A Long Way to School (2021)

The Remnants

In October 2015, the evicted residents who had imprisoned on a false charge of killing a policeman assembled in a place for the first time after the Yongsan Disaster six years ago. They had occupied a watchtower against unreasonable redevelopment policies and in protest against violent suppression used by riot police in 25 hours of their sit-in demonstration. Their colleagues had died from an unknown fire, and they became criminals. The delight of meeting again lasts only briefly. The ‘comrades’ rip out cruel words while blaming each other.

First Case, Second Case

First Case, Second Case is a documentary about a teacher who sends a group of pupils out of the classroom when one of them does not own up to talking behind the master's back.

Pour de vrai, pour de faux

Plot unavailable

Bitter, Sweet, Seoul

Over 98 days from August 20th to November 25th 2013, 2821 people from around the world sent 11,852 video featuring many different faces of Seoul. 154 were selected, edited, and made into a movie.

Bamseom Pirates Seoul Inferno

Grindcore punks Bamseom Pirates make music suitable for a sick society.

Tryweryn, The Story of a Valley

Devastation of a Welsh-speaking community: Capel Celyn village and farms of the Tryweryn Valley disappear beneath the waters of a reservoir so Liverpool’s thirst may be slaked.

To Be and to Have

The documentary's title translates as "to be and to have", the two auxiliary verbs in the French language. It is about a primary school in the commune of Saint-Étienne-sur-Usson, Puy-de-Dôme, France, the population of which is just over 200. The school has one small class of mixed ages (from four to twelve years), with a dedicated teacher, Georges Lopez, who shows patience and respect for the children as we follow their story through a single school year.

Sylvie à l'école

Sylvie Giroux doesn’t have kids, but every year, from September to June, about 10 teenagers aged 16 to 21 add a bit of magic to her life. These youngsters suffer from autism, Down syndrome, dyspraxia, severe anxiety and intellectual handicaps.

Light A Candle, Write A History - Candlelight Revolution

Plot unavailable

On the Way to School

One year in the life of a Turkish teacher, teaching the Turkish language to Kurdish children in a remote village in Turkey. The children can't speak Turkish, the teacher can't speak Kurdish and is forced to become an exile in his own country. On the Way to School is a film about a Turkish teacher who is alone in a village as an authority of the state, and about his interaction with the Kurdish children who have to learn Turkish. The film witnesses the communication problem emphasizing the loneliness of a teacher in a different community and culture; and the changes brought up by his presence into this different community during one year. The film chronicles one school year, starting from September 2007 until the departure of the teacher for summer holiday in June 2008. During this period, they begin to know and understand each other mutually and slowly.

Itaewon

Stories of three women who have been living in Itaewon, Seoul, Korea since the era that the town was run by U.S dollars of the U.S. Army.

Waiting for "Superman"

Gripping, heartbreaking, and ultimately hopeful, Waiting for Superman is an impassioned indictment of the American school system from An Inconvenient Truth director Davis Guggenheim.

A, B, C... Z

Children get ready to start the first grade. They start learning the first letters.

Handicapped Future

A documentary by Werner Herzog exploring the different treatment accorded to the disabled in Germany and the USA.

Let the Child Be the Guide

As a young father, watching his daughter go through her life experiences, film director Alexandre Mourot discovered the Montessori approach and decided to set his camera up in a children's house (3 to 6 years of age) in the oldest Montessori school in France. Alexandre was warmly welcomed in a surprisingly calm and peaceful environment, filled with flowers, fruits and Montessori materials. He met happy children, who were free to move about, working alone or in small groups. The teacher remained very discreet. Some children were reading, others were making bread, doing division, laughing or sleeping. The children guided the film director throughout the whole school year, helping him to understand the magic of their autonomy and self-esteem - the seeds of a new society of peace and freedom, which Maria Montessori dedicated her life work to.

The Beauty of Film and T.V.

A documentary about the subject of 'Film and T.V.' in schools and the students that study it.

The ABCs of Book Banning

In recent years, more than 2,500 books have been removed from school districts around the US, labeled as banned, restricted, or challenged, and made unavailable to millions of students. By no accident, the themes targeted are the usual scapegoats of the American Right—LGBTQ+ issues, Black History, and women’s empowerment—impeding the power of future generations to develop their own thoughts and opinions on critical social issues. By weaving together a lyrical montage of young readers and authors, THE ABCs OF BOOK BANNING reveals the voices of the impacted parties, and inspires hope for the future through the profound insights of inquisitive youthful minds.

Teaching War

This episode from the Czech Journal series examines how a military spirit is slowly returning to our society. Attempts to renew military training or compulsory military service and in general to prepare the nation for the next big war go hand in hand with society’s fear of the Russians, the Muslims, or whatever other “enemies”. This observational flight over the machine gun nest of Czech militarism becomes a grotesque, unsettling military parade. It can be considered not only to be a message about how easily people allow themselves to be manipulated into a state of paranoia by the media, but also a warning against the possibility that extremism will become a part of the regular school curriculum.

Seoul 1988

A documentary covering the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in Seoul.

Oyler

A Cincinnati public school fights to break the cycle of poverty in its Urban Appalachian neighborhood, where senior Raven Gribbins aims to become the first in her troubled family to graduate and go to college. When Principal Craig Hockenberry's job is threatened, it becomes clear it's a make-or-break year for both of them.

A Day at the Cat Cafe

A documentary about a cat cafe for a film class

In the Garden of Sounds

«Nel giardino dei suoni» («In The Garden of Sounds») is a touching, poetic exploration of the relationship between mind, body and sound, and a cinematic journey to the borders of communication. Nicola Bellucci tells the extraordinary story of Wolfgang Fasser, a blind musician and soundscape artist who works with severely handicapped children, helping them to find their place in a world not made for them. On his own way into the darkness, Fasser discovered the world of sounds, a parallel universe to our visual world. His far-reaching explorations of sound’s effect on mind and body led him to the field of music therapy.

Miracle on Jongno Street

A story about 4 gay men who try to lead a normal life in Korea, the conservative and harsh country for LGBT in Asia. In the middle of making a queer film Jun-moon, a director, loses his self-confidence due to social scrutiny regarding his sexual orientation. Byung-gwon, a gay rights activist, has been participating in movements to establish equal rights for homosexual laborers. Young-soo, a chef who moved from the countryside 15 years ago, lived a lonely life but he finds happiness after joining a gay choir. Yol, who works for a major company, dreams of the day him and his partner, can have a legal wedding with overcoming the prejudice against people living with HIV/AIDS.

Two Doors

The documentary Two Doors traces the Yongsan Tragedy of 2009, which took the lives of five evictees and one police SWAT unit member. Left with no choice but to climb up a steel watchtower in an appeal to the right to live, the evictees were able to come down to the ground a mere 25 hours after they had started to build the watchtower, as cold corpses. And the surviving evictees became lawbreakers. The announcement of the Public Prosecutors’ Office that the cause of the tragedy lay in the illegal and violent demonstration by the evictees, who had climbed up the watchtower with fire bombs, clashed with voices of criticism that an excessive crackdown by government power had turned a crackdown operation into a tragedy.

Film Ideer

Plot unavailable

Or We Die Trying

Three high schoolers investigate the disappearance of a fellow student, Aubrey. She was last seen entering the abandoned back hallways of their school, Asher Academies. There is a legend that the founder of the school, Asher Neal, died in the back halls and now his ghost haunts that half of the school, but no one believes that. However, as the team continues to investigate Aubrey's disappearance, the presence of a ghost seems more and more real.

De Panzazo

Panzazo! It reflects the reality of education in Mexico and demonstrates that Mexican society panzazo passes in an exclusionary system in which no lessons for life are achieved. We see in this movie moms, dads, principals, teachers, officials, union representatives and opinion leaders to draw a global picture that does not allow indifference. The data, interviews and what the students filmed with handheld cameras give rise to indignation and intelligent to realize the part that touches everyone contribute. The project ran for three years entering the reality of the students and their families, capturing the daily dynamics of schools in such diverse parts of the country such as Ciudad Juarez, the interior of Yucatan, Morelia, the mountains of Chiapas and Guerrero, as well as Naucalpan and Iztapalapa in the metropolitan area of ​​Mexico City. EDIT: To clarify, "de panzazo" means "just squeaking through."

Factory Complex

The drastic economic development in South Korea once surprised the rest of the world. However, behind of it was an oppression the marginalized female laborers had to endure. The film invites us to the lives of the working class women engaged in the textile industry of the 1960s, all the way through the stories of flight attendants, cashiers, and non-regular workers of today. As we encounter the vista of female factory workers in Cambodia that poignantly resembles the labor history of Korea, the form of labor changes its appearance but the essence of the bread-and-butter question remains still.

Klasse Deutsch

Ute Vecchio has two years to prepare children who have just arrived from other countries for the German school system. The challenges she faces are just as diverse as the cultures the children originate from.

Vikarien

For the young, ambitious substitute teacher Max Wejstorp the chaos in his school in a Stockholm suburb ultimately becomes unbearable. He summons his old teacher and mentor, the now 73-year-old legend Folke Silvén from Lund in southern Sweden. How the teachers has got an increasingly untenable work situation is shown in a very direct way in "Vikarien".

Seventeen

In their final year at Muncie's Southside High School, a group of seniors hurtles toward maturity with a combination of joy, despair, and an aggravated sense of urgency. They are also learning a great deal about life, both in and out of school, and not what school officials think they are teaching.

Distinction

Two high school students from very different backgrounds participate in a musical with mentally disabled children, which eventually leads to the realisation of their dreams and aspirations.

Não Me Pare Agora

Plot unavailable

First Graders

A documentary film about a boys school in Iran. The film shows numerous, funny and moving interviews of many different young pupils of this school summoned by their superintendent for questions of discipline. The man is not severe, but clever and fair. He teaches loyalty, fellowship and righteousness to these boys. Besides these interviews, we see scenes of this school’s quotidian life.

Vocacional: Uma Aventura Humana

The clash of a libertarian school with the military dictatorship in the 60s. An exciting and little-known page in the history of public education in Brazil.

BTS World Tour: Love Yourself in Seoul

Shot at the Olympic Stadium in Seoul during the BTS World Tour ‘Love Yourself’ to celebrate the seven members of the global boyband and their unprecedented international phenomenon.

Portrait of Penge

Film about the town of Penge featuring local personalities, housing, shopping, traffic and the Penge formation dancers.

The Competition

An all-access tour behind the scenes at France’s premiere film school, La Fémis. Showing us how successful candidates get to follow in the footsteps of such luminaries as Louis Malle, François Ozon and Alain Resnais, all of whom attended this prestigious institution. Stumbling over their words, the often-nervous candidates seem vulnerable when confronted with the veterans of the industry, who have the difficult task of discovering true talent among all these eager young people.

On the Way to School

These children live in the four corners of the earth, but share the same thirst for learning. They understand that only education will allow them a better future and that is why, every day, they must set out on the long and perilous journey that will lead them to knowledge. Jackson and his younger sister from Kenya walk 15 kilometres each way through a savannah populated by wild animals; Carlito rides more than 18 kilometres twice a day with his younger sister, across the plains of Argentina; Zahira lives in the Moroccan Atlas Mountains who has an exhausting 22 kilometres walk along punishing mountain paths before she reaches her boarding school; Samuel from India sits in a clumsy DIY wheelchair and the 4 kilometres journey is an ordeal each day, as his two younger brothers have to push him all the way to school…

Talking Architecture, City: Hall

A documentary film about Seoul City Hall Construction. The construction project has a hard going in every way. A city plan, excessive administrative notions, a design and all got mingled up. Can the project sail, yes?

Children of Utopia

Twelve years after they went to school together, six children from Berlin with and without disabilities are interviewed on the topic of inclusion in the German school system.

Black Out

Every evening during exam season, as the sun sets over Conakry, Guinea, hundreds of school children begin a nightly pilgrimage to the airport, petrol stations and wealthy parts of the city, searching for light to study. This evocative and poignant documentary shows how children reconcile their daily lives in one of the worlds poorest countries with their desire to learn.