of Hiroshima and the perspectives of people inside and outside the incidents. More

Veronika and Boris come together in Moscow shortly before World War II. Walking along the river, they watch cranes fly overhead, and promise to rendezvous before Boris leaves to fight. Boris misses the meeting and is off to the front lines, while Veronika waits patiently, sending letters faithfully. After her house is bombed, Veronika moves in with Boris’ family, into the company of a cousin with his own intentions. More

Around the time of wheat harvesting, the wandering bandits come to raid the villages and the villagers tremble with fear and apprehension. The only way to defend the village is to hire the samurai mercenaries. With the cooperation of a veteran fighter Kambei, Korobei, Kyuzo, Heihachi, Shichiroji, Katsushiro and Kikuchiyo are chosen, the last being a wild youth of farmer descent. The defense of the village is built up with the help of the samurai and combat training is started. With the end of the harvesting of the corn, the raids by the bandits begin. The enemy number some 40 odd. More

In his masterpiece Ugetsu monogatari the Japanese Kenji Mizoguchi tells the story of Genjuro, a potter, and his brother-in-law, the farmer Tobei. The two live with their wives in a small village in the middle of a war-torn area. And they have ambitions that take advantage of the turmoil of war. Genjuro wants to travel to the city with his pots and earn a lot of money as quickly as possible. Tobei wants to achieve fame and honor as a Samurai. Both risk everything - and lose. The pursuit of money and fame, Mizoguchi makes clear here, inevitably involves the loss of inner values. More

At the end of the war, doctor Fujisaki is wounded during an emergency operation in the hospital. A little later he notices that the patient is suffering from syphilis and that he has infected himself. Fearing to pass on the disease, he breaks up with his fiancée after the war and silently fights his illness with the means available at the time. His former patient, however, lives carelessly and marries; his deformed child is born dead. The "Arztfilm" was a popular genre in the post-war years, especially in Germany. More