Calls from Moscow (2023)

My Life Inside

Rosa is a Mexican woman who, at the age of 17, migrated illegally to Austin, Texas. Some years later, she was jailed under suspicion of murder and then taken to trial. This film demonstrates how the judicial process, the verdict, the separation from her family, and the helplessness of being imprisoned in a foreign country make Rosa’s story an example of the hard life of Mexican migrants in the United States.

Mr. Leather

Dom Barbudo, a pioneer in the São Paulo gay and BDSM community and elected first Mister Leather Brasil in 2017, prepares to pass on the mantle to one of the four contestants in the second edition of the contest.

Tomatoes

Across the installation's multiple channels, the camera circles a group of artists as they sit together in a field eating, licking, and squeezing ripe tomatoes. Throughout the ever-changing scene, kisses, whispers, and caresses are shared with a casual, gentle intimacy that reflects interconnectivity and abundance. These queer and desirous exchanges constitute a portrait of collectivity wherein individuals come together as distinct parts of a whole.

There are things in this world that are yet to be named

"There are things in this world that are yet to be named" centers around Solanum plastisexum - an Australian tomato whose sexual expression is unpredictable and unstable, challenging even the fluid norms of the plant kingdom. Footage of the team of botanists who recently used their Solanum research to explode notions of sexual normativity in any plant or animal is combined with a voiceover of letters sent between science writer Rachel Carson and her lover Dorothy Freeman. "There are things in this world that are yet to be named" is a meditation on erasure, indefinability, and the intersection of queer and environmental histories.

La Vie sans Brahim

Plot unavailable

Balakrishna

When an extraordinary new resident – Balakrishna, an Indian elephant – arrived in the town of East River, Nova Scotia, in 1967, no one was more in awe of the creature than young Winton Cook, who became inseparable from his mammoth new friend. Using painterly animation, photographs and home-movie treasures, Balakrishna transmits the wistfulness of childhood memories, while evoking themes of friendship and loss, and issues of immigration and elephant conservation.

The Last Taboo

Hard to imagine, but true: According to current estimates, out of 500,000 active male football professionals worldwide, under ten (10) are openly homosexual. While homosexuality hardly plays a role in other areas of life today, the topic seems to be completely taboo in professional football. The feature-length documentary THE LAST TABOO lets those who broke exactly this taboo tell their very personal stories alongside Thomas Hitzlsperger. Like the British professional footballer Justin Fashanu (*1961 in London; † 1998 in London), who broke this taboo for the first time in 1990 and paid for it with his life. His niece Amal tells his story. Marcus Urban, on the other hand, was about to make the jump to the Bundesliga as a teenager and, by deciding to come out, he also went against his big dream. The stories of the US professional Collin Martin and the British player-coach Matt Morton, on the other hand, suggest that normality is not far away.

Look Away

Europe, the rule of law and host countries? Look elsewhere denounces what is happening in many European cities by taking the example of Calais. From the expulsion from the "jungle" in October 2016 to the situation there a year later, Arthur shared moments of life with men and women of Sudanese, Afghan, Ethiopian, Eritrean and local descent of Calais. By highlighting the gap between the field and the official speeches, this film shows us the strategy put in place to dissuade the exiles from staying. With original filming methods and his civic gaze, the director has managed to film the state harassment, the media staging, but also the strength and humor of the exiles.

Mosques - Behind the Veil

With the help of hidden camera, Danish TV 2 documents how a known Danish imam teaches Muslim women about Islam's violent rules of adultery.

Raja Bro

A sensitive heart-warming story of an Indian transman's acceptance, by himself and his family. Merlin, born as a girl, felt right from his childhood that he was trapped in the wrong gender.

Europe by Bidon

Biodun is Nigerian. In this animated documentary, he tells the story of his journey on foot from Lagos to Paris, how he survives with a container (un bidon) and thanks to his courage. With his amazing patter, he transforms the events into extraordinary adventures.

"An Untitled Film" by George Alshevskij-Jones

“An Untitled Film” by George Alshevskij-Jones is a short documentary/visual essay about the struggles of moving to seek a better future in a different country. The research for the film was done by observing and talking to people who have left their home country. It doesn’t matter what country a person has left and in which country he has found himself, the general experiences and emotions stay the same. The most important message that I want the film to convey is that everything is possible and home is not a place on a map, but a place in the soul of each person that I spoke to. The unconventional way of showing many people as one is not just a way of making the film more convenient to create, but a way to fit a much information into one consistent image, that the audience is more likely to understand and perceive as the author intended it. My own experience blended in with the experiences of others.

The Reaper

Efrain, known as the Reaper, has worked at a slaughterhouse for 25 years. We will discover his deep relationship with death and his struggle to live.

Trumphobia: What Both Sides Fear

Donald J. Trump's fervent supporters and scared opponents were affected by Trump's rhetoric and the media's interpretation, increasing a dangerous political division. Now, It's time for them to stop and listen to each other or push harder until they crash America's democracy.

Jews of the Wild West

“Jews of the Wild West” is a feature-length documentary completed in December 2021. The independent not-for-profit project is produced by Electric Yolk Media and directed by award-winning filmmaker Amanda Kinsey. Through on-camera interviews, compelling footage, and historical photographs, the film tells the positive immigration story and highlights the dynamic contributions Jewish Americans made to shaping the Western United States.

Lake

Lake gazes down at a still body of water from a birds-eye view, while a group of artists peacefully float in and out of the frame or work to stay at the surface. As they glide farther away and draw closer together, they reach out in collective queer and desirous exchanges — holding hands, drifting over and under their neighbors, making space, taking care of each other with a casual, gentle intimacy while they come together as individual parts of a whole. The video reflects on notions of togetherness and feminist theorist Silvia Federici’s call to “reconnect what capitalism has divided: our relation with nature, with others, and our bodies.”

USA V SCOTT

When an Arizona resident is charged with three felony counts and faces a 20-year prison sentence for helping migrants, his community grapples with moral questions posed by his arrest.

Santuario

In Greensboro, NC, a small church community offers sanctuary to Juana Ortega, a Guatemalan grandmother threatened with deportation after 25 years of living and working in the United States.

Babsi Adler

Babsi Adler is a magnificent character that represents the Slovenian drag scene. This short portrait documentary is built through a Halloween night with Babsi and their surroundings. In a conversation with a friend Babsi is open to share their personal thoughts and struggles.

The Unicorn

Peter Grudzien is the lone musical force behind The Unicorn, an openly gay country music album. With the same rawness of a life full of ups and downs, The Unicorn, the movie, follows his personal and artistic journey, which includes mental problems and a peculiar and chaotic family.

The Lebanese Burger Mafia

The heir to a Burger Baron franchise, the filmmaker chases clues through rural Alberta, capturing the trials and tribulations of Arab immigrants while uncovering the saga of a rogue fast-food chain with mysterious origins and a cult following.

How God Created Us: Coming Out in the Catholic Church

125 employees of the Catholic Church come out as queer! In the exclusive ARD documentary, believers in the service of the Catholic Church in Germany dare to go public together. People who identify as non-heterosexual talk about fighting for their church - sometimes at the risk of losing their jobs as a result. There are priests, religious brothers, parish assistants, diocese employees, religion teachers, kindergarten teachers, social workers and many more who report intimidation, denunciations, deep injuries, decades of hide and seek and double lives. The Catholics report a system in which pressure, fear and arbitrariness leave employees uncertain as to what exactly happens when they stand by their sexual orientation or identity. The investigative documentary listens to those who live their faith every day and are nevertheless degraded by the church as an institution.

Chez Jolie Coiffure

Rosine Mbakam is invited to step in Sabine’s small hairdresser’s because it is dangerous in the street. She accepts and pushes in with her camera. Sabine’s stories and the customers’ joys, worries, problems and fears bring depth and life into the premises. At times, it feels like the entire African quarter of Brussels had squeezed in. Laughter abounds, anecdotes and life stories elicit emotions, and a male visitor brings a touch of flirt into the salon.

Brief Tender Light

At America's elite MIT, a Ghanaian alum follows four African students as they strive to graduate and become agents of change for their home countries Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. Over an intimate, nearly decade-long journey, all must decide how much of America to absorb, how much of Africa to hold on to, and how to reconcile teenage ideals with the truths they discover about the world and themselves.

Ten Pound Poms

In 1947, the Assisted Passage Scheme began, devised by the Australian government to bring in white British settlers. For just 10 pounds, they could start a new life in a sun-drenched land of opportunity, and over the next 25 years, more than a million people took up the offer. The scheme's pioneers tell their story.

The Hermits

In the midst of the chaos of México City, a group of eight bachelor millennials who call themselves ´The Hermits´, open the doors to their tiny apartments in the historic Ermita Building, in the yet-to-be gentrified neighborhood of Tacubaya, and share their life experiences in a time when precarity changes the way in which we love, feel and relate to each other. As we explore the homes of these eight neighbors, we also witness their personalities intersect in a Whatsapp chat, a virtual space that functions as a supporting system that helps them face the adversities that living alone in this city brings.