The Dybbuk. A Tale of Wandering Souls
Director Krzysztof Kopczyński
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Poland
30 thousand Hasidim journey to Ukraine to celebrate the Jewish New Year at the gravesite of their holy leader Rebbe Nachman. A Ukrainian far-right group erects a cross at the site of Hasidic prayers and builds a monument to Cossacks who slaughtered thousands of Jews and Poles in 1768 during a national rebellion.
Silo, A Spiritual Path
Director Pablo Lavín
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Chile
Silo, a Spiritual Path, tells the inspirational story of Mario Rodriguez Cobos, a revolutionary from Argentina who overcame censorship and persecution to propose a radical system of self actualization leading to nonviolent social change. It speaks powerfully to today’s generation working for social justice and human rights.
Along with a wealth of archival footage, our young protagonist Catalina interviews many who knew Silo as a friend, a guide, and a master. Sharing their personal stories with moving candor, the result is a multifaceted portrait that is both historical and intimate as we see how the teachings of Silo challenge us to change ourselves in order to change the world.
The IBUR Connection
Director: Joe Diamand
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United States
The IBUR Connection is a film about miracles. It was filmed in Israel, the West Bank, Morocco, Ukraine, and Poland. It is a historical spiritual road trip told from the tombs of Saints and Prophets.
At the tombs of the Saints, there is an energy known as an IBUR. When pilgrims go to the Saints at their tombs and ask for miracles, the IBUR helps to make the miracles come true.
While the film primarily covers Hebrew Saints, known as Tzadikim, it highlights the commonalities of the three Abrahamic traditions, which includes visiting several sites that are holy to Christians, such as the birthplace and the tomb of Jesus, as well as Islamic sites, such as the Temple Mount/Holy Sanctuary, the Arab section of the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and Morocco, a country that is entirely Muslim.
In Israel/West Bank, the film presents the Saints along the four energy centers: Fire (Jerusalem), Water (Tiberius), Air (Tzfat), and Earth (Hebron). In Eastern Europe, the film travels from Kiev in Ukraine, to Warsaw in Poland, visiting sites that today are the only testament left from an era that was completely decimated during WWII.
The film's narration provides information about the Saints' spiritual history, insights into the energies at their tombs, and stories about the miracles they performed.
EL CIELO OTRA VEZ
Director GUSTAVO ALONSO
Argentina
The Andean condor the biggest flying bird in the world was revered for centuries by the originary communities in South America becoming a true sacred symbol. There was a time that were abundant but this situation changed. And the main cause of this change was man that led to this species to a conservation challenge. This process is being reversed slowly with incubation and captive breeding and their release each year. It needed a man Dr. Luis Jacome working with his philosophy of respect the originary traditions and Paileman a place in the heart of the Patagonia to achieve as five hundred years ago heaven again.
THE KNIGHTS OF THE LAGOON
Director: Walter Bencini
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Italy
A human, poetic journey inside the Orbetello lagoon fishing community, using the fishermen’s stories to explore a new way of fishing, a philosophy of food production that cares about quality, the environment and people. A story of tradition and technology, humans and nature, passion and conflicts. Gruff men who can make us chuckle and make us melancholy, men who can laugh at themselves and at their situation, who tell their stories frankly, in all their individual contradictions. Heroes suspended between the destiny of a disappearing world and the romantic, stubborn desire not to give up, to keep alive their story, which is also the story of their families, of their fathers and grandfathers.
UNGEFILTERT EINGEATMET - DIE WAHRHEIT ÜBER DAS AEROTOXISCHE SYNDROM
Director VAN BEVEREN TIM
Germany
This film is the first investigative documentary of its kind about the dark side of a previous glamorous industry. It deals with the mysterious death of a British pilot, heavily injured flight-attendants and passengers, cover-ups and near air disasters: “UNFILTERED BREATHED IN – The Truth about Aerotoxic Syndrome” focuses on the partially slow intoxications caused by extremely dangerous chemical compounds within the jet-turbine engine oils of modern aircraft, which can get into the cabin breathing air. Most people are not aware that this breathing air aboard jet aircraft is directly taken of the turbine engines and comes unfiltered into the cabin. For a long time it has been suspected that these compounds can cause irreversible nerve damage. For more than seven years Tim van Beveren, investigative journalist and filmmaker from Berlin, Germany conducted extensive research into an inconvenient issue for airlines and aircraft manufactures. In the past Mr van Beveren has already been the author and editor of numerous publications on this topic for publicly owned broadcasters (ARD – German Television Network) and renown newspapers (e.g. Die Welt). Insiders, scientists, medical doctors, engineers, air crew and eye-witnesses were interviewed on camera by Mr van Beveren.
Viacrucis Migrante - Migrant Crossing
Director Hauke Lorenz
Germany
'Viacrucis Migrante' is a documentary about men, women and children fleeing the extremely dangerous conditions in their home countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. On the journey, they put themselves at risk of encountering many life-threatening dangers. Just past the Southern Mexican bor
Free
Director Tomislav Zaja
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Croatia
Free follows the path to freedom of a group of people with intellectual disabilities that are locked away in Croatian institutions. The only things that Ivan, Enes, Tina, Kruno, Mirko, Tomo have in common is that they are outcasts of society and they dream of freedom: we see them institutionalised and we watch what it’s like to be isolated, deprived of privacy and of one’s rights to make decisions regarding their own life. One day they are informed that they will be released. After decades spent in institutions, a new beginning awaits them: Ivan has always wanted to be a police officer, Enes buys a video camera and starts to document his everyday life, Tina and Kruno want to get married, Mirko and Tomo dream of becoming football coaches at their favourite local club, Silvia starts singing in the church choir, Andjelko is trying to find a girl and a job...
Dreams into the wind
Director David Delgado San Ginés
Spain
In a small villa,a wise and illiterate man has built, to offer it to the world, a strange garden which has embodied the disturbing images of your dreams. Is the planet Pillipo, orderly world with images and visions, where angels with God scamper to the wind.
A Queer Country
Director Lisa Morgenthau
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United Kingdom
Israel, a country synonymous with war, conflict and religion is also fast becoming the LGBT capital of the world. This film explores this extraordinary contradiction. It investigates the thriving gay scene in Tel Aviv that has now become host to one of the world's largest pride parades and explores the wider political implications of the government's tolerance towards the LGBT community and vitally how this impacts the psyche of the country.
NORTHWEST GLADIATORS
Director KNUFFMANN ANDREAS
Germany
35 riders from all over the world meet every year in Portrush, Northern Ireland, to participate at the largest motorcycle spectacle in Northern Ireland , the Northwest 200. The course („The triangle“) is a street circuit, made up of public roads running between the towns of Portstewart, Coleraine and Portrush. The race s one of the fastest in the world, with speeds in excess of 200 mph (320 km/h). In practice for the 2012 event Martin Jessopp was clocked at 208 mph (335 km/h). It is one of around fifteen events run on public roads between April and October throughout the island of Ireland. It is the largest annual sporting event in Ireland, with the race weekend attracting over 150,000 visitors from all over the world. The film tells the story of three teams during the race week in Portrush, on a 24/7 time frame, around the clock with their great challenge Northwest 200 in May 2015.
Doing Nothing All Day - FREISTUNDE
Director: Margarete Hentze
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Germany
Participation is an artistic medium: the docu FREISTUNDE about self-determined education integrates the experimental film-project Democarcy on Super8 with clips by over ninety people. From filmmaker to preschooler - people were invited to take part.
A young mother starts the search for the ideal scholl for her son and discovers the tradition of democratic schools. She speaks with scientists and protagonists of the democratic education movement in Germany, England and Israel.
LA TROISIEME LANGUE
Director Benno Hungerbühler
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Switzerland
„La Troisième Langue“ examines the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a wide range of narratives. It centers around a Swiss Jewish theatre director named Dalit Bloch who, after 40 years, returns to her home country of Israel to stage Gottfried Keller's „A Village Romeo and Juliet“ with a mixed group of Jewish and Arabic teenagers. As the Swiss novella touches on some common issues arising from today's deeply divided territory, it also paves the way for the documentary's larger preoccupation with peace, reconciliation and tolerance. „La Troisième Langue“ ably illustrates the fundamental rift between Jews and Palestinians while never catering to extremist voices, and is at it’s best when following the development of Dalit Bloch's production at the Arab-Hebrew Theatre in the Old City of Jaffa. During the weeks of rehearsing Keller's drama in this neutral space the teenagers reject the prevailing animosity and detachment in favour of mutual empathy
Grado Mission
Director: Carlo Christian Spano
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Italy
Missione Grado is a 2015 Italian documentary film directed by Carlo Christian Spano. The film chronicles some military activities carried out by the Italian contingent in Herat and Bala Morghab, Afghanistan. The title of the movie is taken from a secret code assigned to a group of journalist, a name pronounced by a sergeant of the "San Marco" Battalion whose gaze is the protagonist of the first chapter. As seen through the sergeant eyes, we can absorb the very true feelings that will lead him on his return to be an enlightened person and overall all of his reality.
The Cantor of Swabia
Director: Sabine I. Gölz
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United States
The film tells the story of Richard Gölz, German theologian and legendary church musician, who brought Reformation Music back into the Protestant Church in Germany, and who, in 1933, started a revival of Gregorian Chant that continues until today. Towards the end of WWII, Gölz was imprisoned for hiding Jews from Nazi persecution. After the war, he found himself unable to work with the Protestant Church any longer. He became a Russian Orthodox priest and emigrated to the US. Back in Germany, he was ostracized for this departure for a long time, and his contributions in music were allowed to slip into oblivion. Since the 1990s, efforts are being made to bring back his legacy. Today, he is remembered in Yad Vashem and the Holocaust Museum. This film brings his story to a broader audience for the first time.
Drachinzeit, a rite of passage
Director: Sil Egger
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Germany
Independent documentary film "Drachinzeit" about female coming-of-age
"Drachinzeit`` a rite of passage, is an independent documentary film, which shows the coming-of-age of 8 girls on the verge of womanhood and take the awkwardness of puberty and transform it into beauty. During six months, the German film maker Sil Egger accompanied teenage girls on their journey involving several encounters in which they are consciously working towards becoming young women, guided by a female community. Step by step they grow in confidence, learn to set their personal boundaries and discover their own femininity. In a final ceremony, they say goodbye to their childhood. It is a journey full of mixed emotions and surprises.
ANNOYING
Director: Zoran Maslic
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Canada
Grant, his girlfriend Lucie and his band-mate Chad live a vagabond life. They have 'itchy feet', sleep under bridges, hop on freight trains and deal with their issues and addictions. Through their songs we get to know Grant, who is a talented song-writer with past of trauma and a struggling drug addict, but above all - a proud Native American.
ALAYA - Moments of creation
Director: Judith Barfuss
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Austria
A feature documentary about the austrian sculpturer Rudolf Hirt.
One stroke overwrites the other. Releases - creates space for new impressions, ideas, transformations. One moment replaces the other.
Everythings needs its time - a oeuvre the personal development of its creator. It constantly flows into, shapes and coins the work.
The oeuvre is completed, when all attachment is dissipated and the core is laid open.
But in the end it is not about the oeuvre as a result - it is about the process and the moments of creation.
WO IST MEIN ZELT?
Director ZUBIN SETHNA
Germany
While searching for a tent which he donated to the survivors of a heavy earthquake in Northern Pakistan, filmmaker Zubin Sethna and his travel companion Alexander Wadouh reside with the people of the small Pakistani town "Balakot". This place was completely destroyed by the desaster. As they share the everyday life with the residents of Balakot, they experience their strengths and believes in their challange to recreate a routine. These strengths enable the two guests to face their personal issues in a new light and develope them as well. They get a deeper understanding for loss, life and the tent within.
Sistiaga, a basque story
Director: Manuel Sorto
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France
José Antonio Sistiaga is one of the greats in basque contemporary art. Through lively exchanges begun in 1993 with his Salvadorean friend Manuel Sorto, we plunge into Sistiaga’s intellectual intimacy and travel through a basque history, following the steps of this experimental filmmaker and artist.
This nearly two decades-old project is taken up again in 2011, with the filming of the installation of Sistiaga’s retrospective exhibition in San Sebastian, Basque Country, Spain.
FÖR MINA BARN
Director STATHIS PLOTAS
Sweden
FOR MY CHILDREN This documentary follows Jerzy Donus who in 2009 was manipulated out of his children ́s life as father for the children he loves and cares for. The worries and stress in the struggle for the children, gave him a diagnosis of deadly cancer. In spring 2014 Jerzy decides that before dying he wants to create a message to his children. A greek friend Stathis Plotas shoots the film, other friends create the music. The film is about something that is taboo to speak about in Sweden, legal kidnapping of children, known under the name of LVU, which is the short name of a law regulating compulsory care of young – in 2014 35 000 children at the cost of about 100 billion crowns. The social services in Sweden has been compared with SS in Nazigermany and Gulag in Sovietunion. Is there a foundation for such connections? In his efforts to understand why the Swedish social services took his children Jerzy discovers that he is not alone with this horror experience, and that in the middle of the democratic beautiful Sweden there is a world full of lies, authority abuse and corruption. Ought Jerzy to be thankful that his children are still alive?
DREADLOCKS STORY
Director: LINDA AINOUCHE
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United States
Dreadlocks Story opens up the history of Rastas in a new light. It shows the spiritual history behind the criticized dreadlocks hairstyle and the roots of the Rastafari culture, which is entangled with the Hindu tradition in Jamaica. Also, Although some accommodations have been made towards Rastas, the struggle against prejudice and discrimination are still prevalent.
IT'S BETTER TO JUMP
Director GINA ANGELONE & MOUNA STEWART
United States
It’s Better to Jump” is a feature-length documentary film that gives voice to Arab inhabitants of the ancient walled city of Akka (located on Israel’s northern coast) as both the people and their town face a very uncertain future. As Akka undergoes harsh economic pressures vast social change and on-going problems among its Arab populace the present-day situation is causing Palestinian families to leave the places where they have grown roots for dozens of generations and shaped a rich culture for over a thousand years. Within their current dilemma jumping from the ancient sea wall into the rocky waters below becomes not only an expression of extreme exhilaration but also a matter of self-determination. “It’s Better to Jump” weaves together a magical story of an historic place its people and the hopes they hold beyond all limitation to make giant leaps of faith in life.
LEGS: A Big Issue in a Small Town
Director: Beatrice Alda & Jennifer Brooke
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United States
'Legs: a big issue in a small town' is a light-hearted look at what it means to live in a small town--with all of the pros and cons that come with it. When a controversial piece of art gets publicly displayed, opinions start flying and feisty people take action. The film reveals a town chock full of lively characters and conflicts, as those who live there struggle to define their community. Is it an accepting, welcoming place to live? Maybe, but if you look closer, there are cracks in the veneer and the town is not all that it appears to be.
A Prison Dog
Director: Piret Kuub
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Estonia
From a territory of an old and bleak building – former prison – were found 24 dogs who were starving, timid with people and full of parasites. How does live one of those dogs today?
Akiyo aka UP NEXT
Director: Onur Yayla
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Turkey
75 minutes length Docufiction which is captured in Berlin - Kiev - Istanbul through the multi-cultural actors and crew. Project is conceptualised through a cast audition and the rehearsals indoor&outdoor within an improvised narrative which is gathering people around China, France, Germany, Italy, Iran, Russia, Scotland, Serbia, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Ukraine.
Leaving Africa
Director: Iiris Härmä
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Finland
"Have you ever seen any development without pain?"
Finnish doctor Riitta has been working in Uganda for more than 25 years. Together with her Ugandan friend Catherine, she brings sex education to Ugandan villages, challenging priests, imams, women and their husbands to discussions on women's rights to their bodies, sexuality and life. In ultra-conservative Uganda, this soon leads to serious complications, jeopardizing their entire life's work.
LEAVING AFRICA is a film about the quest for gender equality in Africa and the world's greatest challenge - mitigating the population explosion.
And Did They Listen?
Director: Michael Horn
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United States
Hidden in plain sight, for decades, the most important story in human history.
On a mission - from the depths of space - one man risked his life
to reveal the long hidden, ancient secrets to the people of Earth.
Overcoming millennia of religious intrigues, political suppression
and numerous assassination attempts, Billy Eduard Albert Meier,
the prophet of the new time, brought the eternally true spiritual
teaching with its promise of true love, peace, freedom and harmony.
The long foretold prophecies and predictions of environmental
disasters and social upheaval had already begun and humankind
was offered one final chance to rewrite its future history.
BEYOND ELSEWHERE
Director: Johanna Kirsch and Katharina Lampert
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Austria
Laden with our parents’ ideals of the ’68 generation, we go in search of how we want to lead our lives.
We meet Ute, Wim and the Wieserhoislers, who have all taken a big step towards living by their own beliefs and desires.
During our visits, we learn what their daily lives outside the norm are like, how utopias become actual places, and why there is no dropping out of society.
They have knowledge that can’t be found in books
and they have all given much thought to how to put things in practice.
In one way or another they are all responsive
to existential crises of civilization.
Beyond the guilt trip of our generation of not being ecologically
and politically correct enough, we want to open up a space
where things are possible,
sensual and available based on everybody’s reality.
Imba Means Sing
Director: Danielle Bernstein
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United States
As the celebrity drummer from the Grammy-nominated African Children's Choir, Moses relies on his youthful resilience. Growing up in the slums of Kampala, Uganda, Moses and his family lack enough resources for him to even attend the first grade. Moses takes us on his one shot journey from poverty towards his dream of becoming a pilot. He is joined by two fellow Choir members - Angel and Nina - as audiences experience Uganda and the West through their inquisitive and joy-filled eyes. We are the only film crew ever to secure all-access to the members of the African Children's Choir.
Pechmarie
Directors Christian Strasser David Neumayr
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Austria
Maria Mandl, commander of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, awaits the death penalty and reflects upon her life in a prison cell in Krakow, Poland. 65 years after her death, former camp inmates, friends and family are still torn because of the enormous impact of her evil deeds, resulting in 500.000 murders.
Art Connect
Director: Miquel Galofre
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Trinidad and Tobago
Art Connect is a feature length documentary that reveals the impact that art and creativity had in a group of 'at risk' teenagers from Laventille, the most marred by violence community in Trinidad and Tobago. The story is told by these children who had access to different forms of art to express themselves.
By talking, painting, singing, dancing and filming they will allow us to come into their world.
Requiem 4 ephemeris
Director: Gheorghe Sfaiter
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Romania
Vibrant chit chat like memories quench the still summer nights of the dilettante fishermen and their court. Fane is the very soul of this odd camp, routinely cobbled up on the Timiş River bank, in the outskirts of Timişoara, Western Romania. Guitar and lyrics, deep monologue and steep dialogue… all crop into clean contemplation of supreme Father Time pushing human lives to their appointed tryst. Time as likely as not crystallizes in the air teeming with the myriad mayflies flooding the anglers’ camp hot nights – so biological life, of men and ephemeridae alike, inescapably meet in thespian innuendo which, by yesteryear small tokens fathoming and bespeak of an east side generation, pushes the limits of the living second to the far ends of eternity.
