My film "Stand" is about: -Black-on-Black crime -race and diversity -a lack of leadership in the Black community

When xenophobic attacks broke out across South Africa in 2008, many were caught off guard, shocked by violence that felt like a violation of the principles of their newly democratic nation. Over two months, 62 people were killed, hundreds injured, and many more left homeless. In the midst of the violence, many young people picked up pangas. Other youth, clad in the bright greens and maroons of their school uniforms, looted neighborhood shops while some of their classmates, refugees themselves, fle... more

"Ellis Island", the film, is a short audio-visual piece of work shot in the surroundings of what used to be called the “immigrants’ squat”, close to the cross-Channel harbor and the former Cherbourg seaport. "Ellis Island" questions the condition and the place of the immigrant through a reflection on “biopower”; its starting point is the following concern: the way a society can create weak human beings such as “immigrants”. Homesickness, lack of future, and emptiness of presen... more

A unique film essay from director Vladimír Mráz, testifying, without words, to the unrepeatable platitude, eminent banality, and inner perception in compelling elusiveness and simultaneously edifying time. The documentary registers the expansive metamorphoses in the city of Ostrava, the "heart of steel" of former Czechoslovakia, together with the daily life of its inhabitants, even in their most intimate moments, giving it both an unexpected coherence and contrast. Thi... more

Does everybody have the right to be beautiful? Miss Landmine is an art project that raises awareness of landmine issues and challenges traditional perceptions of disabled people. On the heels of a successful event in Africa, theater director Morten Traavik has now turned to Cambodia for the next edition of his controversial beauty pageant for landmine survivors. Faced with cries of sexism, exploitation, and a conservative Buddhist culture, Traavik seeks out new expressions of beauty in an increasingl... more

Life is tough for two women, Belay and Zemu, who live in the small village of Kajima in northern Ethiopia. The shortage of food caused them to leave the village and travel with their kids to the capital, Addis Ababa for begging. Zemu and Belay support the family they left behind with the money they make as beggars. Several months later, they come back to the village with their small savings. This year, Zemu returned to a bad surprise. Rumors in the village told that her husband had donated som... more

A celebration of perseverance and rebirth through the arts, this inspiring documentary follows a group of New Orleans teens as they stage a revival of the hurricane-themed musical Once on this Island.