Chicha, esperanza y dolor (2008)

Eunice, Clarice, Thereza

Three widows of political prisoners united against the dictatorship in Brazil and the repression of the military regime.

Chile '76

Chile, 1976. Carmen heads off to her beach house. When the family priest asks her to take care of a young man he is sheltering in secret, Carmen steps onto unexplored territories, away from the quiet life she is used to.

1987: When the Day Comes

In 1987 Korea, under an oppressive military regime, a college student gets killed during a police interrogation involving torture. Government of officials are quick to cover up the death and order the body to be cremated. A prosecutor who is supposed to sign the cremation release, raises questions about a 21-year-old kid dying of a heart attack, and he begins looking into the case for truth. Despite a systematic attempt to silence everyone involved in the case, the truth gets out, causing an eruption of public outrage.

Adriana's Pact

Lissette's favorite aunt Adriana, who lives in Australia, is arrested in 2007 while visiting her family in Chile and accused of having worked for dictator Pinochet's notorious secret police, the DINA, and of having participated in the commission of state crimes. When Adriana denies these accusations, Lissette begins to investigate her story in order to film a documentary about her.

The Last King of Scotland

Young Scottish doctor, Nicholas Garrigan decides it's time for an adventure after he finishes his formal education, so he decides to try his luck in Uganda, and arrives during the downfall of President Obote. General Idi Amin comes to power and asks Garrigan to become his personal doctor.

El Día de mi Independencia

Manuela dreams of winning the "best folkloric dress" contest in the commemoration of Independence Day at school. Meanwhile, her brother Gabo takes the risk of protesting in the streets to end the dictatorship.

Salvador

In 1980, an American journalist covering the Salvadoran Civil War becomes entangled with both the leftist guerrilla groups and the right-wing military dictatorship while trying to rescue his girlfriend and her children.

Esmeralda Bay

A priest secretly leads rebels in their struggle against the corrupt military dictatorship of the Central American country of Puerto Santo.

Fascism in Colour

After the World War I, Mussolini's perspective on life is severely altered; once a willful socialist reformer, now obsessed with the idea of power, he founds the National Fascist Party in 1921 and assumes political power in 1922, becoming the Duce, dictator of Italy. His success encourages Hitler to take power in Germany in 1933, opening the dark road to World War II. (Originally released as a two-part miniseries. Includes colorized archival footage.)

Four Days in September

Fernando, a journalist, and his friend César join terrorist group MR8 in order to fight Brazilian dictatorial regime during the late sixties. César, however, is wounded and captured during a bank hold up. Fernando then decides to kidnap the American ambassador in Brazil and ask for the release of fifteen political prisoners in exchange for his life.

The Messenger

Vera, imprisoned at a military fortress during the dictatorship, 1969, get to know a soldier, Armando, who, in the face of torture, decides to take messages from Vera to his family and establishes an affective relationship with D. Maria, Vera’s mother. Despite the horrors of the time, the film works on this possibility of a dialogue between two lonely and lost human beings: a high-middle-class lady and a young southerner of rural origin. Today, Vera, aged 70, is a professor at the university, and debates with her students about politics, forgiveness and Hannah Arendt.

Stories Our Cinema Did (Not) Tell

Filled with raunchy laughs, this documentary compiles outrageous scenes from sex-comedies that shaped Brazil's "pornochanchada" boom of the 1970s.

Belarus: An Ordinary Dictatorship

It’s the last dictatorship of Europe, caught in a Soviet time-warp, where the secret police is still called the KGB and the president rules by fear. Disappearances, political assassinations, waves of repression and mass arrests are all regular occurances. But while half of Belarus moves closer to Russia, the other half is trying to resist…

Bones of Contention

A history of the political and social repression carried out by the ruthless regime of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco between 1936 and 1975 that focuses on the lives of gays and lesbians during those dark years and the death of the Spanish gay poet Federico García Lorca.

Missing

Based on the real-life experiences of Ed Horman. A conservative American businessman travels to Chile to investigate the sudden disappearance of his son after a military takeover. Accompanied by his son's wife he uncovers a trail of cover-ups that implicate the US State department which supports the dictatorship.

The Official Story

Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1983. In the last and turbulent days of the military dictatorship, Alicia, a high school history teacher, begins to ask uncomfortable questions about the dark origins of Gaby, her adopted daughter.

The Colour of His Destiny

Teenager and his Chilean parents live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in exile, after his brother is killed by the military government in Chile. Years later, still haunted by the past, he undergoes a crisis when he learns his cousin had been arrested in Santiago, and quarrels with his family when he decides to know his country and the details of his past.

I'm Still Here

In 1971, military dictatorship in Brazil reaches its height. The Paiva family — Rubens, Eunice, and their five children — live in a beachside house in Rio, open to all their friends. One day, Rubens is taken for questioning and does not return.

The Night & The Universe

A middle class couple in Chile at the night that Cecilia Bolocco becomes Miss Universe. A student film by Gabriel Lizama AKA Liz Taylor.

The Battle

21 sequence shots depict moments in a defining night of the Battle of Rua Maria Antônia, in October 1968, from the point of view of the students and professors of the Left-wing Student Movement, in the Philosophy Faculty building of USP.

1988

In the winter of 1988, in the depths of the Iraq/Iran war, the border town of Halabja was attacked by chemical weapons with all its people and their different stories.

The South

After the end of the military dictatorship in Argentina in 1983, Floreal is released from prison. Instead of returning to his wife, he wanders through the night of Buenos Aires. He meets some people from his past–most of which are only imaginary–and remembers the events of his imprisonment.

Night of the Pencils

The Night of the Pencils was a series of kidnappings and forced disappearances, followed by the torture, rape, and murder of a number of young students during the last Argentine dictatorship (known as the National Reorganization Process). The kidnappings took place over the course of several days beginning on September 16, 1976.

Viva o Cinema! Uma História da Mostra de São Paulo

The series tells the story of the São Paulo International Film Festival, one of the most traditional cultural events in Latin America. For 48 years, the festival has showcased hundreds of films from all over the world, bringing vibrancy to the city. Filmmaker Marina Person provides an irreverent perspective, highlighting the exciting and unusual stories that have marked the festival’s journey of resistance. The series reveals the individuals who have embraced the challenge of organizing this significant cultural event in Brazil every year, despite often challenging conditions. We also delves into how the Mostra has grown to become one of the main festivals globally, shedding light on the changes in cinema, Brazil, and the world over the years.

Leopoldo Jacinto. Vida de campeón

Documentary about the life story of one of Argentina's sports idols. One of the forty-three soccer players who won a World Cup, a fight. Filmed in Mendoza, Santa Fé, Rosario and Buenos Aires.

The Boys from Brazil: Rise of the Bolsonaros

This documentary tells of the extraordinary rise of Jair Bolsonaro, from relative obscurity to the ultimate seat of South American power. Told through intimate interviews with some of those closest to him including his eldest son Flávio, former government ministers, as well as his opponents, explore Bolsonaro’s brilliant yet ruthless journey to the presidency, with high-stakes drama, guns and God.

The Wolf House

After escaping from a religious colony in Chile, Maria seeks shelter in a mansion where she’s taken in by two pigs, its only inhabitants. Like in a stop-motion dream, the universe of the house reacts to her feelings. The animals slowly morph into humans and the house into a dark, menacing world.

Marighella

Afro-Brazilian poet and politician, the legendary Carlos Marighella. Driven to fight against the erosion of civil and human rights following the CIA-backed military coup of 1964 and the brutal, racist right-wing dictatorship that followed, the revolutionary leaves behind his wife and son to take up arms, becoming a notorious enemy to the power structure.

Ten Years Thailand

A collection of short films by five Thai directors imagining their country ten years into the future.

The Silence of Others

The story of the tortuous struggle against the silence of the victims of the dictatorship imposed by General Franco after the victory of the rebel side in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1975). In a democratic country, but still ideologically divided, the survivors seek justice as they organize the so-called “Argentinian lawsuit” and denounce the legally sanctioned pact of oblivion that intends to hide the crimes they were subjects of.

Garage Olimpo

Maria is a militant activist in an organisation opposed to the military dictatorship in Argentina. She teaches reading and writing in the shanty towns and lives with her mother in an old and run-down residence. One morning, Maria is carried off, in front of her mother, by a military squad dressed in civilian clothes. The young woman is taken to the Olimpo garage, one of the numerous torture chambers which haunt Buenos Aires to the general indifference of the population. In order to make Maria talk, Tigre, the head of the centre, gives her to one of his best men, Felix.

Trauma

Four friends visit a rural locality of Chile, are brutally attacked by a man and his son. After not finding help in the town, they decide to confront these men with the help of a pair of policemen. But in this way, they will discover that their attackers have in their blood the direct legacy of the darkest period of Chilean history and will have to face the most brutal enemy.

Cuba and the Cameraman

This revealing portrait of Cuba follows the lives of Fidel Castro and three Cuban families affected by his policies over the last four decades.

The Red Chapel

Two Danish comedians join the director on a trip to North Korea, where they have been allowed access under the pretext of wanting to perform a vaudeville act.

Crisis

An American doctor gets caught in the middle of a revolution when he's forced to operate on a South American dictator.

The Story of PlayStation

Discover how Sony entered the video game market and created a console that took the world by storm, forever transforming the gaming landscape.

April Captains

Story of the 1974 coup that overthrew the right-wing Portuguese dictatorship--which continued the fascist policies of long-time dictator Antonio Salazar--and of two young army captains who were involved in it.

O Grande Irmão: O Dia que Durou 21 Anos 2

With confidential and unpublished documentation, the film shows the background and behind-the-scenes of the coup in Chile that took place on September 11, 1973 - and General Pinochet's dictatorship, which lasted 17 years.

Beast

Inspired by real events, "Bestia" enters the life of a secret police agent in the military dictatorship in Chile. The relationship with her dog, her body, her fears and frustrations, reveal a macabre fracture in her mind and a country.

Heart and Guts

Financial problems in a religious school for girls force the government to interfere. While waiting in the conference hall to communicate the fact to the school administrators, the intervenor falls asleep and a crazy dream begins, involving teachers, students and strange characters.

Of Love and Shadows

Irene is a magazine editor living under the shadow of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. Francisco is a handsome photographer and he comes to Irene for a job. As a sympathizer with the underground resistance movement, Francisco opens her eyes and her heart to the atrocities being committed by the state.

Days of '36

The assassin of a prominent trade unionist takes a conservative MP hostage, throwing in the government into disarray.

No

In 1988, Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet, due to international pressure, is forced to call a plebiscite on his presidency. The country will vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to Pinochet extending his rule for another eight years. Opposition leaders for the ‘No’ vote persuade a brash young advertising executive, René Saavedra, to spearhead their campaign. Against all odds, with scant resources and while under scrutiny by the despot’s minions, Saavedra and his team devise an audacious plan to win the election and set Chile free.

After We Have Left Our Homes

Under a dictatorship that has banned music, a man hides a record until he is caught. Whilst paying for his crimes he stumbles across a repository of confiscated items, leading to events that will change the course of history.

The Clan

In Argentina, between 1982 and 1985, the Puccios, a well-established family of San Isidro, an upper-class suburb of Buenos Aires, kidnap several people and hold them as hostages for a ransom.

The Lady

The story of Aung San Suu Kyi as she becomes the core of Burma's democracy movement, and her relationship with her husband, writer Michael Aris.

Desierto

Plot unavailable

Ein Traum von Revolution

When the revolution in Nicaragua won its victory nearly 40 years ago, the world began to dream. A young generation was taking the reins in a country of grand utopias. From West Germany alone, 15,000 “brigadists” travelled to help rebuild the war-torn country: liberals, greens, unionists, social democrats, leftists and church representatives harvested coffee and cotton, built schools, kindergartens and hospital wards. No movement has mobilised so many people. What became of the hopes and dreams of the revolutionaries and their supporters?

Breaking the Cycle

A group of young politicians campaigning against an authoritarian constitution speak up, spark hope and ignite a once-in-a-generation movement in this energetic exploration of the recent elections in Thailand.

Colonia

A young woman's desperate search for her abducted boyfriend draws her into the infamous Colonia Dignidad, a sect nobody ever escaped from.

Entranced Earth

Eldorado, a fictitious country in America, is sparkling with the internal struggle for political power. In the eye of this social convulsion, the jaded journalist Paulo Martins opposes two equally corrupt political candidates: a pseudopopulist and a conservative. In this context, Paulo is torn between the madness of the elite and the blind submission of the masses. But, in this complex tropical reality, nothing really is what it seems to be.

The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu

The three-hour-long documentary covers 25 years in the life of Nicolae Ceaușescu and was made using 1,000 hours of original footage from the National Archives of Romania.

Azor

Yvan De Wiel, a private banker from Geneva, is going to Argentina in the midst of a dictatorship to replace his partner, the object of the most worrying rumors, who disappeared overnight. Between hushed lounges, swimming pools, and gardens under surveillance, a remote duel takes place between two bankers who, despite different methods, are the accomplices of a discreet and merciless form of colonization.

The Pearl Button

The ocean contains the history of all humanity. The sea holds all the voices of the earth and those that come from outer space. Water receives impetus from the stars and transmits it to living creatures. Water, the longest border in Chile, also holds the secret of two mysterious buttons which were found on its ocean floor. Chile, with its 2,670 miles of coastline and the largest archipelago in the world, presents a supernatural landscape. In it are volcanoes, mountains and glaciers. In it are the voices of the Patagonian Indigenous people, the first English sailors and also those of its political prisoners. Some say that water has memory. This film shows that it also has a voice.

Repentance

The day after his funeral, the corpse of Varlam Aravidze, the mayor of a small Georgian town, turns up in his son's garden. Although it is secretly reburied, the corpse keeps returning until the police capture the local woman who is responsible. This woman says that Varlam should never be laid to rest since his Stalin-like reign of terror led to the disappearance of her family and friends.

Caged Women

A bunch of delinquent women are shipped to an island prison run by the sadistic warden Carla. Forced into situations of sexual perversion and violence and torture, the prisoners band together to try to overthrow Carla and escape the island.

The White King

Djata is a care-free 12-year-old growing up in a brutal dictatorship shut off from the outside world. When the government imprisons his father, Peter, and Djata and his mother Hannah are labeled traitors, the boy will not rest until he sees his father again.

The Battle of Chile: Part I

The chronicle of the political tension in Chile in 1973 and of the violent counter revolution against the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende.

Túnel de los huesos

Based on a real event, this is the spectacular escape of seven prisoners in 1991 from the Villa Devoto prison in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In the process of digging a tunnel to escape, they make a bizarre and frightening discovery just as they are about to break through to freedom. One escapee promises to report their findings when they are all free and once out, he pays his debt to "the tunnel of bones,"sharing their macabre story with a local journalist, and ultimately the world.

Safe Passage

In the present, in Spain, Miguel's mind, affected by a brain disease, seems cloistered in the past, in Argentina, in the seventies, when he risked his life for his ideals. He is obsessed with finding a woman named Diana. Mario, his son, who has been away from Miguel for a long time, now feels compelled to unravel the mystery of a name that, like a curse, pursues his father.

Montenegro: A Land Divided

Montenegro is the newest European country with a proud history, one that is being falsified for current political purposes, thus creating an alternative identity. In a nation where it possible for two brothers to claim different ethnic backgrounds despite having the same parents, everything is on the table: language, church, democracy. Can the truth set Montenegro free?

State of Exception

Estado de Excepção is a documentary about CITAC (Coimbra Theater Initiation Circle), a university theater group, revealing history since it was constituted in 1956 until the aftermath of the 1974 revolution. It is the history of the theater group university and, through it, the history of theater in Portugal, revealing two remarkable decades of the History of Portugal. Through the Academy of Coimbra, the documentary reproduces student life, the position of women in society, and the change in mentalities of being and being in the world. It reproduces the existing censorship and the fight against the dictatorship, the resistance to an exhausted regime, as well as the emerging contradictions of the democratic revolution. CITAC has a heritage of 50 years of experience in Coimbra. It carries with it the possibility of the theatrical and civic formation of thinking bodies, constituting a proper ball of a possible model, generation by generation, between studies, theater, and social drama.

The Lovers and the Despot

Hong Kong, 1978. South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee is kidnapped by North Korean operatives following orders from dictator Kim Jong-il.

The Man Standing Next

When the investigation of 'Koreagate' takes place, Park Yong-gak, a former KCIA director who knows everything about the government's operations, heads to the United States in exile.

The Day That Lasted 21 Years

Stunning espionage documentary on the US conspiracy that led to the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état. John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson original White House tapes, and CIA Top Secret documents reveal how the US government planned to overthrow Brazilian elected president João Goulart.

The Colonel's Stray Dogs

In 1981, seven Libyan exiles formed the core opposition group to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Thirty years later, they are back to their country only to inherit the mess he left. The film is an intricate blend of rare first-hand accounts, propaganda archival material turned on its head, evocative cinematography and an untold history of a country.

The March of Fools

The story is set in the 1970s during the period of military dictatorship. Schools were frequently closed and society seemed to face bleak prospects on all fronts. Nonetheless, Byung-tae, a college student, enjoys pursuing romance in blind group dates. It's during one of these ventures that he meets Young-ja, a French literature student.