Sanwri - Love Beyond Gender
Bhanwar, a simpleton young man in the rural Rajasthan wants a bride for him but gets duped. Instead of a woman, he is married off to a transgender person – Sanwri. Having no resort Bhanwar and his uncle decide to keep Sanwri for their household work but fearing the social ostracization they also try to keep her actual identity a secret. Bhanwar and Sanwri eventually fall in love and fight to survive as a couple in a conservative, oppressive society where marriages are meant to take place only between a man and a woman, and traditional norms are more important than humanity.
Shiva
Shiva, a fresher at VAC College, is forced to stand up against the students' union president and a group of gangsters who have made the college environment increasingly violent.
Where the Heart Is
From the director of Marius et Jeannette, this story of two working-class families is a fable with an optimist streak. A young black man, Francois, is wrongly accused of rape by a racist policeman. The story is told in voiceover by his childhood friend, neighbor, and the mother of his future child, Clementine, who is white. The city is Marseilles as in the previous film, symbolic with its churches, prisons and ruins. Except in this film, director Robert Guediguian also ventures outside, taking the story to Sarajevo; two different cities, one devastated by war, the other by a bad economy and unemployment. A la Place du coeur won a Special Jury Prize at the 1998 San Sebastian Film Festival and was also shown at the 1998 Toronto Film Festival and the 1998 Montreal Film Festival.
AHORA ES MÍA.
After the disaster, many leave, but something remains with their homes.
And the Children Shall Lead
Mississippi in the early '60s is the setting for this story of a 12-year-old African-American girl who, along with her white friends, tries to ease increasing racial tensions.
The River with No Bridge
A widow and her two sons, Seitaro and Koji, live in the small town of Komori, where Buraku people are forced to reside. The two boys are continuously harassed by their teachers and classmates through their childhood as a result of their Buraku heritage. In the midst of the 1918 Great Rice Riots in Osaka, Seitaro meets with Asako, the daughter of a rice shop owner, and falls in love with her. She too is of Buraku descent. At the same period, Hideaki, an old friend of the brothers returns to Komori, and he along with Koji and the townspeople create "Zenkoku Suiheisha", the National Levelers Association, an organization pledged to build a bridge over the river of discrimination, making all people equal in every way.
Chaplin et Les temps modernes, La voie du silence
In 1936, the sound film had already been around for a decade. Nevertheless, Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) made another silent film, "Modern Times", which only used sound effects as a dramaturgical device. Speaking is reserved for the apparatus alone. The film became a monument in the history of cinema for this very reason.
The Other Side
In an invisible territory at the margins of society, at the border between anarchy and illegality, lives a wounded community that is trying to respond to a threat: of being forgotten by political institutions and having their rights as citizens trampled. Disarmed veterans, taciturn adolescents, drug addicts trying to escape addiction through love, ex-special forces soldiers still at war with the world, floundering young women and future mothers, and old people who have not lost their desire to live. Through this hidden pocket of humanity, the door opens to the abyss of today's America.
Savana
The story takes place in the landscapes of La Spezia, where urban and rural environments intertwine. Water plays a primary role as a form, alongside the circle (e.g., bicycle wheels, pizzas, clocks…), which sets the rhythm of the character’s life, dynamically accelerating until it becomes very fast. The overlapping forms invite the viewer into the cyclical rhythm of the short film, moving from the spinning bicycle wheel to the washing machine drum in the character’s bathroom, from a freshly tossed pizza to the delivery mailbox, and finally to a dead-end wall. Savana is a race against oneself and against others; it’s a matter of decision and unpredictability — it’s black or white.
Bananaland: Blood, Bullets & Poison
For consumers, bananas are a delicious and nutritious start to the day, a healthy snack and a fixture in our fruit bowls. For millions of residents in the banana lands, the production of bananas means social upheaval, violence and pesticide poisoning. Banana Land explores the origins of these disparate realities, and opens the conversation on how workers, producers and consumers can address this disconnect.
Di Ujung Pematang
Manithan
A struggling lawyer files a PIL in a hit-and-run case involving a business scion's son hoping that the resulting publicity would be good for his business.
The Broken Commandment
At the strong insistence of his father, Ushimatsu Segawa conceals his origins from a “buraku” area of low-class “untouchables,” leaving his hometown to serve as an elementary school teacher where he excels and is loved by his students. But he constantly struggles with the secret of his low-birth status and is disturbed by all of the discrimination levelled upon his class. It prevents him from pursuing a romance with Shiho, whom he meets at the temple where he resides, but who descends from a samurai family.
Beneath Clouds
The story of Lena, the light-skinned daughter of an Aboriginal mother and Irish father and Vaughn, a Murri boy doing time in a minimum security prison in North West NSW. Dramatic events throw them together on a journey with no money and no transport. To Lena, Vaughn represents the life she is running away from. To Vaughn, Lena embodies the society that has rejected him. And for a very short amount of time, they experience a rare true happiness together.
Aftershock: The Nicole P. Bell Story
After police kill her fiancé on their wedding day, a heartbroken mother of two fights through the devastating aftershock of a shocking acquittal, launching a relentless, decade-long battle for justice.
David Copperfield
A young man journeys from a difficult childhood to maturity, exploring social injustice, personal development, and the complexities of human relationships.
Nijam
A young man is guided by his mother in a methodical manner to avenge his father against the perpetrators who falsely accused and killed him.
Sara, the force of the sea
Sara is a judge very committed to the cases she hears in her office. After meeting David, a young artist, on the beach, she must make decisions about her work and her relationship with Lucas, her husband. Sara, through the force of the sea, wants to achieve spaces of freedom. The encounters with a Caribbean woman, Rosa, and an enigmatic man from the city, Virgilio, will be decisive in resolving her personal dilemmas and better understanding the meaning of justice in a society indifferent to the most marginalized people and with enormous inequality.
Fariba
Afghan filmmaker Mithaq Kazimi documents injustices done to a targeted group of his neighbors, the Baha'is of Iran, by telling the life story of one current prisoner, Fariba.
Dreams in Dust
A short documentary exploring the grueling cycle of child labor in Pakistan through the story of two children, one working at a brick kiln and the other at a car mechanic shop.