Empire Builders (2018)

Dancing with Le Pen

In France’s last presidential election, Marine Le Pen, a right-wing candidate, won over 30 per cent of the vote after an attempt to rebrand a party long associated with her controversial father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. See how three of her supporters faced similar obstacles in changing the narrative.

America; I Too

Three arrested and detained undocumented immigrants must navigate the system to fight impending deportation.

Devil's Chapel

After finishing building his Chapel, Lorenzo suffers a depression and is locked in it for three years. When he opens the doors he calls his children to show what he did: good and evil.

Mosques - Behind the Veil

With the help of hidden camera, Danish TV 2 documents how a known Danish imam teaches Muslim women about Islam's violent rules of adultery.

Český Alláh

Plot unavailable

Life Ahead of Her

La vie devant elle is the diary of the exile of Elaha, a 14 year old Afghan girl, who films herself with a small camera to tell her story. Through her story, the film portrays the reality of children growing up on the road, tossed from place to place to flee conflicts in the hope of finding a normal life.

Dynamic Wisdom

Dynamic Wisdom is a housing collective that exists since 2017. It brings together 16 people from Nigeria and 4 people born in Switzerland who have pooled their energy to respond to an emergency situation: sleeping on the street.

Refuge(e)

Refuge(e) traces the incredible journey of two refugees, Alpha and Zeferino. Each fled violent threats to their lives in their home countries and presented themselves at the US border asking for political asylum, only to be incarcerated in a for-profit prison for months on end without having committed any crime. Thousands more like them can't tell their stories.

Re-Births

A documentary film depicting five intimate portraits of migrants who fled their country of origin to seek refuge in France and find a space of freedom where they can fully experience their sexuality and their sexual identity: Giovanna, woman transgender of Colombian origin, Roman, Russian transgender man, Cate, Ugandan lesbian mother, Yi Chen, young Chinese gay man…

Stranger at the Gate

A U.S. Marine plots a terrorist attack on a small-town American mosque, but his plan takes an unexpected turn when he comes face to face with the people he sets out to kill.

Walk The Line

More than 37,000 Chinese citizens entered the US illegally via its southern border in 2023, hoping to find a better life in America. Many more are following in their footsteps, often with young children in tow. To reach the Land of the Free, they embark on a most treacherous journey: the migrants first need to reach Ecuador, the country closest to the US that would grant Chinese passport holders visa-free entry. From there, they need to cross Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico, all illegally, to reach California. In this documentary series, CNA correspondent Wei Du travels the route with the Chinese migrants, and try to understand why they've been driven to such desperation, and if the American Dream is all it's made out to be.

#387

This is the story of a Greek physician who collects pendants and bracelets. This is the story of an Italian woman who has been fighting for 15 years to «make bodies talk.» This is the story of those who watch over the forgotten migrants.

Récits d'une jeunesse exilée - J'ai marché jusqu'à vous

Plot unavailable

The Caravan

We accompanied an 8 months pregnant Yuri, who migrates with her partner Mike and her son Santi with one objective, to give birth in USA

A letter to Nikola

As a letter to her son, the filmmaker testifies her experience as a photographer aboard the Aquarius, a ship that rescued 29,523 people in the Mediterranean between 2016 and 2018.

Long Distance Swimmer: Sara Mardini

The documentary begins when the fictionalized drama ends. Sara spent three years volunteering to save refugees on the same journey that made her so famous, and was suddenly arrested in Aug. 2018, accused by Greek authorities of running a criminal enterprise with charges including “international espionage and people smuggling.” If convicted, she faces up to 25 years in prison and the end of her humanitarian career. Shot over three years, the film follows Sara’s fight for justice and journey of self-discovery.

Immigrants

A fascinating, unsettling study of immigration in 1960s English cities.

La bombe

Plot unavailable

L'Aventure

In the Briançonnais mountains, in France, men and women on the roads of exile find the courage to cross the passes on foot, risking their lives. Arrived at the end of a long journey, exhausted, they do not know if they could settle down somewhere to start their life over. It is this transitional time that "The Adventure" tells. Ossoul, the Sudanese poet, Mamadou, survivor of an icy night at the Col de l'Échelle, Charlotte, Mother Courage and others are gradually getting back on their feet and settling to embark on a new life. Filmed over three years, "L'Aventure" is a story of resilience, friendships and revealed emotions. The portraits are drawn and deepened until everyone can recognize themselves in the other, put themselves in their place and understand them.

Business as Usual - Der Prophet fliegt mit

Plot unavailable

Bheed

8 hours, complete lockdown in the whole of India, movement shut and state borders sealed. Thousands of migrants without food, water and mode of transport were forced to return to their homes. A crisis that shook the whole nation, a time when borders of disparity divided the people and one man stood for humanity.

Wagon Master

Two young horse traders guide a Mormon wagon train to the San Juan Valley and encounter rugged terrain, the cutthroat Clegg gang, hospitable Navajo, and moral challenges on the journey.

The Kerala Story

A converted Muslim woman narrates her ordeal of how she once wanted to become a nurse but was abducted from her home and manipulated by religious vanguards and turned into an ISIS terrorist and landed in Afghanistan jail.

PK

A stranger in the city asks questions no one has asked before. Known only by his initials, the man's innocent questions and childlike curiosity take him on a journey of love, laughter and letting go.

Dharmputra

The story of two families — one Muslim and one Hindu — living together in India under British rule.

American Sharia

Fast paced, action packed comedy. Tension flares in The Motor City as Officer Richardson profiles every Muslim he sees as a terrorist. He goes on an arrest frenzy, which makes the community activists, Jihad and Osama take to the streets and rally the people to stand up for their rights. The Chief of Police wants to gain the trust of the Muslim community in order to get re-elected, but Attorney Leila Rodriguez is standing in the way with a discrimination law suit against Officer Richardson and the Motor City Police Department. The Chief calls on his most unreliable detective, Mohammed and partners him with a Middle Eastern, Sharia Law fanatic, Detective Abdul. The Chief wants them to "Speak Muslim To The Muslims" which he thinks will guarantee his re-election. - Written by Omar Regan

The Long Goodbye

A short about racism and Islamophobia in the UK.

2018 Oscar Nominated Short Films: Live Action

The year’s most spectacular Live Action short films.

Final Round

Rachid is a young man who survives in Morroco boxing in clandestine fights in order to save enough money with which to pay a smuggler, and be able to cross the Strait of Gibraltar with his two friends.

Nudo Mixteco

The imprint of the past is made present by the return of three migrants to a community in the upper Mixteca region of Oaxaca, where the three stories intersect.

The Old Oak

A pub landlord in a previously thriving mining community struggles to hold onto his pub. Meanwhile, tensions rise in the town when Syrian refugees are placed in the empty houses in the community.

Call Me Human

O’Bomsawin enjoys a deep rapport with her gregarious subject, who recounts her life primarily through celebrating the friendships she found along the way.

On Floating Bodies

The film explores the spatial dimensions of a being who alternately enters and exits a fragmented world of projections where thoughts, memories and dreams blend into a strange loop of treacherous images. The film explores multiple layers of in-ness such as inclusion, depiction and representation.

Gorbachev-Reagan: Duel at the top

When Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time in Geneva in November 1985, the Cold War is experiencing a new arms race. While both men celebrate the appeasement, a game of poker goes behind the scenes where all the shots will be allowed. After three years of negotiations, they will end the Cold War. Two years later, the USSR implodes.

Keep Rolling

One of Hong Kong's most influential filmmakers, Ann Hui, becomes a “star” for the first time in Man Lim-chung's directorial debut. A forerunner of the New Wave, Hui’s tumultuous, forty-year career is an unequivocal testimony to her unyielding dedication to filmmaking, and her expedition into the metamorphic city. This biopic probes into the acclaimed director’s idiosyncratic world, where we witness her rashness and goofiness, as well as her humanistic concerns for the everyday nobodies which make her films so moving.

Utopia, Distopia

Jorge Bodanzy appeals to the emotional memories of the period he spent studying at the University of Brasilia to show us a tableau of youth in the 1960s, with their dreams and expectations, their hardships, and interrupted projects.

African Apocalypse

Rob Lemkin’s harrowing yet urgent documentary shines a lens on the trauma and legacy of colonialism in one of Africa’s poorest nations, Niger.

If These Walls Could Sing

The untold story of the Abbey Road studio, all-star interviews and intimate access to the premises.

Le vieil âge et l'espérance

When old age imposes physical and sometimes mental decay, is there a way to maintain a hopeful attitude towards life and its mysteries? This is the question that the documentary 'Le vieil âge et l'espérance' project aims to confront not only specialists such as geriatricians, gerontologists, psychologists and philosophers, but first and foremost the lived experience of the elderly.

Seguridad

In her feature documentary Seguridad, Newfoundland-based filmmaker Tamara Segura—once named “Cuba’s youngest soldier” in a militia publicity stunt—portrays her troubled relationship with her father in the context of the Cuban Revolution. When Segura accepts a scholarship to study film in Canada, the move offers crucial distance from her alcoholic father. After four years, she returns to Cuba hoping to make amends. But her father’s sudden death just days after her arrival forces Segura to explore his troubled past and the role Cuba’s highly militarized system played in his downfall. Through a series of deeply personal on-camera interviews with her immediate family, Segura unearths long-held secrets that ultimately tell a story of resilience and profound love between family members. Seguridad artfully weaves a lifetime’s worth of still photographs into its intimate narrative, which offers a rare glimpse into the inner lives of Cubans in the post-revolutionary era.

I Am the River, the River Is Me

Māori tribal leader Ned Tapa takes a group of friends and family on a breathtaking canoe trip down the Whanganui River in Aotearoa, as the Māori call New Zealand. The Whanganui is the first river to be recognized as a legal person. Together, this diverse group of people embraces the spirit of the river and tries to find what is needed to save the planet.

Nila's Dream in the Garden of Eden

Leyla and her six-year-old daughter Nila live in the holy city of Mashhad in Iran. Nila is the result of a temporary marriage, which allows a man to marry a woman even if he is already married. Children born from such a relationship are legally non-existent. As long as the father does not recognize the child, no birth certificate can be issued and Nila cannot attend school. The documentary depicts Leyla's tireless efforts to clarify Nila's legal status in order to offer her a perspective for her future. In a never-ending bureaucratic battle, Leyla fights not only against the legal system, but also against a judgmental society.