Refugee Conversations (2020)

Blooming over the line

Born in 1918 in the ideal village of independence activists in the northern part of Manchuria, pastor Moon Ik-hwan lost his childhood friend Yun Dong-ju under Japanese oppression and Chang Chun-ha during the Yusin regime. Moon survived the mass of modern Korean history, giving hope everywhere suffering.

Bottle George

The short explores the relationship between George, a man trapped inside a small bottle, and Chako, a young girl who is scared of her alcoholic father. She is poor, but resilient, and she lives with her cat.

Los reyes de la macana

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The Forest Maker

Together with African small farmholders Tony Rinaudo, an Australian agronomist, has been fighting against the spread of the desert for 30 years and challenges ideas of conventional reforestation with his simple yet effective method.

The Real Sherlock Holmes

So you think you know Sherlock Holmes? Well, hold on to your deerstalker hats because this new fast-paced documentary directed by Gary Lang, provides compelling evidence that the famous fictional sleuth has influenced the 21st century in ways that few could possibly imagine.

O Exterminador Entre Mundos

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The Last Ferry

One of the passengers on a ship carrying Poles on a cruise in December 1981 is a dissident high school teacher sent abroad by Solidarity. He is under surveillance of the secret police, anxious to get their hands on the info that he is carrying. When the ship is in the middle of the Baltic sea, martial law is declared and the ship is militarized. The captain announces he will turn and return the home port. Many anguished passengers put the life vests on and jump into the sea, where they are picked up by two German ships. The teacher, however, decides to return to Poland and continue the struggle for freedom.

Hollow

Hollow takes place 8,000 years after a nuclear apocalypse leaves the sky permanently covered in fallout. The earth, hollowed out for geothermal energy, has one last chance in a new form of power, but there are other parties who want to use the source for their own purposes...

South Beach

Former NFL star Mack Derringer now works as a private detective. Someone is out to get Derringer and his ex-wife. Can Derringer put the pieces of this deadly puzzle together before its too late?

Die 6 Kummer-Buben

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Forces Of Nature

Witness the awesome power and the unimaginable destruction of explosive volcanoes, ground-buckling earthquakes, and deadly tornadoes as you head into the field with scientists who risk their lives exploring the origins and behaviors of these fearsome natural disasters.

Dunsmore

An investigator from the state attorney general's office is sent to a small Southern town to investigate a strange murder.

Karla & Katrine

Karla invites Katrine to spend the holidays with her, hoping they might become best friends. As it turns out, nothing goes as planned. Karla meets Jonas and falls in love for the first time, and she nearly forgets all about Katrine. However, the two girls are forced to put their difficulties aside for a while, as they join Jonas in exposing a local gang of thieves.

Totally Minnie

The film centers on nerd Maxwell Dweeb (Robert Carradine), who is a loner with no friends. While watching television, he sees an advertisement for the Minnie Mouse Center for the Totally Unhip, named after its owner, Minnie Mouse. Dweeb, in an effort to improve himself, decides to attend. After being welcomed by the director (Suzanne Somers), Dweeb is taken on a tour of the centre, where other Disney characters run various courses: Goofy is a fitness instructor, Donald Duck is a wardrobe manager, and Pluto is a messenger boy. After finally meeting Minnie Mouse, Dweeb is taken on by the director, whom he eventually falls in love with, and dates once he has passed his training. The film is intershot with various musical numbers (including the duet "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" by Minnie Mouse and Elton John) and excerpts from early Disney shorts.

Huijarit

Exhausted by odd jobs and a lack of money, Siru manages to lie her way into becoming a fake doctor by a series of misunderstandings. Her new relationship with lawyer Niko is hopefully true, although it seems that not only Siru but several of her close friends are also lying. Some of them even lie for a living.

Una función para olvidar

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Fields of War

Set during the Kosovo war, an Albanian doctor treats a local Serbian family in a small village and is accused of being a traitor by the local people.

Exode

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När världen kom till Ronneby

With the refugee influx in 2015, Ronneby gained 3,000 new inhabitants and the schools 1,000 new students. Tom Alandh traveled to Ronneby to find out how this has affected society and its inhabitants and their real and perceived security.

Les poussières de Daech

Youssef, a young Quebecer of Moroccan origin, became radicalized and joined the ranks of Daesh in Syria. In the midst of the shelling, he and his wife had a baby. What will happen to the child?

Flight Dance Live

Stories about young Ukrainian dancers and their hasty flight to the Netherlands. You see their new life as refugees. The former conservatory in The Hague is a shelter for them where they collect their lives and find refuge in their profession: dance. The formation of a new ballet company, The United Ukrainian Ballet, is an important foothold in winning back their lives. They find comfort in each other and close friendships develop. In addition, there is the great love for ballet, for the dancers the best way to express themselves.

The European Dream: Serbia

“The European Dream: Serbia” is an investigative documentary by journalist Jaime Alekos about the tortures of Hungarian police to the refugees and migrants they catch trying to cross their border and the harsh living conditions in which they survive in Serbia awaiting an opportunity to enter the EU.

Unsettled: Seeking Refuge in America

Powerfully and heartbreakingly detailing the challenging process that LGBTQ refugees must go through to find safety and security while starting over in the US, Tom Shepard’s inspiring new documentary profiles four people who have come to San Francisco to save their own lives. Over the course of this unforgettable group portrait, Subhi (from Syria), Junior (from Congo), and Mari and Cheyenne (from Angola) experience roadblocks and triumphs as they reflect on their respective histories and try to create a home for themselves in an environment that is not always welcoming. Once in San Francisco, they are met with setbacks but each maintains hope for a better future – Mari and Cheyenne record an album, Subhi starts a tour speaking on behalf of Syrian refugees and finds love, while Junior faces challenges of homelessness and gender non-conformance.

As You Dreamt It

A leading Australian photographer interprets and photographs the recurring dreams of four refugees living on a housing estate in western Sydney with both moving and highly surprising results.

Irregulars

Each year 400.000 people from Africa, Asia and Middle East, try to enter Europe. They flee from war, persecution and poverty. Since the ways by land have been interrupted, they board overloaded vessels and face a dangerous and often deadly voyage across the Mediterranean.

Life Overtakes Me

Hundreds of refugee children in Sweden, who have fled with their families from extreme trauma, have become afflicted with 'uppgivenhetssyndrom,' or Resignation Syndrome. Facing deportation, they withdraw from the world into a coma-like state, as if frozen, for months, or even years.

Wandering, a Rohingya Story

Within a few months, the Kutupalong refugee camp has become the biggest in the world. Out of sight, 700,000 people of the Rohingya Muslim minority fled Myanmar in 2017 to escape genocide and seek asylum in Bangladesh. Prisoners of a major yet little publicized humanitarian crisis, Kalam, Mohammad, Montas and other exiles want to make their voice heard. Between poetry and nightmares, food distribution and soccer games, they testify to their daily realities and the ghosts of their past memories. Around them, the spectre of wandering, waiting, disappearing. In this place almost out of space and time, is it still possible to exist?

Kitten of vluchteling?

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OLO, the Boy from Tibet

A 6-year-old Tibetan boy leaves his family and flees to a refugee camp in northern India.

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.

God Forsaken

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Caravan

The four Afghan refugees who have applied for asylum in Austria strike up the song, “The caravan moves on” again and again. Encouraged by the journalist Lucy Ashton to record their lives on their smartphone cameras as a video diary, the friends film their precarious daily routine between visits to authorities, small jobs, and changing accommodations. Yet even when hope is lost, one certainty remains: the power of friendship.

The First Drop of Rain: Making MATAR

Follow the emotional journey of Hiba Noor, a talented artist forced to flee her home country, as she navigates a new life in London while awaiting her asylum fate. This film takes you on a journey into the production of MATAR, a short film about a fellow asylum seeker facing similar problems.

Warehoused

An estimated 12 million people live in refugee camps worldwide and only 0.1% are resettled, repatriated, or integrated into normal society each year. The feature-length documentary.

Volunteer

A film about the unprecedented Swiss grassroots movement of regular citizens who rise to aid thousands of refugees stranded at the European borders. In rich and safe Switzerland people from all backgrounds leave their regular life behind to support people in need. There is a Swiss farmer and his wife who keep cows in the Swiss Alps, a former commander of the Swiss Army, an elder rich lady residing at the lakeside, and a successful comedian and entertainer. These unexperienced volunteers take on an adventure that will change their lives forever.

Wild is the Spring

Through a series of vignettes from the ancient and war-torn Levant, WILD IS THE SPRING captures moments in the lives of diverse ethnic communities who struggle to survive when life descends into chaos.

Mr. Gay Syria

In focusing his attention on the competitors of Mr Gay Syria, director Ayse Toprak shatters the one-dimensional meaning of “refugee”. Using the pageant as a means of escape from political persecution, the organiser Mahmoud — already given asylum in Berlin — hopes to offer the winner a chance to travel as well as bring international attention to the life-threatening situations faced by LGBT Syrians.

Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport

In the nine months prior to World War II, 10.000 innocent children left behind their families, their homes, their childhood, and took the journey... to Britain to escape the Nazi Holocaust.

Enkeltje Vrijheid

Before the eyes of the Sudanese Ahmed (25), the war broke out in full force. He decides to flee on foot to the Netherlands alone, to be able to live there in freedom. This documentary shows part of his arduous journey: from the Italian Alps to Ter Apel.

Iranian Yellow Pages

Striving to build a successful life in London, Reza places an ad in a peculiar newspaper and discovers the Iranian community hidden in plain sight. Winner of the Netflix Documentary Talent Fund.

Amir: An Afghan Refugee Musician's Life in Peshawar, Pakistan

Amir, shot during the height of the Afghan civil war in the 1980s, investigates and portrays the life of Afghan refugees living in and around the city of Peshawar in northern Pakistan through the experiences of the musician Amir. The aspirations of Afghan refugees are expressed through their political songs dealing with the civil war in Afghanistan, with exile, with Afghan nationalism and with the Islamic revolution. In highly charged and tragic circumstances, music can be used in very direct ways, both to promote solidarity and as an agent of catharsis.

Eldorado

Drawing inspiration from his personal encounter with the Italian refugee child Giovanna during World War II, Markus Imhoof tells how refugees and migrants are treated today: on the Mediterranean Sea, in Lebanon, in Italy, in Germany and in Switzerland.

The Donut King

Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy builds a multi-million dollar empire by baking America's favourite pastry: the doughnut.

Poland: A Nation under Stress

In the run-up to parliamentary elections in mid-October, Polish filmmaker Marcin Wierzchowski travelled across his country to gauge the atmosphere in a society that is more divided than ever.