Smong (2024)

things that won't die

After finding some videos she uploaded to YouTube when she was a child, Manuela attempts to follow the trail she herself has left on the Internet. A search that looks into all that things that won't never die and that, especially, thinks about the way we look at ourselves.

Relative

A filmmaker unearths a pervasive history of multigenerational trauma in her Italian-American family. As decades of secrets, home movies, and long-avoided conversations surface, a family once bound by tradition forges a new path forward.

Total Trust

By exploring the relationship between the watched and the watching, our film uncovers the trauma and hope engendered by the Chinese all-surveilling state and lends a voice to those that stand in resilient defiance of such blatant abuse of power.

The Cult Next Door

A short documentary featuring a brief overview of Bill Gothard's ministries, and some of the consequences for his followers.

Begrijpt u nu waarom ik huil?

The work of Leiden professor Bastiaans on dealing with the trauma of war victims attracts the attention of filmmaker Louis van Gasteren. He decides to make a film about the psychotherapeutic treatment with LSD of a former concentration camp prisoner in the clinic of Bastiaans. Patient Joop is arrested in September 1941 and begins a long hellish journey through various camps, until he is liberated by the Russians. When he returns to his wife, he has become a completely different man. Joop suffers from nightmares and is incapable of normal human contact. With two cameras, Van Gasteren records approximately six and a half hours of the first treatment that Joop undergoes with Bastiaans (four more will follow later). Special attention is paid to details: Joop's hands, the sweat on his forehead, a tear running slowly down his cheek. Van Gasteren reduces the recordings to more than an hour.

Violently in Love

Behind the closed doors of the Copenhagen-based women's shelter, the women and children are slowly recovering after having escaped domestic violence. Day by day the women are processing their traumas, building confidence and slowly understanding what it takes to break the cycle of violence.

Sherwood Park

Reclaiming what was once stolen from him, a man journeys back to the place of his childhood nearly 80 years after his world came crashing down.

The Wisdom of Trauma

One in five Americans are diagnosed with mental illness every year. Suicide is the second most common cause of death in the US for youth aged 15-24, and kills over 800,000 people globally per year. Drug overdose kills 81,000 in the US annually. The autoimmune disorder epidemic affects 24 million people in the US alone. What is going on? The interconnected epidemics of anxiety, chronic illness and substance abuse are, according to Dr. Gabor Maté, normal - but not in the way you might think.

Such a Resounding Silence

Through this documentary, Emmanuelle Béart aims to uncover the truth about incest. The actress, accompanied by director Anastasia Mikova, breaks her silence and confronts her reality with that of others, shedding light on a taboo subject.

Circus

We all carry hell with us. The filmmaker’s hell exists on a canvas, which he studied carefully in childhood. The mystical picture has many names: Circus, Hell, Game at the Arena. Decades later he finds the painting again. The film unravels as loose ponderings about the plight of being an artist and touches upon the filmmaker’s personal demons. Can he see the painting in a new light?

The Healing

An inspiring journey of recovery from two very different worlds. Set against the stunning backdrop of Kangaroo Valley in NSW, a revolutionary program brings together traumatised ex-racehorses and traumatised military veterans - to help rebuild each other, and transform lives.

No Māori Allowed

When an academic unearths a forgotten history, residents of the small township of Pukekohe, including kaumātua who have never told their personal stories before, confront its deep and dark racist past.

Peace of Mind

The story of Christina Lau and her relationship with her parents as she recounts the happy and traumatic memories of her childhood and adolescence. She shares the ways in which the tragic demise of her father and mother have affected her and shaped who she is today. Her story is powerful, tragic, and demonstrates the importance of strong family ties when overcoming hardship. The documentary is directed by her eldest daughter, Robyn Mae, and includes stunning animations created by her youngest daughter, Tammy-Ann.

Flee

Recounted mostly through animation to protect his identity, Amin looks back over his past as a child refugee from Afghanistan as he grapples with a secret he’s kept hidden for 20 years.

Camp 14: Total Control Zone

Shin Dong-Huyk was born on November 19, 1983 as a political prisoner in a North Korean re-education camp. He was a child of two prisoners who had been married by order of the wardens. He spent his entire childhood and youth in Camp 14, in fact a death camp. He was forced to labor since he was six years old and suffered from hunger, beatings and torture, always at the mercy of the wardens. He knew nothing about the world outside the barbed-wire fences. At the age of 23, with the help of an older prisoner, he managed to escape. For months he traveled through North Korea and China and finally to South Korea, where he encountered a world completely strange to him.

Blackfish

Notorious killer whale Tilikum is responsible for the deaths of three individuals, including a top killer whale trainer. Blackfish shows the sometimes devastating consequences of keeping such intelligent and sentient creatures in captivity.

Procession

Six men who were sexually abused by Catholic clergy as boys find empowerment by creating short films inspired by their trauma.

Attila

Filmmaker Stephen Hosier takes a journey with Richard Csanyi, his childhood friend, as he investigates the life and death of his twin brother Attila, who was found dead on a rooftop in 2020.

The Blackout Experiments

You arrive at a secret location at a precise time, prompted by a mysterious email. You must follow the instructions closely. Once inside, disturbing visions begin. Unspeakable acts befall you—often frightening, sometimes sensual, possibly painful—each stimulating your deepest fears. And when it's over, you are changed, abandoned, and left wondering what is real and what was merely a game.

War and Peace of Mind

War and Peace of Mind explores what war does to the human mind and how both, the individuals and the nation as a whole, survive it psychologically. Finland and WWII, locally known as continuation war, is the backdrop of this documentary.

We Are Not Done Yet

Follows veterans and active-duty service members from varied backgrounds who come together to combat their traumas through the written word in a USO-sponsored arts workshop at Walter Reed National Military Hospital.

Dare Remember

"It's been 25 years and there is so little I remember. I can not remember the police investigation and I can not remember the trial. I have never talked to my parents about the rape, but it is always there anyway. " Dare Remember is an exceptionally brave documentary film that put words to what has been hushed. About meeting what you prefer to forget. A movie about moving forward.

Kinship

Rabah is forced to take over custody of his son Cédrick. The boy has been mute since losing his mother. Despite the financial strain caused by his immigrant status and undeterred by his fraught relationship with his son, Rabah will manage to rebuild Cédrick’s trust so they can be a family again.

The Fallen Sparrow

Imprisoned during the Spanish Civil War, John "Kit" McKittrick is released when a New York City policeman pulls some strings. Upon returning to America, McKittrick hears that a friend has committed suicide, and he begins to smell a rat. During his investigation, McKittrick questions three beautiful women, one of whom has a tie to his refugee past. Pursued by Nazi operatives, McKittrick learns of the death of another friend, and begins to suspect the dark Dr. Skaas.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post

Pennsylvania, 1993. After getting caught with another girl, teenager Cameron Post is sent to a conversion therapy center run by the strict Dr. Lydia Marsh and her brother, Reverend Rick, whose treatment consists in repenting for feeling “same sex attraction.” Cameron befriends fellow sinners Jane and Adam, thus creating a new family to deal with the surrounding intolerance.

The Trench

The Trench tells the story of a group of young British soldiers on the eve of the Battle of the Somme in the summer of 1916, the worst defeat in British military history. Against this ill-fated backdrop, the movie depicts the soldiers' experience as a mixture of boredom, fear, panic, and restlessness, confined to a trench on the front lines.

The Devils

The story of the struggle of an autistic girl and her brother trying to survive without their parents.

The End of Endless Love

Xin Tan has the ability to create happiness for others through sound, but after using it three times on the same person, his life will be bound to that person. Only when the other party is happy can Xin Tang can survive. Incidentally, Xin Tang rescued the school internet celebrity Ji Ze, who was about to commit suicide, and the two bound together.

To the Last Day

Captain Kim is grievously wounded in the first days of the war. When the northern troops continue their advance, his wife and small daughters flee south to Taegu, dragging him along in a two-wheel handcart. His wife struggles to keep herself and their surviving daughter alive. Working as a market trader, she meets a kind young man -- who happens to be tall, dark and handsome.

Castle Freak

After she’s permanently blinded in a tragic car accident, Rebecca receives some bizarre news: her long-lost mother has recently passed away, leaving her their family’s ancestral castle in rural Albania. Traveling to the estate with a group of friends, Rebecca hopes it will be an opportunity for her to reconnect with a past she never knew and a mother who seemingly left her behind. When mysterious events begin to occur and her friends begin to die, Rebecca must unravel the secrets of her family’s history before she too falls prey to the Castle Freak.

Rabbit Hole

Life for a happy couple is turned upside down after their young son dies in an accident.

House of Flesh Mannequins

A loner artist with a history of abuse meets a beautiful woman who takes an interest in his life and work; leading to a chilling path of tragedy.

Cotton Wool

A single mother suffers a devastating stroke leaving her teenage daughter and 7-year-old son to care for her, testing the family's strength to hold things together as their roles are reversed.

Millie's Care Free Day

Weighed down and despondent from crushing depression, Millie tries to escape the daily grind by deciding today will be different. However, she must first confront her trauma before it consumes her.

Cold Prey II

After surviving the events in the Jotunheimen mountains in which four of her friends were murdered, the badly injured Jannicke is brought to the local hospital. But when she wakes up, the building is dark and deserted... and she soon realizes that her nightmare isn’t over yet.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

After picking up a traumatized young hitchhiker, five friends find themselves stalked and hunted by a chainsaw-wielding killer and his family of equally psychopathic killers.

The Descent

After a tragic accident, six friends reunite for a caving expedition. Their adventure soon goes horribly wrong when a collapse traps them deep underground and they find themselves pursued by bloodthirsty creatures. As their friendships deteriorate, they find themselves in a desperate struggle to survive the creatures and each other.

The Dentist

Dr. Feinstone has everything, a beautiful wife and a successful career in dentistry; but when he discovers his wife's affair, he realizes that behind every clean, white surface lies the stench of decay.

Machuca

Santiago, capital of Chile during the Marxist government of elected, highly controversial president Salvador Allende. Father McEnroe supports his leftist views by introducing a program at the prestigious "collegio" (Catholic prep school) St. Patrick to allow free admission of some proletarian kids. One of them is Pedro Machuca, slum-raised son of the cleaning lady in Gonzalo Infante's liberal-bourgeois home. Yet the new classmates become buddies, paradoxically protesting together as Gonzalo gets adopted by Pedro's slum family and gang. But the adults spoil that too, not in the least when general Pinochet's coup ousts Allende, and supporters such as McEnroe.

Spiral

A reclusive telemarketer has only one semblance of a friend: His telecommuter boss. But the telemarketer's social circle seems to improve greatly when a whimsical co-worker enters his life. Only, as he begins to sketch his new friend's portrait, disturbing "voices" from the phone man's past threaten to lead him into a network of destruction

Speak

Freshman high-school student Melinda has refused to speak ever since she called the cops on a popular summer party. With her old friends snubbing her for being a rat, and her parents too busy to notice her troubles, she folds into herself, trying to hide her secret: that star senior Andy raped her at the party. But Melinda does manage to find solace in her art class headed by Mr. Freeman.

The Anomalisa Effect

Plot unavailable

Santa Sangre

A former circus artist escapes from a mental hospital to rejoin his mother - the leader of a strange religious cult - and is forced to enact brutal murders in her name.

Straightheads

There is instant chemistry between Alice (Gillian Anderson), a businesswoman, and Adam (Danny Dyer), a younger working-class man who installs a security system in her London apartment. She takes him to a party in the country, and they end up making love. But the night turns horrific when they encounter three thugs who maim Adam and rape Alice. The incident turns them into fearful recluses until Alice spots the leader of their attackers (Anthony Calf) -- and the two victims plot a brutal revenge.

Boogeyman 2

A young woman attempts to cure her phobia of the boogeyman by checking herself into a mental health facility, only to realize too late that she is now helplessly trapped with her own greatest fear.

Revoir Paris

Three months after surviving a terrorist attack in a bistro, Mia is still traumatized and unable to recall the events of that night. In an effort to move forward, she investigates her memories and retraces her steps.