Behind the Lines

Behind the Lines 2023

10.00

Amany Al-Ali stands out as one of Syria's few female cartoonists, residing in her father's home in Idlib, the last city unconquered by Assad's forces. Like her remaining neighbours she's submitted to relentless Russian airstrikes and caught between advancing troops and extremist groups. Despite acclaim for her art, she faces threats, condemnation, and degradation, causing her to contemplate leaving. Ironically, her artwork has graced galleries in France and Italy but never received exposure within Syria's borders. The film captures her endeavor to organize her inaugural exhibition in Idlib. This experience compels her to confront the harsh realities of a city defined by bombings and male interference. While organizing drawing lessons for women and girls, comforting her young niece, and sharing her story with the documentary crew, Amany's outlook on the future gradually erodes.

2023

Architecton

Architecton 2024

6.00

An extraordinary journey through the material that makes up our habitat: concrete and its ancestor, stone. Victor Kossakovsky raises a fundamental question: how do we inhabit the world of tomorrow?

2024

The Weather Inside

The Weather Inside 2015

4.70

A luxury hotel in a conflict zone. Development aid worker Dorothea begins an affair with a young drifter, Alec, but what starts as sweet distraction brings her dangerously close to losing control.

2015

Rabbit à la Berlin

Rabbit à la Berlin 2009

6.40

The untold story about wild rabbits which lived between the Berlin Walls. For 28 years Death Zone was their safest home. Full of grass, no predators, guards protecting them from human disturbance. They were closed but happy. When their population grew up to thousands, guards started to remove them. But rabbits survived and stayed there. Unfortunately one day the wall fell down. Rabbits had to abandon comfortable system. They moved to West Berlin and have been living there in a few colonies since then. They are still learning how to live in the free world, same as we - the citizens of Eastern Europe.

2009

Revue

Revue 2008

7.00

As he did with his critically-acclaimed "Blockade," a documentary re-creation of the WWII siege of Leningrad, which received its NY theatrical premiere in March 2007, filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa has once again scoured the Russian film archives for "Revue," selecting excerpts from newsreels, propaganda films, TV shows and feature films that present an evocative portrait of Soviet life during the 1950s and 1960s. With scenes taken from the length and breadth of the “Soviet Motherland,” "Revue" illustrates industry and agriculture, political life, popular culture, and technology. The film’s fascinating flow of disparate scenes representing typical Soviet life of the period is, seen from today’s perspective, alternately poignant, funny, and tragic

2008

Landscape

Landscape 2003

4.60

Winter. A bus stop in a small village. People are waiting for a bus. They talk. Listening to their conversations, the viewer can imagine the world they live in. United by the movement of the camera, the place and the people blend together.

2003

Chris the Swiss

Chris the Swiss 2018

6.50

Croatia, 7th of January 1992: In the middle of the war, a young journalist's body is discovered dressed in the uniform of an international mercenary group. Twenty years later, his cousin Anja Kofmel investigates his story.

2018

Invisible Demons

Invisible Demons 2021

6.50

A prismatic meditation on pollution in the capital of the World’s biggest free-market democracy and the most polluted and populated city, Delhi – a film about the pollution inside of the human mind.

2021

Material

Material 2009

6.10

"Pictures from the late eighties in the GDR on up to the immediate present in the year 2008 in Germany. What has been left over besieges my mind. All these pictures keep reassembling themselves to make up something which they were originally not made for. They are still in motion. They are becoming history." (Thomas Heise)

2009

Song from the Forest

Song from the Forest 2014

7.80

25 years ago, Louis Sarno, an American, heard a song on the radio and followed its melody into the Central Africa Jungle and stayed. He than recorded over 1000 hours of original BaAka music. Now he is part of the BaAka community and raises his pygmy son, Samedi. Fulfilling an old promise, Louis takes Samedi to America. On this journey Louis realizes he is not part of this globalized world anymore but globalization has also arrived in the rainforest. The BaAka depend on Louis for their survival. Father and son return to the melodies of the jungle but the question remains: How much longer will the songs of the forest be heard?

2014

Draw for Change: Tree of Violence

Draw for Change: Tree of Violence 2024

1

Artist Victoria Lomasko explores the link between domestic and state-sponsored violence in midst of an impending crisis. Having fled Russia in 2022, she embarked on a mural project depicting events since the protest-filled winter of 2021.

2024

John Berger or The Art of Looking

John Berger or The Art of Looking 2016

5.20

Art, politics and motorcycles - on the occasion of his 90th birthday John Berger or the Art of Looking is an intimate portrait of the writer and art critic whose ground-breaking work on seeing has shaped our understanding of the concept for over five decades. The film explores how paintings become narratives and stories turn into images, and rarely does anybody demonstrate this as poignantly as Berger.

2016

Hotel de Grote L

Hotel de Grote L 2017

7.80

Kos (13) is going through the most bizarre period in his life. His mother died a few years ago and his dad is having a heart attack. While Kos’ father is in the hospital, it looks like the hotel he is running will be a big mess. But Kos and his three sisters do not intend to let that happen. After the siblings find out that father is deep in financial problems, the hotel is threatened with closure. The children however come up with a solution: someone has to win the local beauty pageant, with a hefty cash prize attached.

2017

Bad Weather

Bad Weather 2011

6.00

Off the coast of Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal is a tiny 'brothel island' populated by women forced to sell their bodies to men who arrive by the boatload. Each of the women came to inhabit the 100m long and 10m wide piece of land for different reasons, whether through a sister, the need for money, or in search of love and affection, but for all of them it is a life tougher than they could have imagined. Deepening their troubles is the island's existence at the frontline of climate change, and with the increase of cyclones, floods and soil erosion the prospect of losing their homes, and the island itself, is closer than ever. Beautifully shot and subverting expectation, Bad Weather is a documentary that carves out a message of hope in extreme adversity.

2011

Dust

Dust 2007

6.40

A look at the pervasive power of dust from its tiny particles settling in unseen places to its ability to cause illnesses and create the cosmos.

2007

Exit

Exit 2018

7.00

An exploration into the motives and histories of individuals, including herself, who have exited the world of violent extremism.

2018

The River is not a Border

The River is not a Border 2022

1

The Senegal River forms the national border between Mauritania and Senegal. In 1989, war broke out between these countries, along and around the river. Both sides committed atrocities. Senegalese filmmaker Alassane Diago was just a young child at the time. Now he brings together his “Senegalese and Mauritanian family,” all victims or witnesses of the bloodbath, so they can talk in detail about their traumatic experiences. He wants to find the truth, and to bring about reconciliation. Why did they slaughter each other, and why were so many people “deported”? Was there systemic racism involved, under the white and Arab elite? Was it a case of ethnic cleansing?

2022

Silent Trees

Silent Trees 2024

1

The main character of the documentary is a 16-year-old Kurdish girl who, after the tragic death of her mother on the Polish-Belarusian border, has to become a mother to her 4 younger brothers.

2024

Bakhmaro

Bakhmaro 2012

1

This German documentary looks inside a nearly idle restaurant in a dowdy building in the country of Georgia, its listless workers waiting for business to pick up. The mournful atmosphere serves as a metaphor for the uncertain future of Georgia.

2012

Pepe Mujica: Lessons From the Flowerbed

Pepe Mujica: Lessons From the Flowerbed 2014

6.00

José “Pepe” Mujica, the president of Uruguay from 2010-2015, is nothing like your regular politician. He drives a VW Beetle, lives on a farm and donates 70% of his earnings to charity. He is considered one of the most charismatic politicians in Latin America. Old and young believe in him thanks to his humble lifestyle and his unconventional manners, especially where political protocol is concerned. Now in his 80s, Mujica, a former guerrilla fighter who was imprisoned for 13 years for fighting with the Tupamaros against the dictatorial regime in Uruguay in the 1970s, believes in democracy, socialism, women’s rights and the legalization of cannabis. An inspiration to thousands of people all over the world, he grows flowers in his garden and defines life as his religion.

2014