69 Minutes of 86 Days
Documentary, Director: Egil Haskjold Larsen, Norway, 2017, 70 min trailer
The film follows Syrian refugees on an 86-day journey, as told through the eyes of three-year old Lian, whose experience of being uprooted from her home and traveling all the way to Sweden is portrayed with a good dose of laughter and amazement. The adults around her are conscience of the struggle and hardships, but for the protagonist, her first trip away from home is an adventure, and she seems oblivious to the dangers, suffering, fatigue and hunger.
Awards: Hot Docs 2017 - Emerging International Filmmaker Award,; Sheffield Doc/Fest 2017 - Winner, Sheffield Youth Jury Award, Nordic Docs 2017- Best Documentary Feature
Screenings: CPH:DOX 2017,Sheffield Doc/Fest 2017, Nordic Docs 2017, Galway Film Fleadh 2017, Camden International Film Festival 2017, Reykjavik International Film Festival 2017, Dubai International Film Festival 2017
Friday 27.4, 14:30, Cinema 2 Buy Tickets
In Exile
Documentary, Director: Win Naing, Germany/Myanmar, 2016, 72 min trailer
Many of the refugees that fled Myanmar for Thailand in the wake of the civil war in their country have been living in conditions of slavery since the end of the 1990s. Following Myanmar’s 2015 election, many of the asylums seekers remained in exile in Thailand. The movie’s director, a former refugee, returns to his homeland and provides an up close and personal look into a dark chapter of a never-ending story, with rare attention to details..
Awards: The Global Cinema Film Festival of Boston - Best Human Rights Film
Screenings: TIFF, 2016, DOK Leipzig, 2017
Thursday 1.5, 18:30, Cinema 4 Buy Tickets
Brexitannia
Documentary, Director: Timothy George Kelly, Britain, 2017, 80 min trailer
The results of a national referendum that led to the prospective withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union surprised London’s elite. The first part of this movie provides British responses to the most central themes of our time: Immigration, declining empires, the diminishing relevance of labor in the era of automation, and questions of national identity in a fast-paced world. The second part of the film is dedicated to Noam Chomsky’s analysis.
Screenings: CPH:DOX, 2017, DOK.fest Munchen, 2017, Sheffield Doc/Fest, 2017, Encounters Film Festival, 2017, Budapest International Documentary Film Festival, 2018
Saturday 28.4, 11:00, Cinema 3 Buy Tickets
Mrs B, A North Korean Woman
Documentary, Director: Jero Yun, France/South Korea, 2016, 70 min trailer
Miss B, married with two children, crosses the border into China to support her family, which remains in North Korea. She discovers she was sold into marriage to a local farmer. Ten years later, she manages to smuggle her family into South Korea, joins them after a highly dangerous and protracted journey and tries to start her life over.
Awards: Best Documentary, 2016 Moscow International Film Festival, Best Documentary Golden Eye Award, 2016 Zurich Film Festival
Screenings: 2016 Cannes ACID sidebar, 2016 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA)
Saturday 28.4, 15:00, Cinema 2 Buy Tickets
Vangelo
Documentary, Director: Pippo Delbono, Italy/Sweden/Belgium, 2016 85 min trailer
Pippo, a theater director, travels to a shelter for refugees, who share their experiences and fears about the future. Some of their stories are included in the movie while others remain secret. The idea is to tell the stories of the New Testament on stage develops through the lives of the asylum seekers, who have become the protagonists of a new era.
Awards: Venezia, Giornate degli Autori - Venice Days, 2016
Screenings: Genève, 15e Festival International du film sur les droits humains, 2017, Lisboa, 14° doclisboa Festival internacional de cinema, Competition
Friday 27.4, 16:30, Cinema 2 Buy Tickets
Bones of Contention
Documentary, Director: Andrea Weiss, U.S.A., 2017, 75 min trailer
Eighty years after the Spanish civil war, the unmarked graves of over 100,000 of its victims – among them Federico Garcia Lorca – are still dispersed throughout the country. The story of the LGBT community under the fascist Franco regime is at the center of this film, which focuses on the lives of the community’s past members and their current struggle to secure their rights and place in Spain’s collective memory.
Screenings: Berlinale- Panorama, 2017, Newfest- New York's LGBT Film Festival, 2017
Saturday 28.4, 11:00, Cinema 4 Buy Tickets
Freedom for the Wolf
Documentary, Director: Rupert Russell, Germany/U.S.A., 2017, 89 min trailer
From the Occupy Hong Kong movement through the Arab Spring to Donald Trump’s inauguration, the notion of freedom around the world can accelerate liberation but can also lead to violence, oppression and the violation of other’s rights. The film does not offer any easy solutions. The individual citizen does not always have the power to affect change, especially in the non-liberal democracies of the 20th century.
Awards: Slamdance Film Festival, 2018 – Audience Award, Best Documentary Feature
Screenings: : Sheffield Doc/Fest, 2017, IDFA, 2017, Warsaw Film Festival, 2017, Slamdance Film Festival, 2018
Saturday 28.4, 13:00, Cinema 1 Buy Tickets
Dead Donkeys Fear No Hyenas
Documentary, Director: Joakim Demmer, Sweden/Germany/Finland, 2017, 80 min trailer
Ethiopia is a dreamland for foreigners investing in agricultural territory, and also reflective of the dark face of globalization in the third world. The film exposes the damage caused by the interaction between wealthy foreign nationals, corrupt collaborators in the regime and helpless local residents. International investors and the representative of the World Bank reveal reasons to be optimistic in this reality: They get the last laugh.
Awards: IDFA 2017, Sheffield Doc/Fest, 2017
Screenings: : CPH:DOX 2017, DOK.fest Munchen 2017, Watch Docs Film Festival, 2017
Tuesday 1.5, 21:00, Cinema 4 Buy Tickets
Era of Dance
Documentary, Director: Viktors Buda, Latvia/Russia, 2017, 89 min trailer
The rave scene in Riga in the mid-1980s marked the beginning of the revolution: The German-Latvian multimedia artist Indulis Bilzens sparked a cultural coup that preceded the political struggle against the Soviet Union and the declaration of independence by the republic of Latvia in 1991. The film uses in-depth interviews and archival materials of the heroes of techno to tell the story of the birth of dance music in the days of perestroika.
Screenings: : Riga International Film Festival 2017, Tromso International Film Festival 2017
Thursday 26.4, 22:00, Cinema 4 Buy Tickets
Licu, a Romanian Story
Documentary, Director: Ana Dumitrescu, Romania, 2017, 86 min trailer
Liviu Canter, known as Licu, lived in Romania through the era of extremism in the 20th century: World Wars, communism and the 1989 revolution, and corruption in the post-communist world. Director Ana Dumitrescu interviews and films the man, who is reaching his late nineties, in a series of visits to his home, during which he takes a look back and opens up his heart.
Awards: DOK Leipzig 2017 – Golden Dove, Feature-Length documentaries, The International Competition
Screenings: ZarebDox 2018, One World Romania 2018
Friday 27.4, 12:00, Cinema 3 Buy Tickets
A Letter to the President
Narrative, Director: Roya Sadat, Afghanistan, 2017, 83 min trailer
The head of the Kabul Police crime unit, a mother of two, copes in this narrative film with impossible choices that stem from life alongside a violent man and her insistence on her independence within the patriarchal reality of Afghanistan. The cost of choosing between her loyalty to the laws of the state and the laws of the tribe intensify when the film’s protagonist goes to investigate her father-in-law without fear or favor.
Screenings: Locarno Film Festival 2017, Busan International Film Festival 2017, Palm Springs International Film Festival, 2018
Friday 27.4, 16:30, Cinema 4 Buy Tickets
Pre-Crime
Documentary, Director: Monika Hielscher & Matthias Heeder, Germany, 2017, 88 min trailer
Police effort to prevent a crime that hasn’t yet happened exacts a high social and personal price: They provide justification for the surveillance of innocent civilians and the arrest of those considered immediate suspects. The film follows police activities in Chicago, London, Paris, Berlin and Munich, documenting the Orwellian and sophisticated current war on future criminal incidents, and illuminates the reality of the Big Brother reality it creates.
Screenings: Hot Docs 2017, DOK.fest Munchen 2017
Tuesday 1.5, 21:00, Cinema 1 Buy Tickets
The Penalty
Documentary, Director: Will Francome & Mark Pizzey, Britain, 2017, 86 min trailer
The human cost of the death penalty in the U.S. is at the center of this film, which presents three extraordinary stories: A former inmate wrongly convicted of murder who lives under threat of execution for 15 years; a lawyer fighting against executions, which become increasingly cruel and inhumane; and a mother fighting against her state’s decision to request the death penalty for her daughter’s murderer.
Screenings: Paris Human Rights Film Festival 2017, West End Film Festival 2017
Saturday 28.4, 15:00, Cinema 4 Buy Tickets
City of the Sun
Documentary, Director: Rati Oneli, Georgia/Qatar/Holland/U.S.A., 2017 104 min trailer
The lives, dreams and destinies of extraordinary characters unfold amidst the ruins of a semi-abandoned mining town in Western Georgia, which used to provide half the world’s output of manganese and is today a ghost town searching for its place in the 21st century. The film tells the personal stories of those that remained, among them a music teacher, a miner turned actor, and two athletes with Olympic dreams.
Awards: Madrid International Documentary Film Festival, 2017 – Best International Feature Film
Sarajevo Film Festival – IDFA Award, 2016, Sheffield Doc/Fest, 2017 – Art Doc Award
Wiesbaden Go East, 2017 – Award of the Federal Foreign Office
Minsk International Film Festival, 2017 – Special Jury Award
Tbilisi International Film Festival, 2017 – Best Film
Zagrebdox, 2018 – Special Mention
Screenings: Berlinale, 2017, San Francisco International Film Festival, 2017, Reykjavik International Film Festival, 2017,
Tuesday 1.5, 16:00, Cinema 4 Buy Tickets
Piripkura
Documentary, Director: Renata Terra, Bruno Jorge & Mariana Oliva, Brazil, 2017, 82 min trailer
The fight over the Brazilian rainforests is portrayed in this movie through finding the proof of the existence of the last two members of the Piripkura tribe, who still live as nomads in the Amazons. They are encircled by farms and sawmills, whose aggressive expansion is almost inevitable. Only by locating the members of the tribe can the special status of this area be preserved.
Awards: IDFA – Amsterdam Human Rights Film Festival 2017, Rio De Janeiro International Film Festival 2017
Screenings: Cartagena Film Festival, 2017, Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival, 2018
Saturday 28.4, 17:00, Cinema 2 Buy Tickets
Queerama
Documentary, Director: Daisy Asquith, Britain, 2017, 70 min trailer
The story of the LGBTQ community in Britain and its struggle for equality between 1967 and 2017, as reflected by a rich archive of films and television, and accompanied by soundtrack filled with hits and unique musical pieces. The film documents 50 years of creative solutions for expressing anxiety and passion, loves and homosexual relationships, issues that could not be directly addressed for many years.
Screenings: IDFA 2017, Sheffield Doc/Fest, 2017, Helsinki International Film Festival, 2017, Cinema Queer International Film Festival, 2017, One World Romania, 2018, Melbourne Queer Film Festival, 2018
Friday 27.4, 22:00, Cinema 3 Buy Tickets
Strike a Rock
Documentary, Director: Aliki Saragas, South Africa, 2017, 87 min trailer
Marikana is a small mining town in South Africa that made headlines in 2012 when the local police shot and killed 34 striking workers. The movie presents the heroic story of the women of the community, impoverished but impassioned, who are fighting for their dignity mined in the town.
Awards: Durban International Film Festival 2017
Screenings: IDFA 2017
Tuesday 1.5, 19:30, Cinema 2 Buy Tickets
Complicit
Documentary, Director: Heather White and Lynn Zhang, U.S.A./China, 2017, 88 min trailer
This film serves as an awakening to those who say they “can’t live” without their cellphones. Shot below the radar, Complicit follows Chinese factory migrant worker-turned-activist Yi Yeting, who takes his fight against the global smartphone industry from his hospital bed to the international stage. While battling his own work-induced leukemia, Yi learns the struggle to defend the lives of millions of Chinese from becoming terminally ill due to working conditions brings confrontation with some of the world’s largest brands.
Awards: International Human Rights Festival Valencia,Spain 2018 for Best Feature Documentary, and Best Research and Investigation, Raw Science Film Festival Social Media Award, Santa Barbara, Calif USA 2018
Screenings: London Human Rights Watch Film Festival, 2017, TIFF, 2017, New York Human Rights Watch Film Festival, 2017, DOXA Film Festival, 2017
Saturday 28.4, 13:00, Cinema 4 Buy Tickets
The Borneo Case
Documentary, Director: Dylan Williams & Erik Pauser, Sweden/Norway/
Germany/Britain/Holland, 2016, 83 min trailer
The film follows a 5-year long investigation by a group of activists – an exiled tribesman, a historian, an investigative journalist and a DJ – sparked by a double story of crony capitalism: The destruction of 90 percent of Borneo’s rainforests and with them, a diverse and unique ecosystem, and millions of dollars that disappeared into foreign accounts owned by politicians, their families and cronies.
Screenings: IDFA 2016, Tempo Film Festival 2017, Boulder International Film Festival, 2017
Sunday 29.4, 17:00, Cinema 4 Buy Tickets
The Nile Hilton Incident
Narrative, Director: Tarik Saleh, Sweden/Germany/Denmark/France, 2017,
110 min trailer
A political thriller set in Egypt during the final days of the Mubarak regime . Noredin, an investigator with the Cairo Police, looks into the murder of a famous pop star in a prestigious hotel, and discovers corruption in the upper echelons of Egyptian government. The investigation into what appears to be a crime of passion leads to a confrontation with rich and powerful men who are not interested in solving the case, and exact a high personal price.
Awards: Sundance Film Festival 2017 – World Cinema Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Film
Valladolid International Film Festival 2017 – Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Director
Screenings: Seattle International Film Festival 2017, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2017, Belgrade International Film Festival 2018
Thursday 26.4, 20:00, Cinema 3 Buy Tickets