A few years ago, the al-Mahamids fled Bashar al-Assad and Syria to settle in Montreal. A nuanced portrayal of a courageous family coping with a seemingly interminable war, thousands of kilometres away, that continues to affect their lives.
Adnan Al-Mhamied
as Himself
Basmah Issa
as Herself
The Israeli filmmaker Shai Corneli Polak records the building of the 'security wall' through Palestinian territory at the village of Bil'in. The villagers protest mostly peacefully, while the Israeli army doesn't react peacefully. By now the Israeli High Court has ruled that the building of the wall was illegal.
In May 1974, the Israeli Air Force carried out an extermination operation against the Palestinian refugee camp Nabatiyeh. With this as a starting point, it is reviewed how the last 50 years of Zionist colonization of Palestine have partly led to the establishment of the state of Israel, partly to the expulsion of a people, the Palestinians, from their land. The film shows scenes of daily life in Palestinian refugee camps. We hear various of the inhabitants talk about their desire to return to their country, and we follow how the resistance movement works to free women from their traditional backward role. At the same time, the emergence of the armed resistance struggle is analysed, and the significance of the latest military technological developments for guerilla wars in the 3rd world is explained.
Amos Gitai returns to the occupied territories for the first time since his 1982 documentary FIELD DIARY. WEST OF THE JORDAN RIVER describes the efforts of citizens, Israelis and Palestinians, who are trying to overcome the consequences of occupation. Gitai's film shows the human ties woven by the military, human rights activists, journalists, mourning mothers and even Jewish settlers. Faced with the failure of politics to solve the occupation issue, these men and women rise and act in the name of their civic consciousness. This human energy is a proposal for long overdue change.
Prague, 2022 - Having found refuge from the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, two women and their young daughters face the waiting and hope of an imminent return to Ukraine. Shelved in this city, these women tell the story of their past and give access to their daily life, their present, in which they try to learn how to live again. This documentary tries to give a voice to those who live war differently.
Stone Street documents the life and experiences of a Trinidadian diaspora family and their enduring connection to the long standing family home in Port of Spain. Through the intersecting journeys of this extended and extensive family, the filmmaker explores themes of home, belonging and identity in a life defined by the fragmentary nature of a migratory Caribbean culture. This experimental documentary combines a lyrical first person voice with a family archive of home made audio visual artifacts, interviews and events. As the documentary explores the fragmentary nature of Caribbean identity, it simultaneously celebrates the fragments of domestic memorializing found in home movies, videos and photographs. Stone Street uses these various forms to evoke the experience of a complex and diverse Caribbean and Caribbean diaspora identity.
The first documentary to present an unabashed critique of the impact of the Syrian government’s agricultural and land reforms, Everyday Life in a Syrian Village delivers a powerful jab at the state’s conceit of redressing social and economic inequities.
On May 8, 1989, Sports Illustrated ran an article about Ultimate frisbee… about a team with no name hailing from New York City that was about to change the sport forever. From its 1968 New Jersey birth to its unanimous 2015 recognition by the International Olympic Committee, FLATBALL circles the globe to showcase four decades of world-class Ultimate and goes even further: to a set of fields in the Middle East to understand and demystify the unique spirit of the game.
A portrait of growing up told through filmmaker Sean Wang's middle school yearbook. Go Hornets.
A charismatic Indian-Nepali boy, lives a bohemian life in a remote Himalayan village. As he transitions from childhood to teenagehood, his poetic journey of perseverance echoes issues that span across ages and communities.
A verité legal drama about Judge Kholoud Al-Faqih, the first woman appointed to a Shari'a court in the Middle East, whose career provides rare insights into both Islamic law and gendered justice.
This anthology film, whose Chinese title begins with a romantic name for human excrement, premiered internationally at Rotterdam and won Best Screenplay from the Hong Kong Film Critics Society. A variety of Hong Kong people wrestle with nostalgia when facing an uncertain future. Their stories give way to a documentary featuring a young barista turned political candidate.
In 1971, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE ceased to be part of Britain’s empire in the Middle East and became fully independent states. BBC News Persia and BBC Arabic collaborate in this gripping film, to uncover the secrets and shady deals that underpinned the decolonization process. From eye-witness accounts of a British-organised coup to Iran being left in control of disputed islands, it's a fascinating insight to a murky history.
A humor-inflected history of the of the number one, covering military applications in ancient Rome, the measurement of distances in India, and the decimal system created by Leibnitz.
The film documents modern slave trade through a number of African countries, under dictatorship rule. The filming was conducted both in public places, and sometimes with the use of hidden cameras, for high impact scenes of nudity, sex, and violence - and a few surprises, as slaves made out of peregrins to Asia, and slave traders paid in traveller checks.
Home movie collection of the Bohulano Family of Stockton, CA. Footage dates between the 1950s-1970s.
An Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.
As obesity progresses inexorably, Sylvie Gilman and Thierry de Lestrade investigate the causes of this planetary plague and reveal the fight waged in certain countries to stem it.
Explore an overlooked moment in pre-WWI Palestine when people's identities overlapped, and Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities intermingled freely. Few could contemplate the conflict that would engulf their region for the next century.
