For many, a toilet cleaner’s work might seem invisible, but for Mama Balo at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos students hostel, it’s a role she approaches with unmatched care and purpose. In this documentary, "Mama Balo" directors Hassan Yahaya and Kayode Idowu follow her daily routines, shining a light on how she finds pride and meaning in what many consider an “unimportant” job. Through her story, we see the extraordinary dedication behind the work that keeps overlooked spaces functional and dignified.
For over 100 years, Hollywood cinema has crafted the ultimate "villain"- the Indian, as they were labeled in early Westerns. Confined almost exclusively to this genre, the Western became a vehicle for American racism, obscuring the genocide upon which the United States was built. In this documentary, only Native Americans are given a voice to share their story, one that has been overshadowed by Hollywood's portrayal. Their narrative, part of the larger American story, highlights how cinema has long been used as a powerful propaganda tool, distorting history and perpetuating harmful stereotypes.
"Fire and the Garden" is a docu-fiction film in which seven researchers attempt to present their findings and interpretations about Martyr Ebrahim Hadi to a director who plans to write a screenplay based on his life.
Horst Schröder built Epix Förlag, publishing groundbreaking, controversial comics from around the world. Facing triumphs and setbacks-censorship, legal battles, and personal tragedy-he changed Sweden's comic landscape forever.
Hatched in Fire is a powerful story of rebellion & the fight for human rights as a gay Ukrainian, & how his journey of resistance continues in Scotland after the russian invasion.
The documentary takes the viewer on a serene afternoon stroll through the Japanese mental landscape and culture, with death and ageing as its perspectives.
How does it feel to not have a roof over your head? The changing of the seasons and Helsinki’s familiar streets can look very different coloured by a constant worry over your future, fate, and survival. Street writer Janne gives a diary-like account of his experiences, some of them dark and even brutal. The images captured on 16mm film by director Antti Lempiäinen make the experience palpable. And yet, there is a comforting and hopeful undertone to the film: a better life is possible.
The everyday, democratic pleasures of the sauna get their dues in this short film stripped of everything superfluous. There is a tangible warmth recorded on the 16 millimetre film used by director Jari Nordström and cinematographer Kalle Pajamaa, even before the water thrower reaches the sauna benches. As singer Tapio Rautavaara calls on the film’s soundtrack: “More water on the stones!”
Director Arantzazu Gomez Bayon never planned on becoming a mother, yet became a mother of two. In the beginning of the film, she explains that the idea of a human being growing inside her was a difficult for her. While one can feel grateful for the safety net that the Finnish healthcare system provides, she still sees pregnancy as an experience that prevented her from making movies. In her past, Gomez Bayon attended film festivals, collecting awards. Motherhood changed her life completely.
A docufilm recounting the story of the tormented life of divisionist painter Giuseppe Pellizza (1868-1907), famous for his work The Fourth Estate – shown to the public for the first time at the 1902 Turin Quadriennale and housed today at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna (Modern Art Gallery) in Milan – as well as for his ability to study the soul and human society. Exploring the places he lived in as well as his artistic sensitivity, with Fabrizio Bentivoglio as our guide and “narrative consciousness”, this documentary reveals the artist’s emotions and his vision of reality through a sophisticated use of shots from different angles inspired by the colors in his paintings. Pellizza’s tragic end – he took his own life in 1907 following the tragic loss of his wife – is part of the story and makes the emotional bond between the viewer and the artist’s work all the more profound.
After over a decade in prison, little trace of filmmaker and member of the leading Communist cultural movement Bachtiar Siagian’s life and work could be found, but Hafiz Rancajale still searched. Alongside his colleagues, they revise his mis-slandered history.
A film essay montage of contemporary footage, archive and cinema history, about the age of post-truth and how one young man’s childhood epilepsy became representative of the woes of the world and how he triumphed against adversity.
When his sister marries her cousin and takes her new husband to Australia, Shaheen Dill-Riaz’s family begins to crack. Scattered across continents and shot over fourteen years, Past Is Present offers a sweeping domestic documentary of their attempt at reconciliation.