A Comedian in a Syrian Tragedy (2019)

Of Fathers and Sons

Talal Derki returns to his homeland where he gains the trust of a radical Islamist family, sharing their daily life for over two years. His camera focuses on Osama and his younger brother Ayman, providing an extremely rare insight into what it means to grow up in an Islamic Caliphate.

Under the Wire

On 12 February 2012, two journalists entered war-ravaged Syria. One of them was celebrated Sunday Times war correspondent, Marie Colvin. The other was photographer, Paul Conroy. Their aim was to cover the plight of Syrian civilians trapped in Homs, a city under siege and relentless military attack from the Syrian army. Only one of them returned.

The Catastrophe Garden

It is a daring idea: to grow food from old mattresses in a desolate camp at the edge of a war zone. When a refugee scientist meets two quirky professors, they must confront their own catastrophes - and make a garden grow. Short film now streaming on Waterbear.com.

This Rain Will Never Stop

This Rain Will Never Stop takes the audience on a powerful, visually arresting journey through humanity’s endless cycle of war and peace. The film follows 20-year-old Andriy Suleyman as he tries to secure a sustainable future while navigating the human toll of armed conflict. From the Syrian civil war to strife in Ukraine, Andriy’s existence is framed by the seemingly eternal flow of life and death.

The Matchmaker

A unique interview with Tooba Gondal, the woman who groomed and lured scores of Western women to join ISIS. Using social media, she became a deadly matchmaker, recruiting a number of high-profile “jihadi brides” for ISIS militants in Syria: she allegedly helped organise the transporting of three British schoolgirls, including Shamima Begum, to Syria.

Black Box Syria: The Dirty War

A look back over nine years of the Syrian Civil War, an inextricable conflict, like a black box, due to the competing interests of the many factions in presence and those of the foreign powers.

This Is Not a Movie: Robert Fisk and the Politics of Truth

For more than forty years, British journalist Robert Fisk has reported on some of the most violent conflicts in the world, from Northern Ireland to the Middle East, always with his feet on the ground and a notebook in hand, travelling into landscapes devastated by war, ferreting out the facts and sending reports to the media he works for with the ambition of catching the interest of an audience of millions.

The White Helmets

As daily airstrikes pound civilian targets in Syria, a group of indomitable first responders risk their lives to rescue victims from the rubble.

Douma Underground

"With the barrel bombs falling on Ghouta, civilians sought shelter in the basements of their homes. I was one of them, holding on to my camera, I tried to film what I couldn’t express in words."

City of Love

A Hindu woman elopes with her Muslim lover, moving with him to Syria. Eventually separated by war, she cares for their handicapped child on her own.

Broken Keys

In a war-torn Middle Eastern city where music has been banned by Islamic extremists, Karim, a brilliant musician, struggles to rebuild his destroyed piano while trying to escape to Europe.

Escape from Raqqa

Paris, spring 2015. Faustine travels to Syria with her little son to join ISIS; but, once in Raqqa, she soon realizes the hell she is gotten herself into. Her husband Sylvain quickly understands that the French government is powerless to help him, so he plans with some friends a high-risk extraction operation to get his family back.

Dries

For the first time fashion designer Dries Van Noten allows a filmmaker to accompany him in his creative process and rich home life. For an entire year Reiner Holzemer documents the precise steps that Dries takes to conceive of four collections, the rich fabrics, embroidery and prints exclusive to his designs. As well as the emblematic fashion shows that bring his collections to the world and have become cult “must sees” at Paris Fashion Week. This film offers an insight into the life, mind and creative heart of a master fashion designer who, for more than 25 years, has remained independent in a landscape of fashion consolidation and globalization.

I Am Heath Ledger

The life and career of an actor, artist, and icon. His own journey through his own camera.

One October

Reporter Clay Pigeon interviews New Yorkers in October, 2008.

Stumped

When filmmaker Will Lautzenheiser's limbs are amputated, his life is derailed and he turns to stand-up comedy as therapy. Meanwhile, a world-famous medical team is performing transplants that restore bodies to unprecedented levels. Despite grave risks, Will agrees to undergo an experimental double-arm transplant in the hope of reclaiming his independence.

Burn the Ships

The NPF, a women's professional softball league that few know exists, has spent decades struggling for survival in a male-dominated sports world. Its players are forced to choose between their livelihood and their dreams, and this year they've been given another chance.

The Land Burns

A short film describing the bleak reality of life in the rural regions in Brazil through the story of thirty-five-year-old farmer Juan Amaro.

The Search for the Ocean's Super Predator

There's a mysterious predator lurking in the depths of Australia's wild Southern Ocean, a beast that savagely devoured a great white shark in front of cinematographer David Riggs 11 years ago. Riggs's obsession to find the killer leads him to an aquatic battle zone that's remained hidden until now. Here, killer whales, colossal squid and great white sharks face off in an underwater coliseum where only the fiercest creatures of the marine world survive.

The Great War

Drawing on unpublished diaries, memoirs and letters, The Great War tells the rich and complex story of World War I through the voices of nurses, journalists, aviators and the American troops who came to be known as “doughboys".

Sunbury '72

In 1972 - post Woodstock but years before The Big Day Out, Sunbury was an event not to be missed. This film serves as a reminder of that first festival in 1972, and captures the spirit of Sunbury's ethos - "to have a good time". So join your host Molly Meldrum - dressed in the style of the times - and sit back, relax, crank up the volume, and stroll down memory lane to Sunbury.

Meteors

Tension has long simmered between Turkish soldiers and Kurdish separatists in southeastern Anatolia and, in 2015, the conflict escalated into a military lockdown.  Given the lack of media coverage, locals began filming the empty streets in single-take, one-hour clips which were posted to the internet and then vanished.  Coinciding with this event is the falling of the Leonids, a spectacular meteor shower which emblazons the black skies with impermanent light. 

In Praise of Nothing

A feelgood documentary about Nothing, in which Nothing, tired of being misunderstood, tries to defend its cause. Filmed worldwide by 100+ complementary DoPs, scored by cabaret grandmasters Pascal Comelade & The Tiger Lillies, narrated - in simple childish verse - by Iggy Pop.

Panoptic

Panoptic explores Lebanon's schizophrenia. Depicting a nation thriving for modernity while ignoring the vices preventing it from achieving its goal, director Rana Eid examines this paradox through sound, iconic monuments and secret hideouts.

The Dead Nation

A documentary-essay which shows Costică Axinte's stunning collection of pictures depicting a Romanian small town in the thirties and forties. The narration, composed mostly from excerpts taken from the diary of a Jewish doctor from the same era, tells the rising of the antisemitism and eventually a harrowing depiction of the Romanian Holocaust.

Diana, Our Mother: Her Life and Legacy

A fresh and revealing insight into Princess Diana through the personal and intimate reflections of her two sons and her friends and family.

Manolo: The Boy Who Made Shoes for Lizards

An in-depth portrait of MANOLO BLAHNIK, self-confessed 'cobbler' and the man regarded by most influential fashion figures as 'the best shoe-maker of the 20th and 21st centuries. A film for anyone who has ever looked longingly at a pair of... 'Manolos'

Eugenic Minds

The history of one idea with monstrous consequences, presented in the style of old newsreels and interspersed with quotes from Patrik Ouředník’s Europeana. Archival footage is combined with animation as a kindly narrator takes us on a journey from the idea of cultivating a “better human race” all the way to the gas chambers.

One more year

One more year is the particular portrait of the painter Paco Bernal, decided in spite of the adversities that are presented and their different abilities, to celebrate his 54th birthday party. Paco Bernal has one more chromosome in PAR 21 that makes him a unique individual, with a unique appearance, personality and abilities. And the film proposes to analyze: what makes us different? Our qualities or our physical trait?

After the Raid

A large immigration raid in a small Tennessee town leaves emotional fallout as well as far-reaching questions about justice, faith and humanity.