Les messagers

Máquina 30-30

The Workers Cup

Inside Qatar’s labor camps, African and Asian migrant workers building the facilities of the 2022 World Cup compete in a football tournament of their own.

Gyrischachen - von Sünden, Sofas und Cervelats

A high-rise apartment built in the 1960s provides housing for 2500 people from 42 nations. Separated from the city by a river and bounded by towering sandstone cliffs, everyone attempts to live and survive in their own way. Foreigners who have a go at being Swiss, and Swiss who observe with scepticism. They meet in the corner shop run by an Iraqi living in exile, send their kids to a children’s club managed by a missionary, and old drinking mates meet regularly over a beer in the neighbourhood’s only bar. Despite all the differences, they are rather proud of the fact that they come from here.

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.

Beyond Ratings

Three women share their experience of navigating the app-world in the metro city. The sharings reveal gendered battles as platform workers and the tiresome reality of gig-workers' identities against the absent bosses, masked behind their apps. Filmed in the streets of New Delhi, the protagonists share about their door-to-door gigs, the surveillance at their workplaces and the absence of accountability in the urban landscape.

Little Sahara

Those who do not know the Sahara think there is only sand in the desert. But in the desert there are children who play and draw and make movies, and who would like to not have to think about the war. In the desert there's a European colony, an occupied country called Western Sahara, where there are thousands of Sahrawi refugees living a hard life in exile. "Little Sahara" tells their story, the story of a supportive, resilient people who try to thrive and grow in the Hamada, where everything has a hard time growing.

I Am Golden Karen

I AM GOLDEN KAREN is a coming-of-age story of Thaawa, a Karen refugee in search of his identity as a migrant in Thailand. In between puberty and adulthood, he nurtures a strong desire to return to his motherland, Karen State, Burma.

Death by Rescue: The Lethal Effects of Non-Assistance at Sea

In April 2015, two shipwrecks in the central Mediterranean resulted in over a thousand deaths. The first, on 12 April, occurred when an overcrowded boat was approached by a large commercial vessel. Less than a week later, on 18 April 2015, a similar incident led to over eight hundred deaths after an overcrowded vessel collided with a cargo ship that had approached to rescue its passengers. Both incidents are in part the result of changing EU policies toward at-sea rescue, particularly the retreat of state rescue operations and a resulting onus on commercial vessels to fill the ‘rescue gap’.

Trek - Spy on the Wildebeest

Each year over 1.2 million wildebeest travel across the vast Serengeti plains and Kenya's Masai Mara on a 1,800 kilometer circular journey, relentlessly followed by every big African predator. Revolutionary spy cams - airborne, swimming or disguised as rocks, skulls or dung - reveal the Great Wildebeest Migration from entirely new perspectives. This 2-part series focuses on the growing-up of a calf as he takes his first steps, faces his first deadly perils and tries to cross crocodile-infested rivers. It combines natural humor with exciting drama and gripping music.

Straight Stories, Part 1

Somewhere between documentary and fiction, this is an essay on questions of territory and human displacements made during an excursion from southern Spain to northern Morocco. Travelling on the Mediterranean rim, we hear immigrants tell their stories.

A Tale of Two Kitchens

Two countries, two restaurants, one vision. At Gabriela Cámara's acclaimed Contramar in Mexico City, the welcoming, uniformed waiters are as beloved by diners as the menu featuring fresh, local seafood caught within 24 hours. The entire staff sees themselves as part of an extended family. Meanwhile at Cala in San Francisco, Cámara hires staff from different backgrounds and cultures, including ex-felons and ex-addicts, who view the work as an important opportunity to grow as individuals. A Tale of Two Kitchens explores the ways in which a restaurant can serve as a place of both dignity and community.

Bad Hombres

A dutch film maker, married to a Nicaraguan, sets himself a goal of finding out what kind of people is risking life trying to emigrate over the borders to USA, and if some of the reach the American dream.

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.

Notes about identity

In Between

In rural Kosovo, identical houses are built for family members working abroad, in the hope that they will one day return to settle in their old homeland.

Business as Usual

Following the dealings of Mauritanian fixers ferrying migrants by sea, this film shows the human cost of irregular migration in West Africa. Interrogating the role of fixers as facilitators of the voyage across the sea as well as the casualties that occur, this asks if they are very different from 16th century slave catchers.

Return Time And Again

The Rezai's are keeping pigeons on their terrace in Berlin. After having their doubts in the beginning, the five sons are also taking care of the birds. The relationship to the animals reflects their feelings on family and loyalty, and also reminds them of their own childhood and the migration from Afghanistan.

A Thousand Pines

In this tale of labor and family that shines a light on the precarity of temporary work visas, Raymundo Morales leads a crew of workers who have to make the challenging decision to leave their families in rural Mexico to plant commercial pine forests in the United States.