Umbrellas Move (2016)

Une vie contre l'oubli

Portrait of Belgian historian, reporter and documentarian André Dartevelle.

Another Home

Cheung Chau, once a fishing village in Hong Kong, has transformed into a tourist spot. Ri-Tai, a food stall run by A-Cheung, reflects local life, absurdities, and societal realities. A-Cheung spends his days playing games with customers like Plumpy, forming bonds that transcend generations. However, the onset of COVID-19 disrupts this sense of community, leaving the island deserted and questioning whether Ri-Tai's simple way of life will vanish.

Pussy Riot: Rage Against Putin

Pussy Riot make a comeback after a long absence to stand with Ukraine. Their story and their struggle are told through archival footage and interviews with the group’s members.

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

The life of internationally renowned artist and activist Nan Goldin is told through her slideshows, intimate interviews, ground-breaking photography, and rare footage of her personal fight to hold the Sackler family accountable for the overdose crisis.

The Corporation

Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behaviour, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also how the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it.

Freedom Downtime

A feature-length documentary about the Free Kevin movement and the hacker world.

Steal This Film

Steal This Film focuses on Pirate Bay founders Gottfrid Svartholm, Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde, prominent members of the Swedish filesharing community. The makers claimed that 'Old Media' documentary crews couldn't understand the internet culture that filesharers took part in, and that they saw peer-to-peer organization as a threat to their livelihoods. Because of that, they were determined to accurately represent the filesharing community from within. Notably, Steal This Film was released and distributed, free of charge, through the same filesharing networks that the film documents.

When a City Rises

Behind the gas masks of Hong Kong’s democracy movement, the often very young activists are just as diverse as the youths of the rest of the world. But they share a demand for democracy and freedom. They have the will and the courage to fight – and they can see that things are going in the wrong direction in the small island city, which officially has autonomy under China but is now tightening its grip and demanding that ‘troublemakers’ be put away or silenced. Amid the violent protests, we meet a 21-year-old student, a teenage couple and a new father.

Lessons in Dissent

A vivid portrait of a generation of Hong Kongers committed to creating a new more democratic Hong Kong. Schoolboy Joshua Wong dedicates himself to stopping the introduction of National Education. Whilst former classmate Ma Jai fights against political oppression on the streets and in the courts. Catapulting the viewer on to the streets of Hong Kong and into the heart of the action. The viewer is confronted with Hong Kong's oppressive heat, stifling humidity and air thick with dissent. Filmed over 18 months this is a kaleidoscopic, visceral experience of their epic struggle.

The Yes Men

A comic, biting and revelatory documentary following a small group of prankster activists as they gain worldwide notoriety for impersonating the World Trade Organization (WTO) on television and at business conferences around the world.

Along Came a Catdidate

When Sergio Chamorro and Daniel Cruz declared their cat Morris an eligible candidate in the municipal elections of Mexico's state of Veracruz, they thought of it as a joke. But the cat's surging popularity on social media made them reconsider. Now a leading candidate, Morris's political opponents are urging citizens not to vote for the feline.

Political Bodies

At a time when the far right is ascending to power around the world, the 2020 Brazilian municipal elections saw a surprising and unprecedented record of LGBT candidates. This film follows four young queer politicians during their electoral campaigns and reveals their struggle to affirm their rights to exist and be heard.

Made in Hong Kong

The film Made in Hong Kong allows glimpses on a Hong Kong shortly before the 1997 handover to China. But rather than focusing on the expected hysteria Luc Schaedler’s documentary debut works towards complexity by allowing six diverse residents to talk about their relationship to the colonial city. Their life stories beautifully mix with the images of the author. Made in Hong Kong is a very personal portrait of a city in transition and we learn about Hong Kong’s ambiguities and its political and social problems, as well as the uncertainties regarding the time after 1997.

The Yes Men Are Revolting

Activist-pranksters Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonnano pull the rug out from under mega-corporations, government officials and a complacent media in a series of outrageous stunts designed to draw awareness to the issue of climate change.

Meeting Snowden

Moscow, Russia, December 2016. Edward Snowden, Larry Lessig and Birgitta Jónsdóttir meet for the first time in a secret place. Apparently, Russia is interfering in the US presidential elections while it mourns the death of its ambassador to Turkey. Snowden carefully chooses his interviews, so nobody really knows something about him. As the world prepares for Christmas, they gather to discuss the only issue that matters, their common struggle: how to save democracy.

The Incredible Mr. Piccoli

A captivating portrait of French actor Michel Piccoli, who has worked with the greatest filmmakers of his time and has built a dazzling career of remarkable merit and success, focusing on his work during the 1970s and his professional relationship with Claude Sautet, Romy Schneider, Marco Ferreri and Luis Buñuel.

A Night of Knowing Nothing

L, a student in India witness to the government's violent response to university protests, writes letters to her estranged lover while he is away.

Berkeley in the Sixties

A documentary about militant student political activity at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1960s.

Revolution of Our Times

Throughout Hong Kong’s history, Hongkongers have fought for freedom and democracy but have yet to succeed. In 2019, a controversial extradition bill was introduced that would allow Hongkongers to be tried in mainland China. This decision spurred massive protests, riots, and resistance against heavy-handed Chinese rule over the City-State. Award-winning director Kiwi Chow documents the events to tell the story of the movement, with both a macro view of its historical context and footage and interviews from protestors on the front lines.

Be Water

In 1971, after being rejected by Hollywood, Bruce Lee returned to his parents’ homeland of Hong Kong to complete four iconic films. Charting his struggles between two worlds, this portrait explores questions of identity and representation through the use of rare archival footage, interviews with loved ones and Bruce’s own writings.

Comrades

Young people are protesting on the streets of Hong Kong in order to bring about change. Air soaked with tear gas, the dark uniforms and loud commands of the police officers in the colourful umbrella sea of the protesters. In the midst of the action, the film documents a brand new protest movement.

Poverty, Inc.

Poverty, Inc. explores the hidden side of doing good. From disaster relief to TOMs Shoes, from adoptions to agricultural subsidies, Poverty, Inc. follows the butterfly effect of our most well-intentioned efforts and pulls back the curtain on the poverty industrial complex - the multi-billion dollar market of NGOs, multilateral agencies, and for-profit aid contractors. Are we catalyzing development or are we propagating a system in which the poor stay poor while the rich get hipper?

Catalonia: Spain on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

A serious crisis has shaken Spain since the referendum on self-determination and the proclamation of the independence of Catalonia by the government of Carles Puigdemont, bold actions firmly fought by the Spanish government by applying the constitutional article that allows it to place a region under guardianship. While Spain is on the verge of implosion, Europe is holding its breath.

If We Burn

Hundreds of thousands − perhaps even millions − of protestors have taken to the streets of Hong Kong since early June. Sparked initially by the government's plans for a controversial extradition bill, the movement has now transformed into a broader push for greater freedoms and democracy, with anger over police brutality fuelling a cycle of violence. The protests are Hong Kong's biggest challenge to Beijing since its return to China in 1997. If We Burn looks at the movement through the eyes of Hong Kongers whose fates, like their city's future, now hang in the balance.

Home and a Distant Archive

A poetic, experimental portrait of four Hong Kong women in London working to digitise records of the handover agreement between the United Kingdom and China. Impressionistic and precise, personal and expansive, Cheung's elegant, eloquent work decodes history and how politics are enacted.

Age of Valiant

At the forefront of most of Hong Kong's demonstrations, 'frontliners' (aka 'the valiant', yung mo in Cantonese) are the black-clad, masked, often armed youth willing to use violence against the HK government and its heavily-armed police force. Willis Ho's remarkably revealing doc approaches from the inside, giving them voices and offering understanding, not judgment.

The State Against Mandela and the Others

South Africa, July 11th, 1963. Several members of the African National Congress, an organization declared illegal, are arrested in Rivonia, a country house near Johannesburg. The detainees, along with Nelson Mandela, imprisoned since 1962, are charged with serious crimes for their radical activism against the apartheid regime.

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975

Examines the evolution of the Black Power Movement in US society from 1967 to 1975. It features footage of the movement shot by Swedish journalists in the United States during that period and includes the appearances of Angela Davis, Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, and other activists, artists, and leaders central to the movement.

Letter from Masanjia

Damascus, Oregon, United States. Julie Keith finds a baffling message hidden in a pack of decorative items, a desperate plea for help, written by someone imprisoned in a Chinese labor camp called Masanjia…

Like an abortion, for the very first time

The Umbrella Movement was a wave of street protests that took place in Hong Kong from September to December 2014 as a reaction to oppressive practices of the Chinese government against the citizens of Hong Kong dissatisfied with planned changes in the electoral system. In her feature film debut, To Liu captured the citizens of the western part of Kowloon, Mong Kok, whose protests might not have been as visible as those of the leading activists, but were no less important. The documentary rhythmized by opening entries and darkening of the scene, much like the director’s first film, follows two characters, a master and an apprentice.

Un homme de Parole

Plot unavailable

Hong Kong Hustle: The Chinese Cinema Odyssey Of Stephen Chow

The first feature-length documentary to explore the career of Stephen Chow; featuring collaborators, critics, and academics. Produced for the Shout Factory release of his classic work on Blu-ray, "The Stephen Chow Collection" released in 2024. Fans will learn how Chow went from Hong Kong's TVB to feature film riches, with his peculiar brand of localized comedy, to becoming one of the most successful brand names in Mainland China, including the blockbuster reception for his comedy "The Mermaid" in 2016.

Pussy Riot and other sins

"Puss Riot and other sins" - The Putin system is taking on more and more features of the Soviet system. The big fear and paranoia returns.

Anarchism in America

A colorful and provocative survey of anarchism in America, the film attempts to dispel popular misconceptions and trace the historical development of the movement. The film explores the movement both as a native American philosophy stemming from 19th century American traditions of individualism, and as a foreign ideology brought to America by immigrants. The film features rare archival footage and interviews with significant personalities in anarchist history including Murray Boochkin and Karl Hess, and also live performance footage of the Dead Kennedys.

Do Not Split

The story of the 2019 Hong Kong protests, told through a series of demonstrations by local protestors that escalate into conflict when highly armed police appear on the scene.

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

An account of the many tribulations that Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, known for his subversive art and political activism, endured between 2008 and 2011, from his rise to world fame via the Internet to his highly publicized arrest due to his frequent and daring confrontations with the Chinese authorities.

Gureombi, The Wind is Blowing

The story of the ancient and sacred Gureombi Rock. The story of the people of Gangjeong Village who rise up against the construction of a US/Korea Naval base on their holy and precious land. The winds of peace, like the winds of Jeju Island, are blowing.

Oproerkraaiers

Plot unavailable

Danube

Argentina, 1968. In the midst of the Cold War, the dictatorship of Juan Carlos Onganía (1966-70) organizes the 9th Mar del Plata Film Festival in order to show the world its friendly face, while exercising censorship and repressing dissidence.

Frantz Fanon, trajectoire d'un révolté

Frantz Fanon alone embodies all the issues of French colonial history. Martinican resistance fighter, he enlisted, like millions of colonial soldiers, in the Free Army out of loyalty to France and the idea of freedom that it embodies for him. A writer, he participated in the bubbling life of Saint-Germain with Césaire, Senghor and Sartre, debating tirelessly on the destiny of colonized peoples. As a doctor, he revolutionized the practice of psychiatry, seeking in the relations of domination of colonial societies the foundations of the pathologies of his patients in Blida. Activist, he brings together through his action and his history of him, the anger of peoples crushed by centuries of colonial oppression. But beyond this exceptional journey which makes sensitive the permanence of French colonialism in the Lesser Antilles at the gates of the Algerian desert, he leaves an incomparable body of work which has made him today one of the most studied French authors across the Atlantic.

We Have Boots

The Umbrella Movement of 2014, also known as the Occupy Movement, paved the way for Hong Kong’s current upheavals, but unfolded in significantly different ways. This creative documentary focuses on the intellectual, political, and discursive underpinnings of the social and political actions of 2014, before fast-forwarding to 2019. A range of thoughtful and engaged intellectuals, students, scholars, activists, and artists including Benny Tai, Chan Kin-man, Ray Wong, and Agnes Chow (many of whom are facing imprisonment for their democratic activism) articulate a range of philosophies, viewpoints and emotions, set against Hong Kong’s spectacular urban background of skyscrapers, night lights, and street-occupying mass movements.

Brink of Disaster!

A student is held up in the library while a riot rages outside. As SDS protesters head to burn the library down, he has to fend them off with his baseball bat. This film opens with actual footage of civil disturbances in the 1960s, and moves on to images of historical American figures.

Schade, daß Beton nicht brennt

A documentary about the clashes between squatters and the police in Berlin in early 1981. Despite the absence of commentary, this is an openly partisan film that aims less for political analysis than for an up-close description of the situation and mood.

Stonebreakers

In a year of uprisings and political unrest, Stonebreakers documents the fights around monuments in the United States and explores the shifting landscapes of the nation's historical memory.

Punk Rock Vegan Movie

The ongoing relationship between the worlds of punk rock and animal rights and how the music became a breeding ground for vegan activism.

City of Imagination: Kowloon Walled City 20 Years Later

The Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong was once the densest place on earth, a virtually lawless labyrinth of crime, grime, commerce and hope. A Wall Street Journal documentary tracks its colorful legacy and brings the place alive 20 years later.