Favela Rising (2005)

Phantoms of Nabua

The story based on the mysterious portrait of the town of Nabua in northeastern Thailand. Soon after nightfall when the crepuscular violets concede to blackness, the wind's rustling intensifies and the boys come out to play.

Swissway to Heaven

Switzerland is a real paradise for climbing as well as the country where Cédric Lachat was born and raised. With his unique sense of humor and unbridled enthusiasm, experience the beauty and wonder of five iconic peaks and mountain ranges: the Eiger, Gastlosen, Wendenstöcke, Lauterbrunnen and Rätikon. Early climbers talk about the evolution of gear and climbing over time.

Crimson Forest

Upon waking up in a strange forest, a young man questions whether or not the environment around him is real or a figment of his imagination.

Manu Uncle

A group of children witness the robbery of a sword from a museum. However, they, along with Manu, set out to catch the culprits and also discover a shocking truth.

Naked Night

On the evening of his wedding to the beautiful Shewa, Pourya receives a startling revelation from his secretary Sholeh in front of all the guests. Desperate to win back Shewa's favor, he goes to the office to confront Sholeh, only to receive another nasty shock. Desperate to escape his circumstances, Pourya takes drastic action to ensure no one will bother him again. Now, years later, Pourya wants to right the wrongs of the past, but at what cost? Intense drama combines with exciting thrills in this superb film. Featuring a stunning soundtrack by Shadmehr Aghili, this film is as tense as it is atmospheric.

The Last Pope?

St. Malachy, a Catholic Priest in the early 1100s, received a vision that gave him a motto for all the Popes from his time "to the end of time." The total number of Popes from Celestine II till the end would be 111 according to St. Malachy's prophecy. In the late 1950's or early 60's the Catholic Church added the 112th whose motto was given as "Peterus Romanus." This presentation provides a summary of Malachy's prophecy, describes the reasons that Benedict XVI is the last Pope, the 111th, and the consequences for the church and the world.

Amor Inesperado

Plot unavailable

Lacuna

Plot unavailable

Video Letter

This remarkable compilation follows an exchange of video letters that took place between Shuji Terayama and Shuntaro Tanikawa in the months immediately preceding Terayama's death. It can be thought of as a home video produced by two preeminent poets and inter-laid with highly abstract philosophizing, slightly aberrant behavior and occasionally flamboyant visuals.

La venenosa

A snake charmer's assistant (who later becomes a trapeze artist) brings bad luck in the circus to those who fall in love with her. Her decision to become a trapeze artist comes after the accident that the main character has during a presentation.

What happened to the children?

In this documentary we meet five children in Sweden and see what happened in their lives. Robin was nine years old, but he already knew what a prison looked like and the bad a punishment can do. Frida was not yet born when we filmed her mother Angela in 1983. Her sister Malin lived for several years in a foster family. Bosse was 14 years old and in 9th grade when we met him in 1978. He was the only guy in the class who had glasses. Marie received many postcards and letters from her father, but very rarely met him while she was growing up.

Bus 174

Documentary depicts what happened in Rio de Janeiro on June 12th 2000, when bus 174 was taken by an armed young man, threatening to shoot all the passengers. Transmitted live on all Brazilian TV networks, this shocking and tragic-ending event became one of violence's most shocking portraits, and one of the scariest examples of police incompetence and abuse in recent years.

Isle of Flowers

A tomato is planted, harvested and sold at a supermarket, but it rots and ends up in the trash. But it doesn’t end there: Isle of Flowers follows it up until its real end, among animals, trash, women and children. And then the difference between tomatoes, pigs and human beings becomes clear.

São Vito

Story about the imposing building Edifício São Vito, a mark on the center of São Paulo gentrification system. The building was demolished in 2011, with many families being deallocated after an agreemente with the city town that was never accomplished.

Favela Gay

Favela Gay tells the story of eleven individuals in their own words. Living in eight slums (favelas) in Rio de Janeiro, these members of the LGBTQ community – two transgender women, a crossdressing man, a travesti prostitute, a famous carnival dancer, two community activists, and even a young man who used to be transgender, but transitioned back – have fought prejudice and seen some of the most unsavoury sides of the city.

Squatterpunk

Hapon is an 8-year-old survivor in the slums of modern Manila, scratching out an improvised existence at the margins of society. This rawly shot documentary follows Hapon and his mates as they swagger around their dilapidated universe. Featuring a punk-rock score by director Khavn's band the Brockas, the film captures a carefree spirit in the children that completely belies the squalid conditions in which they live.

Coragem

Plot unavailable

New Towns for Old

Sheffield stands in as 'Smokedale', an industrial Everytown, in this stirring call for "new schools, new hospitals, new roads, new life", after WWII.

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.

The Young and the Damned

A group of juvenile delinquents live a violent life in the infamous slums of Mexico City; among them Pedro, whose morality is gradually corrupted and destroyed by the others.

Tsotsi

The South African multi-award winning film about a young South African boy from the ghetto named Tsotsi, meaning Gangster. Tsotsi, who left home as a child to get away from helpless parents, finds a baby in the back seat of a car that he has just stolen. He decides that it his responsibility to take care of the baby and in the process learns that maybe the gangster life isn’t the best way.

Once Were Warriors

A drama about a Maori family living in Auckland, New Zealand. Lee Tamahori tells the story of Beth Heke’s strong will to keep her family together during times of unemployment and abuse from her violent and alcoholic husband.

Paradise Alley

An elderly motion picture artist drifts through a tenement block, devising a plan to change the lives of its dissatisfied residents with a dusting of Hollywood magic!

The Metropolitan Opera: Porgy and Bess

The Gershwins’ modern American masterpiece has its first Met performances in almost three decades, starring bass-baritone Eric Owens and soprano Angel Blue in the title roles. Director James Robinson’s stylish production transports audiences to Catfish Row, a setting vibrant with the music, dancing, emotion, and heartbreak of its inhabitants.

Slumdog Millionaire

A teenager reflects on his life after being accused of cheating on the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?".

The Lower Depths

Residents of a rundown boardinghouse in 19th-century Japan, including a mysterious old man and an aging actor, get drawn into a love triangle that turns violent. When amoral thief Sutekichi breaks off his affair with landlady Osugi to romance her younger sister, Okayo, Osugi extracts her revenge by revealing her infidelity to her jealous husband.

Stip & Pensil

Toni, Aghi, Bubu, and Saras get the task of making essays. They create a free school for street children but they chose to earn money than learn.

Soul of the Slums

A young man, framed and sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit, is released after serving his stretch and vows to find those responsible for framing him. Meanwhile he sets up a mission in the slums he came from, and falls in love with a girl he meets there.

Lower City

Best friends Deco and Naldinho co-own a cargo boat in Brazil's Salvador da Bahia. They give a ride to a sultry prostitute named Karinna, and soon both men fall prey to her considerable sexual charms, pushing the bounds of their friendship to the limit.

The Zone

Residents of an enclosed neighborhood in the middle of Mexico DF are shocked by a violent crime, and for one resident in particular, young Alejandro, the drama is ratcheted up when he encounters the lone kid who escaped the event and is hiding out within the neighborhood's borders.

District 9

Thirty years ago, aliens arrive on Earth. Not to conquer or give aid, but to find refuge from their dying planet. Separated from humans in a South African area called District 9, the aliens are managed by Multi-National United, which is unconcerned with the aliens' welfare but will do anything to master their advanced technology. When a company field agent contracts a mysterious virus that begins to alter his DNA, there is only one place he can hide: District 9.

The Prince and the Pauper

Two boys – the prince Edward and the pauper Tom – are born on the same day. Years later, when young teenage Tom sneaks into the palace garden, he meets the prince. They change clothes with one another before the guards discover them and throw out the prince thinking he's the urchin. No one believes them when they try to tell the truth about which is which. Soon after, the old king dies and the prince will inherit the throne.

Once Upon a Time in Rio

Situated just above the awe-inspiring Ipanema beach in Rio is the Cantagalo slum. Every day, floods of Cantagalo residents make their way down the mountain, only to disappear into their surroundings as part of the invisible working-class that cleans apartments, works in restaurants, and sells food along the scenic, sun-drenched shores. Young Dé (Thiago Martins) is just such a man. Dé lives with his mother Bernadette (Cyria Coentro) in a cramped Cantagalo apartment, selling hot dogs on the beach in order to make the rent. His brother Beto was killed when Dé was just a young boy, and his adopted brother Carlão (Rocco Pitanga) has been jailed for a robbery that he didn't commit. One day, while working on the beach, Dé meets Nina (Vitória Frate). Nina is the only child of a successful lawyer named Evandro (Paulo César Grande), who's none to happy to discover that his daughter is dating a member of the lower class. How...

Back Door to Heaven

The life of a young kid, who starts stealing small things to fit in with the "cool crowd".

Awaara

A petty thief is put on trial for the attempted murder of a lawyer. Through a series of flashbacks, the intertwining lives of the thief, the lawyer, and the thief's defense lawyer are illustrated.

West Side Story

In the slums of the upper West Side of Manhattan, tensions are high as a gang of Polish-Americans compete against a gang of recently immigrated Puerto Ricans, but this doesn't stop two romantics from each gang falling in love.

Mahogany

An aspiring designer from the slums of Chicago puts herself through fashion school in the hopes of becoming one of the world's top designers. Her ambition leads her to Rome spurring a choice between the man she loves or her newfound success.

City of Men

Best buddies Acerola and Laranjinha, about to turn 18, discover things about their missing fathers' pasts which will shatter their solid friendship, in the middle of a war between rival drug gangs from Rio's favelas.

Elite Squad

In 1997, before the visit of the pope to Rio de Janeiro, Captain Nascimento from BOPE (Special Police Operations Battalion) is assigned to eliminate the risks of the drug dealers in a dangerous slum nearby where the pope intends to be lodged.

She No Longer Talks, She Shoots

Rosemonde, hailed as "the Princess" reign over a slum in the Paris suburbs. Herbert, a reporter who came to investigate on the pollution, ends up in a grinding machine of her invention. Rosemonde resells the bones to the church authorities who use them as holy relics. Inspector Adrian Bondu is handling the case... But a young hippie who looks like Jesus will have Rosemonde suddenly feel very earthly feelings...

Manila in the Claws of Light

Julio, a young fisherman from a provincial village, descends into social alienation as he arrives in Manila to search for his loved one.

Soul Boy

Abila (14) lives in one of the most miserable slums in Africa. His girlfriend Shiku belongs to a different tribe, as the result of which he is not really allowed to fraternize with her. And then one drunken night his father gambles away his own soul.

None But the Lonely Heart

When an itinerant reluctantly returns home to help his sickly mother run her shop, they're both tempted to turn to crime to help make ends meet.

Miracle in Milan

Once upon a time a wise and kind old woman discovers a baby in her cabbage patch. She brings up the child and, when she dies, the boy, Totò, enters an orphanage. Totò leaves the orphanage a happy young man, and looks for work in post-war Milan. He ends up with the homeless and organizes them to build a shanty town in a vacant lot. But when greedy developers threaten the community’s land, Totò will need all the help he can get in order to find an impossible way out.

Respect

Hendrix dreams of hip-hop greatness, but he’s spiraling down a rabbit-hole of crime and poverty until he meets Doc, an old poet still haunted by his martial law past. Can they turn each other’s lives around before they’re swallowed by their circumstance?

In Vanda's Room

An unflinching, fragmentary look at a handful of self-destructive, marginalized people, but taking as main focus the heroin-addicted Vanda Duarte.

Assault on the Pay Train

Based on true events in Rio de Janeiro, in 1960, when a gang having the infamous outlaw Tião Medonho as a leader performed a sensational railroad hold-up on a train carrying a small fortune.

Uma Onda no Ar

Based on the true story of four friends who decide to install a communal pirate radio station called Rádio Favela in a shanty-town, to give voice to the outcasts' complaints.

Humanap Ka Ng Panget

Three boys from the slums of Manila find their luck has changed when one of them learns he's the heir of a rich man.

Gully Boy

A coming-of-age story based on the lives of street rappers in Mumbai.

Insiang

A story about the life of a young girl living with her mother in the slums of Manila, which becomes unbearable when her mother's young boyfriend moves in with them.

Man's Castle

Bill takes Trina into his depression camp cabin. Later, just as he finds showgirl LaRue who will support him, Trina becomes pregnant.

A Medal for Benny

Outcast Benny Martin joined the army to escape public scorn. But when townspeople learn that he is to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, they pretend that he and his family are cherished, eminent citizens.

Capernaum

After running away from his negligent parents, committing a violent crime and being sentenced to five years in jail, a hardened, streetwise 12-year-old Lebanese boy sues his parents in protest of the life they have given him.

Dayavan

A tale of near Biblical proportions, telling the story of Dayavan, a heroic do-gooder who dedicates his life to helping those less fortunate then himself.

My Dear Prime Minister

A story about four children living in a Mumbai slum in India. An eight-year old Kanhu writes a letter to the Prime Minister after a dramatic incident with his mother.

They Shall Have Music

The future is bleak for a troubled boy from a broken home in the slums. He runs away when his step father breaks his violin, ending up sleeping in the basement of a music school for poor children.

Boca

A photo-journalist goes to Brazil to investigate a savage crime boss. She becomes infatuated with the story.

Teacher Somsri

A courageous teacher leads a group against a real estate developer who is determined to evict hundreds to make way for a construction project.