The International Program
Afterward
Dir: Ofra Bloch
documentary
USA
2018
96 min
This brave documentary is an essential film of our times, depicting a vital step in the journey of how we reconcile the past with the future.
Ofra Bloch, a psychoanalyst and trauma expert born in Jerusalem who now lives and practices in New York, is perceived as a victim in Germany and an occupier by Palestinians. In a journey which takes her to Germany, Israel and Palestine, Ofra confronts her own demons, meets the people she was taught to hate, tests possibilities of violent and non-violent resistance, seeks opportunities for reconciliation, and strives to understand the narratives of both the Holocaust and the Naqba.
Against the backdrop of the rising wave of fascism and anti-Semitism around the world, Bloch dives deep into the hidden wounds of both victims and victimizers by means of first-hand testimonies – some horrifying and some giving rise to real hope.
Festivals: DOC NYC, Santa Barbara, Greenwich (Special Impact Award), Cleveland
Screening in the presence of the filmmakers.
Screening in the presence of the filmmaker.
An intimate documentary unraveling the story of Russian painter Oscar Rabin, a leading artist who opposed the Soviet regime.
Via interviews, archival material and hypnotic photography of his numerous art works, the film portrays Rabin's path from his days as a young art student, through the period he and his paintings were marked as "not aligned with Soviet ideology”, to his and his colleagues’ open resistance to Communist censorship, and ending with the revoking of his Russian citizenship and subsequent exile to Paris.
Rabin’s tragic story serves as a warning of a totalitarian regime’s influence in the field of the arts, yet is an equally powerful reminder of the unique influence of art to inspire, act as tool of resistance, and means of solidarity.
Festivals: Message to Man, Visions du Reel, Beldocs, Stalker (Critics Guild Award), Warsaw (Best Documentary)
Oscar
Dir: Alexander Smoljanski
Germany, Russia, France, USA
2018
90 min
The Feminister
Dir: Viktor Nordenskiöld
Sweden
2019
92 min
An intimate portrait of Margot Wallstrom, former Swedish foreign minister, who rocked global media with her bold criticism of human rights violations in countries such as Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Serbia and Israel.
The film follows Wallstrom during a time of rising discrimination towards women in world politics, resulting in her advancing a forceful feminist foreign policy focusing on women's rights, violence against women, and gender-oriented resolutions of conflicts and crises.
Accompanying Wallstrom on her international travels, where she faces threatening situations, and with direct access to the goings-on in her ministry, this film presents an insider's view of the main events of Wallstrom’s tenure. It shows her attempts to get Sweden a seat on the UN Security Council, her role in mediating between Trump's America and North Korea, and, of course, her decision to recognize the State of Palestine and criticize Israeli policy – a decision which led to a crisis between Israel and Sweden.
Festivals: CPH:DOX, Movies That Matter, Visioni dal Mondo (Special Mention)
Igor, a fearless warden in the vast forests of Siberia, is a family man who, with his wife Natalia, is expecting the birth of their second son. One day he discovers that he has cancer and is given only two months to live. With no cure for the disease, Igor decides to switch genders, reenacting an old Siberian folktale in which a man outwits death by disguising himself as a woman. His family and the local community simply have to accept his new identity.
This unusual film, made by a directorial duo, deals with gender, identity and social class. But here, the gender change is not intended to save Igor from death, but to remove the masks we all wear, in the last moments of life.
Festivals: Venice (Winner – Best Actress, Horizons Award), Bussan, Raindance (Best Performance), Munich, Goteborg, East and West (Best Screenplay)
The Man Who Surprised Everyone
Dir: Natasha Merkulova, Aleksey Chupov
Russia, France, Estonia
2018
105 min
Taking Iacanga
Dir: Thiago Mattar
Brazil
2019
94 min
A documentary showing the fascinating story behind Brazil’s Woodstock – a legendary music festival dedicated to the country’s music of the 1970s and 80s.
Brazil’s military regime prohibited open-air gatherings, seeing them as a means of political protest, but 20-year old student, Antonio Checchin Junior, convinced his family and friends to open their ranch as a stage for the top Brazilian artists of the time.
The film presents rare archival material of backstage images and interviews, along with the live performances of Brazil's most loved performers, including Joao Gilberto, founder of the musical genre Bossa Nova. The peaceful family that founded the festival unconsciously created one of the most powerful symbols of the country’s resistance culture.
Festivals: In-Edit (Barcelona & Sao Paulo), It's All True, Womex, Nuremberg International Human Rights
Sons of Denmark
Dir: Ulaa Salim
Denmark
2019
118 min
Opening Event
A political thriller, set in Denmark in the near future, where extremist nationalist voices are gaining in strength.
Zakaria, a 19-year-old of Iraqi origin, is increasingly afraid of the racist discourse intensifying around him. As parliamentary elections approach, he is chosen to assassinate the extreme right-wing candidate, expected to win a historic victory that will gain him the prime minister’s post. During Zakaria’s preparations for the assassination, he meets Ali, a political activist with his own secrets to keep. The connection of both to extremist organizations leads the film to its complex and powerful ending, testing their newfound brotherhood.
Through its gripping plot line, this film succeeds in touching some of the most relevant issues of our time: racism, nationalism and democracy – and the individual’s role within it.
Festivals: Rotterdam, Seattle (Best Director), Sao Paulo, Quebec, Goteborg (Best Nordic Film),
05/12/19
Thursday
20:00
Hall 3
האיחוד האירופי
An award-winning documentary by American-Canadian director Slater Jewell-Kemker,. Making films from the age of six and documenting this one from the age of 15, it takes the form of a personal travel diary telling her own story as well as revealing her generation’s coming of age.
These are the young people born in the 1990s who found themselves struggling with the indifference and inaction of politicians around the world, constantly failing to find real solutions for the climate crisis. The loss of innocence of the film's heroes - naïve and idealistic teenagers in the days of Obama who turn into sober and determined young adults in Trump’s age - intertwines with the story of lost decades and a global feeling that time is simply running out.
Festivals: Orlando, Riviera (Best Documentary), Telluride Mountainfilm, Movies That Matter
Followed by a discussion with the audience.
Youth Unstoppable: The Rise of the Global Youth Climate Movement
Dir: Slater Jewell-Kemke
Canada
2018
87 min
LOVEMOBIL
Dir: Elke Margarete Lehrenkrauss
Germany
2019
106 min
A difficult, yet hypnotic documentary showing the lives of prostitutes in rural Germany.
As night falls on the German countryside, a procession of old VW-caravans decorated with brightly colored lights lines the nearby highway. Inside, women from Eastern Europe and Africa who support themselves and their families by prostitution, await their passing clients. With intimate attention, the film reveals the lives and thoughts of the women inside the trailers, including Ushi, who hires out the vehicles, Milena from Bulgaria and Rita from Nigeria – and the dangers they face.
Through the stories of these vulnerable yet strong women, the film presents and criticizes life at the margins of global capitalism.
Festivals: Locarno, Camden (Emerging Cinematic Vision Award), Munich, LA (Best International Documentary)
Hearts and
Bones
Dir: Ben Lawrence
Australia
2019
111 min
This feature film describes the moving and unusual friendship between a well-known war photographer, Weaving, suffering from shell shock, who returns home for the birth of his son, and Luri, a refugee from southern Sudan who has found a safe haven for himself and his family in Australia.
When Luri discovers that the former is having a retrospective of his war work that will include photographs of the massacre in Luri’s own village fifteen years ago, he appeals to Weaver to exclude them. The intricate relationship between the film's two protagonists, inevitably influenced by the power of the image to both document reality and yet also forever change the lives of two people: photographer and photographed, intensifies the cinematic drama and raises important moral questions.
Festivals: Toronto, Sydney, Melbourne, Hamptons, Oldenburg,
Imagine Peace
Dir: Michael Rogosin
USA
2019
79 min
Screening in the presence of the filmmakers.
This film of Michael Rogosin, Lionel Rogosin's son, enables him to return to the life work of his father, a Jewish-American film director who believed in the power of the cinema to transform reality by means of political documentary filmmaking. More than 40 years after his father's short film "Arab-Israeli Dialogue" was shelved, Rogosin returns to the same film and attempts to understand for himself what has changed, what remains relevant from the honest conversation filmed between Kenan and Hussein, and what remains of the legacy of these two great intellectuals who are no longer with us.
The film follows Rogosin on his trips to Israel, where he lived in the early 1960s, as well as to Palestine, Paris and New York. He interviews various people who knew Hussein and Kenan and screens his father's film for journalists, intellectuals and political activists.
The film will receive its Israeli premiere in the presence of the director as part of the tribute "His Own Man", marking the tenth anniversary of Kenan's death.
Closing Ceremony.
Social services have lost all hope when it comes to 9-year-old Bernadette – thrown out of every framework she has ever been sent to. Benni is a delicate-looking little girl but has dangerous outbursts of rage in the wake of an earlier trauma. She has one clear aim: to return home and live with her mother, but even her mother cannot cope with her. The supervisor of her case is determined to find Benni a long-term solution, and finally gets offered the chance by Micha, a young father who specializes in treating anger. Slowly he manages to get closer to Benni than anyone has, and everyone anxiously holds their breath to await the result.
Germany's entry for the 2020 Oscars – Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.
Fingscheidt’s feature film debut premiered this year in the Berlin Film Festival’s official competition and won the Alfred Bauer Prize for a film that “contributes new perspectives to the art of cinema”.
System Crasher
Dir: Nora Fingscheidt
Germany
2019
118 min
EUROPEAN UNION
Born in Evin
Dir: Maryam Zaree
Germany, Austria
2019
95 min
After years of hesitation, actress and director Maryam Zaree finally makes the difficult decision to familiarize herself with the circumstances of her birth in one of the most maligned prisons in Iran - Evin. In 1979, during the wake of the Islamic revolution, her parents had been among the tens of thousands of political opponents who were imprisoned and tortured there, by the new political and spiritual leader Ruhollah Khomeini. Even after their flight to Germany, this part of their past was never discussed.
In the film, Maryam examines how the trauma still affects both her and her family today, and how political survivors cope with the fact that those responsible still occupy positions of such power in Iran.
Festivals: Berlin, Cologne, Hot Docs,
Seahorse
Dir: Jeanie Finlay
UK
2019
91 min
A groundbreaking film, documenting the remarkable story of a father who gives birth to his own son.
Freddy, a 30-year-old transgender man who wants to have a baby, chooses to enter into pregnancy himself. After surgeries above the waist and years of hormonal treatments, his uterus is still intact. Unique challenges are posed as Freddy discovers that not only is he unprepared for the physical demands of pregnancy, but that he naively ignored the threat to his own personal identity. Basic concepts about his environment, gender and family are also dramatically put to the test. Step by step, Freddy discovers that the concept, seemingly pragmatic at the time, threatens both him and those around him. But it all falls by the wayside when he holds his son in his arms for the first time.
This film, created with full cooperation between the filmmaker and its hero, develops into an unusual, daring story about what makes us who we are.
Festivals: Tribeca, Sheffield, Chicago, Hot Docs
Dolce Fine Giornata
Dir: Jacek Borcuch
Poland
2019
96 min
An unusual feature film that reflects the fears and difficulties troubling European liberals today.
Maria is a Polish-Jewish Nobel-Prize-winning poet with a free spirit, who lives in Tuscany in the villa of her sometimes over-emotional family. Not only is she a loving mother and grandmother, but she also enjoys a flirtation with a young Egyptian who runs the nearby hostel. When a terrorist attack in Rome gives rise fear and hysteria throughout the area, Maria refuses to give in to anti-immigration sentiment, and decides to use the platform of a local prize to courageously condemn the erosion of European democracy. However, she is not prepared for the public and personal devastation that her speech will unleash.
The film, which premiered at the 2019 World Cinema Dramatic Competition section at Sundance Film Festival, deals with the role art, politics and family have in our lives, through the gripping story of one courageous woman.
Festivals: Sundance (Special Jury Award for Acting – Krystina Janda), Cameraimage
What will the economic model look like the day after global neo-liberalism?
This delightful documentary follows three successful entrepreneurs who bear social responsibility at three different levels: local, national, and international. In their own way, each of the three tries to find a balance between their desire to act fairly, with social and ecological awareness and yet against the pressing demands of free-market economics.
Their actions and considerations focus on ethics and sustainability as the criteria for success, and offer a possible way out of the current global situation, which at times seems hopeless.
Festivals: Hof, Solothurn, Nuremberg International Human Rights
Followed by a discussion with the audience.
Fair Traders
Dir: Nino Jacusso
Switzerland
2018
89 min
Gaza
Dir: Garry Keane,
Andrew McConnell
Ireland, Germany, Canada
2019
92 min
Gaza takes us to a unique place beyond the reach of television news reports, to reveal a world rich with eloquent and resilient characters. TV director/producer Garry Keane and photographer Andrew McConnell wanted to address the disparity between perception and reality of a land that is so much more than its portrayal in the media.
Their Gaza is a place where smiles, joy and even brief moments of hope are woven with threads of despair, frustration and fatigue, where life moves in cycles, with the weight of the past bearing down on any hope for the future.
Ireland's entry for the 2020 Oscars – Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.
Festivals: Sundance, Belfast (Feature Documentary Award), Dublin (Film Critics Award - Best Documentary), Munich, Uruguay (Human Right Competition – Special Mention)
Followed by a discussion with the audience.
A thought-provoking documentary, showing a mosaic view of the worldwide housing crisis.
In countless cities around the world housing prices continue to climb while the average income remains static. Time and again, families are left without a roof over their heads, senior citizens forced to leave their homes, while local communities simply disintegrate.
The film follows a UN expert of fair housing on her travels across the globe. London, Berlin, Barcelona, Sao Paulo, New York, Stockholm, Seoul, and Toronto: no stone is left unturned as she grimly reveals how housing has shifted from a natural human right to a financial pawn in the hands of greedy, faceless giant corporations. Interviewing residents, economists and researchers, the film sheds light on a new kind of gentrification, one that threatens all of us everywhere.
Festivals: CPH:DOX (Politiken's Audience Award), Hot Docs, IDFA
PUSH
Dir: Fredrik Gertten
Sweden
2019
92 min
God Exists, Her Name is Petrunija
Dir: Teona Strugar Mitevska
North Macedonia, Belgium, France, Croatia, Slovenia
2019
100 min
In Stip, a small town in Macedonia, there is an ancient ritual in which each January the local priest throws a wooden cross into the river and hundreds of men dive into the freezing water in the attempt to retrieve it. According to tradition, the one who succeeds will enjoy prosperity and great good luck. But this year, on sudden impulse, the one who jumps into the water and succeeds in retrieving the cross is Patrunija, a young woman on her way home from a humiliating job interview, in which the owner of a local factory had paid more attention to her dress than to her degree. The other divers are not merely enraged at the participation of a woman in their all-male ceremony, but in the fact that she won. An all-out attack is launched, but Patronija stands her ground: She won, the cross is hers, and she has no intention of giving it up, even when taken into custody by the police, and a lynch mob gathers outside.
This award-winning feature film by director Teona Strugar Mitevsa is a satirical work that examines with a rich and critical eye the changes that are occurring at a root level of Macedonian society – church, judicial system and media – outlining the difficulties placed in the path of women who stand up for themselves and resist archaic traditions.
Festivals: Berlin (Winner – Prize of the Ecumenical Jury), Edinburgh, Yerevan, Motovun (Winner – Best Film)
Easy Lessons
Dir: Dorottya Zurbó
Hungary
2018
78 min
Kafia, a 17-year-old refugee from Somalia, lives in Budapest in a home for young people.
Coping with the separation from her mother, who saved her life and yet remains behind, she is studying for her high school matriculation exams. Through a sensitive portrayal of her daily routine, and narrated in her own voice, this film presents a complex portrait of a teenager who has had to adapt to a new life in a new culture, alone.
Swimming lessons, dreams about a modeling career, memorizing chapters in Hungarian history… this film poses questions about identity, religion and nationality – presenting an uncompromising look at a situation in which millions of refugees all over the world find themselves.
Festivals: Locarno, Sarajevo, Camden, Cameraimage
Followed by a discussion with the audience.
10/12/19
Tuesday
19:00
Hall 2
Arab-Israeli Dialogue + Golden Cage
Lionel Rogosin's groundbreaking documentary film, which in 1973 brought together the Israeli Amos Kenan and the Palestinian Rashid Hussein for an open discussion about the past, present and future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Rogosin, an American Jew and one of the pioneers of independent American cinema, fought in the Second World War and developed left-wing views, which prodded him to create political cinema aimed at dialogue and peace.
At a time when virtually all of Israeli society refused to recognize a Palestinian nationality and viewed Palestinians as the ultimate enemy, and when most of the Palestinian leadership refused to recognize the existence of the State of Israel, Rogosin, against all the odds, made a courageous and innovative film which tries to create a real, open and egalitarian dialogue between two intellectuals from both sides of the barricade.
With the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War in 1973 the film was shelved and has never been screened in Israel.
It is now receiving its Israeli premiere as part of the tribute, “His Own Man”, marking the tenth anniversary of Amos Kenan's death.
Arab-Israeli Dialogue
Dir: Lionel Rogosi
USA
1974
40 min
Golden Cage
Golden Cage, a short documentary, provides an intimate view of the Palestinian tragedy from afar. Gideon Levy, Haaretz’s well-known commentator on the subject, visits Imad Sabi, exiled former member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in his new home in The Hague. Against the canvas of Sabi in his Ph.D. room, his library, at his daughter’s kindergarten and cycling round the city and North Sea beach with his family, his comfortable life shows up in stark contrast with the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, through this dynamic dialogue between the two men.
Screening in the presence of the filmmakers.
Dir: Yulie Cohen
Israel
1999
25 min