Taking Back the Legislature (2020)

Rather be Ashes Than Dust

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Revolution of Our Times

Throughout Hong Kong’s history, Hongkongers have fought for freedom and democracy but have yet to succeed. In 2019, a controversial extradition bill was introduced that would allow Hongkongers to be tried in mainland China. This decision spurred massive protests, riots, and resistance against heavy-handed Chinese rule over the City-State. Award-winning director Kiwi Chow documents the events to tell the story of the movement, with both a macro view of its historical context and footage and interviews from protestors on the front lines.

Hong Kong Moments

As pro-democracy activists and armed police battle in the streets of Hong Kong, ordinary citizens are choosing sides. Historically an outlier of both western and Chinese power, Hong Kong wields its own economic force, affording the city and its people a spirit of independence that has now erupted into clouds of tear gas. Filmmaker Bing Zhou uses a nimble camera to follow a group of protagonists—two opposing political candidates, a tea shop owner, a cab driver, a police officer, a paramedic—on two separate days of conflict. On September 21, 2019, protestors from three districts join forces, resulting in unprecedented violence. Just 10 days later on October 1, the National Day of the People’s Republic of China, previously undecided onlookers show their stripes. Thoughts transform into action in this demonstration of how mercurial and personal Hong Kong’s politics have become.

Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower

When the Chinese Communist Party backtracks on its promise of autonomy to Hong Kong, teenager Joshua Wong decides to save his city. Rallying thousands of kids to skip school and occupy the streets, Joshua becomes an unlikely leader in Hong Kong and one of China’s most notorious dissidents.

Fear(less) and Dear

Hongkongers have been experiencing extremely difficult times due to the political movement caused by anti-Extradition Bill since the summer of 2019 followed by the COVID-19 pandemic. This film explores Hongkongers’ fear in various dimensions, be it a concept or actual physical experience, personal or political, private or public, or the mixing of these pairs.

Inside the Red Brick Wall

In 2019, Hong Kong was swept by demonstrations against the controversial extradition bill. At the Polytechnic University, a group of students also takes a stand for freedom and democracy. Negotiations with the police are chaotic and aggressive, conducted via megaphones and politically charged music played over loudspeakers. The colorful umbrellas which the young people use to protect themselves against the brutal police actions emphasize the group’s bravado, which borders on recklessness. What begins as an energetic battle against the establishment turns into a lopsided game of cat and mouse when the police decide to surround the building. Within its red brick walls, the university building becomes a prison. Over the nearly two weeks that follow, as fear and exhaustion grow among the hundreds of students, so does the uncertainty. Should they hang on inside, or leave the building to face the armed police?

Blue Island

Although the Chinese government promised that Hong Kong would retain separate status until 2047, in recent years the Chinese state has consolidated its power over the metropolis. Large-scale protests by the populace have been brutally suppressed. This mix of documentary, fiction, and visions of the future reveals the current state of desolate depression among the people of Hong Kong. “A desperate attempt to capture the final moments of a sinking island”, as maker Chan Tze-woon himself puts it.

Hong Kong: Retrocession Generation

In 2017, twenty years after the British handed over Hong Kong to China in 1997, young people, more politicized than any previous generation and proud of their land, do not feel Chinese and actively fight against the oligarchs who want to subdue them to China's authoritarian power.

Because I Choose Freedom

Matthew Leung Ming-hong had been working as a breaking-news reporter for six years in Hong Kong but recently emigrated to the United Kingdom because of concerns about growing restrictions on journalists working in the city. Three Hong Kong media outlets popular with the opposition have folded in just six months, following the introduction of a controversial national security law in Hong Kong on June 30, 2020, raising fears about the future of press freedom in the city. The 29-year-old is starting a new life in Britain’s northern city of Manchester and plans to eventually resume his journalism career in Europe.

Do Not Split

The story of the 2019 Hong Kong protests, told through a series of demonstrations by local protestors that escalate into conflict when highly armed police appear on the scene.

Comrades

Young people are protesting on the streets of Hong Kong in order to bring about change. Air soaked with tear gas, the dark uniforms and loud commands of the police officers in the colourful umbrella sea of the protesters. In the midst of the action, the film documents a brand new protest movement.

If We Burn

Hundreds of thousands − perhaps even millions − of protestors have taken to the streets of Hong Kong since early June. Sparked initially by the government's plans for a controversial extradition bill, the movement has now transformed into a broader push for greater freedoms and democracy, with anger over police brutality fuelling a cycle of violence. The protests are Hong Kong's biggest challenge to Beijing since its return to China in 1997. If We Burn looks at the movement through the eyes of Hong Kongers whose fates, like their city's future, now hang in the balance.

Hong Kong Mixtape

Political engagement spawned the wildest of wonderlands for Hong Kong’s creativity – but as a new law annihilates freedom of expression overnight, underground artists and creatives find themselves targets, and their works disappeared. Together we race to preserve the creative uprising amid China’s crackdown.

The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari

A close examination of the Whakaari / White Island volcanic eruption of 2019 in which 22 lives were lost, the film viscerally recounts a day when ordinary people were called upon to do extraordinary things, placing this tragic event within the larger context of nature, resilience, and the power of our shared humanity.

Capturing the Killer Nurse

Charlie Cullen was an experienced registered nurse, trusted and beloved by his colleagues at Somerset Medical Center in New Jersey. He was also one of history’s most prolific serial killers, with a body count potentially numbering in the hundreds across multiple medical facilities in the Northeast.

The Redeem Team

Using unprecedented Olympic footage and behind-the-scenes material, The Redeem Team tells the story of the US Olympic Men's Basketball Team’s quest for gold at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing following the previous team’s shocking performance four years earlier in Athens.

The best of me.MP4

In September 1996, 21-year-old Ricardo López mailed a package to pop singer Björk containing a device rigged to spray sulfuric acid to kill or disfigure her. Upon his return home, he committed suicide, leaving behind nearly twenty hours of video diaries recorded over nine months as evidence of his actions. The diaries not only captured the building of the letter bomb, but also López's personal thoughts on his life, his family, and his sanity. Twenty years after these diaries were discovered, they shock and fascinate curious viewers in an online world.

Latarino

Latarino is a documentary that tries to introduce a serious and based criticism on a decade of performance and management of Sorena Sattari in the field of startup ecosystem and knowledge base.

A Month With the Girls

The French female pioneer of immersion journalism, Maryse Choisy, who infiltrated in 1928 the prostitution underworld of Paris. Posing as a chambermaid, a lesbian bar dancer and more, she wrote a very successful and scandalous book about that avant-garde experience, and changed her mind about this world and these women's difficult condition.

Passion Fanny Ardant

A portrait of the famous French actress Fanny Ardant, who has worked with great figures of cinema such as Agnès Varda, Alain Resnais, Michelangelo Antonioni, Sydney Pollack and, above all, François Truffaut (1932-84), with whom she had a sentimental relationship and whose death marked the rest of her life.

Boatman

In a series of small portraits, Gianfranco Rosi depicts life on and along the banks of the Ganges River. The director’s first film documents the boat trip he took along India’s sacred river with his helmsman, Gopal. They pass tourists and locals, witnessing them bathe, work, or meditate. The film captures the imagination of the endless circle of life and death, which is rooted in the lives of the Indian people, and is convincingly manifested in the way they bid farewell to the dead.

Words of Truth

The documentary looks in the life and work of Mario Benedetti, especially in his poetic work, the keys to an illustrious Montevideo. A man who has had to live several exiles and has received all the awards that this world can give. But above all, the affection of an unconditional, massive and faithful audience that follows him everywhere and pampers him every day with their applause and reading. A sad childhood, a youth full of work and reading, and a maturity full of commitments marked Benedetti. His work testifies the history, that which only artists can tell.

Cléo from 5 to 7: Remembrances and Anecdotes

More than 40 years after making "Cléo de 5 à 7," Agnes Varda invites her star, two other cast members, and her assistant directors to look back. She takes us through the film, from opening scene to the end, visiting its Paris locales, placing her aged actors in the same spots, telling stories, and listening to others' reflections on the making of the film. She and they talk about making a film on a low budget, its showing at Cannes, and trying to fix a problem in the last shot. Her assistant directors discuss casting, costumes, sets, and the ways the film changed their approaches to filmmaking.

Honeymoons

Documentary about the Italian men that visit Hungary to meet girls and the Hungarian women that fall in love with them.

Tocala Otra Vez,pep

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Aspen, 1970

A compilation of conferences/debates between renowned designers, environmental activists, and students on the concept of design. Held in Aspen, Colorado, USA.

Cyberbunker: The Criminal Underworld

This documentary reveals how a group of hackers powered the darkest corners of the internet from a Cold War-era bunker in a quiet German tourist town.

Summer Nights

Under the cover of night, skaters claim back the streets.

Surface

Barely 20 years after the Sydney Olympics when water polo was first opened to female athletes, Canadian national team polo players are getting ready for the Tokyo Games, following paths barely trodden by their predecessors. Aiming to be both immersive and contemplative, this documentary transports the audience in the middle of a match, on the players' bench, between the stands and the surface.

One Direction: Reaching for the Stars

This is the story of Harry, Niall, Zayn, Louis and Liam; five boys from the UK who are taking the world by storm. One Direction are a global phenomenon, spearheading a British Invasion of America not seen for fifty years. From their explosive first appearance on The X Factor to becoming the hottest boy band on the planet, Reaching for the stars features previously unseen footage from the boy s world tour and concerts. Interviews with industry experts explore what really makes these teen idols tick, and as this pop fairy-tale unfolds we ask what s next? for the boys who seem to have it all.

Songs for After a War

A particular reading of the forties and fifties in Spain, the hard years of famine and repression after the massacre of the Civil War, through popular culture: songs, newspapers and magazines, movies and newsreels.

Orango rischio fatale

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