Smong (2024)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Kitchen Dialogue

A generational trauma through the lens of an Asian American teenager through food and poetry.

Procession

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Rewinding Dominoes

In her attempt to escape her past, Huiju relocated to the UK over 11 months ago. However, even after moving to a new country, she found that her nightmares from Korea continued to haunt her. Determined to move forward, she made the decision to confront her memories head-on in a very contemporary way, using dating apps to push the boundaries she had set due to her sexual trauma.

The Cult Next Door

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

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?

Bitter Cells

Huiju learned of her biopsy test results, but lied to her mum about them. Feeling guilty about the lie, she embarks on her journey to find cancer patients who have the same diagnosis as hers and learns about their experiences. After hearing their stories, she finds the courage to tell the truth to her mum.

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.

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.

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.

Mulholland Drive

Blonde Betty Elms has only just arrived in Hollywood to become a movie star when she meets an enigmatic brunette with amnesia. Meanwhile, as the two set off to solve the second woman's identity, filmmaker Adam Kesher runs into ominous trouble while casting his latest project.

Badland

Jerry (Jamie Draven) was an idealist when he served in the first Gulf War. But when he was later deployed to Iraq, Jerry was an older man, a father of three and embittered by broken promises and unfulfilled desires. When Jerry returns from Iraq he has been transformed by horrors that cannot be forgiven. He lives a life of poverty, his children afraid of him and his wife, Nora (Vinessa Shaw), unsympathetic and unhappy. When Jerry discovers that Nora has betrayed him, his anger and despair drive him to commit an act so heinous and irreversible that nothing he had experienced in combat could have prepared him for.

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 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 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.

Trauma Goblin

A depressed man purchases a goblin to heal his trauma and depression, and is forced to face himself.

Black Snake Moan

A God-fearing bluesman takes to a wild young woman who, as a victim of childhood sexual abuse, is looking everywhere for love, but never quite finding it.

Eagle vs Shark

Love blossoms for Lily over double Meaty Boy burgers at mid-day when uber-computer nerd Jarrod comes in and leaves with free extra large fries. After gatecrashing Jarrod's party and proving her skills on the game console, Lily goes down to Jarrod's home town with him so he can settle an old score with a past school bully.

The Celebration

The family of a wealthy businessman gather to celebrate his 60th birthday. During the course of the party, his eldest son presents a speech that reveals a shocking secret.

The Horse Whisperer

The mother of a severely traumatized daughter enlists the aid of a unique horse trainer to help the girl's equally injured horse.

Damned Memory

The thriller "Damned Memory" tells the story of Yoko (Leticia Takara) who lost her memory recently. Cintia (Mariusa Bregoli) tries to help her remember. Strange events occur in the house during the night, causing horror to friends and to all who enters there. Yoko has strange visions pounding in her mind and it says something inhabits her house beyond Cintia and her. Gradually, Yoko will recover, but what comes up are memories that must never be remembered.

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.

The Haunting

Dr. David Marrow invites three distinct individuals to the eerie and isolated Hill House to be subjects for a sleep disorder study. The unfortunate guests discover that Marrow is far more interested in the sinister mansion itself — and they soon see the true nature of its horror.

Mask: With a Polite Smile

Baris is a young man who finds various deception methods to continue his life. The reason for this situation is seen as a reflection of the traumas he has experienced at past. However, there are bigger mysteries than thought.

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.

M.F.A.

After the accidental death of her rapist, an art student becomes an unlikely vigilante, set out to avenge college girls whose rapists were not charged.

Exotica

In the upscale Toronto strip club Exotica, dancer Christina is visited nightly by the obsessive Francis, a depressed tax auditor. Her ex-boyfriend, the club's MC, Eric, still jealously pines for her even as he introduces her onstage, but Eric is having his own relationship problems with the club's female owner. Thomas, a mysterious pet-shop owner, is about to become unexpectedly involved in their lives.

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.

Mermaids' Lament

A woman drowning in trauma takes a therapist beyond her own depth into the darkness. Together, they navigate treacherous waters to find a way to break through the surface and into the light.

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.

Max Manus: Man of War

Max Manus is a Norwegian 2008 biographic war film based on the real events of the life of resistance fighter Max Manus (1914–96), after his contribution in the Winter War against the Soviet Union. The story follows Manus through the outbreak of World War II in Norway until peacetime in 1945.