A Stranger’s Skin

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 51
  • Director: Christophe Hermans
  • Original Language: French
  • Country of production: Belgium
  • Shooting location: Belgium
  • Distributor: Cat’n’Docs
    18 rue Quincampoix # 133
    F-75004 Paris, France
    +33144596353
    Maëlle Guenegues maelle@catndocs.com
Description
Arnaud is a young man of twenty. Following the death of his mother three years ago, he has dropped out of his studies and taken refuge in food to fill the void. He now weigths 177 kilos and lives with his father with whom he quarrels constantly. Arnaud has reached the point where he has decided to undergo a stomach reduction operation...

Director info
Director and scriptwriter Christoph Hermans was born in Namur in 1982. In 2001 he enrolled at the Institut des Arts de Diffusion in Belgium (Institute of Media Arts). In 2005, Poids Plume, his end of studies film, won several awards and was selected for over twenty festivals throughout the world. In 2007, he and Xavier Seron wrote and directed a short fiction entitled Le Crabe. The film was notably selected for the Premiers Plans Festival in Angers and won several awards, among which figure Best Film Award at the Namur International Festival of French-Speaking Film and the International Short Film Festival in Tehran. In 2008 he directed a full-length documentary Les Parents and a second short fiction La Balançoire. The film was selected for over thirty festivals (Molodist in Kiev, Premiers Plans in Angers, Cinéma Tous Ecrans in Geneva, Amiens,...), recieved ten or so awards all over the world and was nominated at the first Magritte ceremony of Belgian cinema.
In 2010 he pursued his work with a short documentary, Etrangére, which was selected for many prestigious festivals (Vision du Réel in Nyon, Amiens, Ecrans Documentaries in Arcueil, The Rotterdam Festival, Krakow,...). Christophe has just finished his third short fiction Fancy-Fair and two 52-minute documentaries Les Enfants and Corps Etranger. He is currently writing his first full-length fiction.

Amateur Films - Amateur Filmmakers

  • Year of release: 2010
  • Duration: 25 min
  • Director: Ivo Zen
  • Country of production: Switzerland
  • Shooting location: Switzerland
  • Distributor: Alva Film
    Töpferstrasse 28, 8045 Zürich, Switzerland  www.alvafilm.ch
    +41 79 716 35 44
Description
While searching for films made by amateurs, I discovered hidden treasures that document life in the valleys and villages in the Grisons. In their own way and with a great deal of passion, amateur filmmakers create works that reflect their world view. The enthusiasm with which they pursue their passion is infectious, and when they tell about their filmmaking experiences, even the pro is inspired to reflect on his métier.

Director info

Ivo Zen (1970) born in Santa Maria, Val Müstair, Switzerland, lives in Zurich. Studies of Architecture at ETH university Zurich. 2003 Diploma at Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts Genève, department Film/Video. 2004 Foundaton of the independant Filmproduction structure alva film, Genève. Since 2008 Lectureships for documentary film. President of « Cineasts independents rumantschs », a group of authors commited to Rhaeto-Romansh film creation. Father of two children, Emma (2007) and Vito (2010)

Selection of Films

2010 «Amaturs da films - Films d’amaturs», documentary, 25 min
2009 «Maurus, Nadia, Flurina», documentary, 60 min
2004 «Pizzet», documentary, 52 min
2002 «Pirmin», short diary film, 12 min
2001 «Frédéric», fiction, 15 min
2000 «Sterki-li», documentary, 8 min

Andrey from Mihalkino

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 30 min
  • Director: Evgeny Alexandrov, Elena Danilko
  • Original Language: Russian
  • Country of production: Russia
  • Shooting location: Russia, Pskov Region
  • Distributor: Evgeny Alexandrov
    eale@yandex.ru
Description

All over the world people leave their native villages for cities. The same in Pskov region, the places Pushkin loved so much. At his time Mihalkino was a rich, old-believer village. Nowadays it is dying out, revived only by “vacationers” coming in summer to visit their grandparents. But the hero of the film still remembers the past. And he does not want to put up with what is going on.

Director info

Evgeny Alexandrov
Leading research assistant, Doctor of Fine Arts, the head of laboratory of the Center of New Information Technologies and the head of the public Center of Visual Anthropology of M.V.Lomonosov Moscow State University.  Has about 60 publications on visual anthropology.   Monograph “Discussions of theoretical and methodological problems of visual anthropology”. Editor of six collected articles on visual anthropology.  Producer of video works of CVA MSU (1989 - 2009). Creator and director of the Moscow International  Festival for Visual Anthropology  “Mediating Camera”(2002-2010).

Elena Danilko
Doctor of History, Leading research assistant the Institute of Ethnology and Antropology Russian Academy of Science. Executive director of the Moscow International  Festival for Visual Anthropology  “Mediating  Camera”-2010

Bastards of Utopia

  • Year of release: 2010
  • Duration: 55 min
  • Director: Maple Rasza, Pacho Velez,
  • Original Language: Croatian, English
  • Country of production: USA
  • Shooting location: Croatia, UK
  • Distributor: Maple Rasza
Description

Three Croatian activists struggle to change the world. As children, they lived through the violent collapse of Yugoslavia. But now, amid the aftershocks of socialism's failure, they fight in their own way for a new leftism. In the middle of the struggle, a skeptical American is won over by their cause and even goes to jail with them. The activists, whether clashing with police or squatting in an old factory, risk everything to live their politics. But as the setbacks mount, will they give up the fight?
The film, shot during years of fieldwork with a Croatian anarchist collective, applies a unique blend of observation, direct participation and critical reflection to this misunderstood political movement. Its portrayal of activism is both empathetic and unflinching — an engaged, elegant meditation on the struggle to re-imagine leftist politics and the power of a country's youth.


Director info

Maple Razsa
Maple Razsa is an anthropologist, activist and documentary filmmaker. He is committed to using text, images and sound to embody the experience and political imagination of contemporary social movements. Currently an Assistant Professor of Global Studies at Colby College, Maine, USA.

Pacho Velez
Pacho Velez is interested in personal stories that help to illuminate greater political issues. He is proud to have worked for the Service Employees International Union, for whom he co-directed a documentary about service workers at Harvard. His films have screened at Silverdocs, the RIFF, and the Telluride Indiefest. In 2010, he graduated from CalArts with a MFA in Film / Video and began to teach at Harvard University.

Battle for the City

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 76 min
  • Director: Jouko Aaltonen
  • Original Language: Finnish
  • Shooting location: Finland
  • Distributor: Jouko Aaltonen
    Illume Ltd.
    Palkkatilankatu 7 B
    00240 Helsinki, Finland
Description

Turku is the oldest city in Finland. Its old distinguished buildings were destroyed in the modern fervour – businessmen, decision makers and architects were all involved. Why were they unable to treasure history? The film does not only deal with the past but follows the present-day activists and squatters too: why do they decide to take over buildings? To whom does the built space belong and who makes the decisions over it? The questions raised in film are typical not only in Turku, but also elsewhere in Europe and beyond.


Director info

Jouko Aaltonen is a documentary director, producer, Doctor of Arts. Born in 1956 in Turku, Finland. In 1975–76 he studied social sciences in Turku University and in 1977–84 in the University of Art and Design Helsinki (UIAH) in Film Department where he graduated in 1984 as a director. In 1984–87 he worked as a special planner in the audiovisual department of Development Center on State Administration making educational programs. 1987–89 he was director-producer in production company AVSET directing and producing commercial video programs. Since 1990 Alltonen has specialized to documentary film production, working mainly in production company Illume Ltd. He is one of the leading documentary filmmakers in Finland and has won several awards around the world.
Aaltonen has been working in a variety of film branches: as director, production manager, producer, script writer and film editor. He has been involved in ten feature film productions (as assistant director, production manager etc.). He has also directed (and in most cases also scripted) over 90 educational or corporative video programs. Aaltonen made his PhD about documentary film at the University on Art and Design Helsinki in 2006. Besides his thesis, The Prisoners of reality in the Realm of Freedom, he has published two books about script writing.

Bitter Roots: The Ends of a Kalahari Myth

  • Year of release: 2010
  • Duration: 71 min
  • Director: Adrian Strong
  • Original Language: Afrikaans, English, Ju/hoan
  • Country of production: USA
  • Shooting location: Namibia
  • Distributor: Julia Teitel
    101 Morse St.
    Watertown, MA 02472
    shannon@der.org
Description

Bitter Roots is set in North East Namibia in southern Africa's Kalahari desert, traditional home of the Bushmen. It updates the ethnographic film record begun in the 1950s by John Marshall, whose films documented 50 years of change, and who together with Claire Ritchie, established a grass-roots development foundation which Adrian Strong (the filmmaker) joined in the late 1980s.

 Shot in 2007, Bitter Roots documents the return of Strong and Ritchie to Namibia where they observe the erosion of a community-led development process following the imposition of a new agenda by the World Wildlife Fund, which prioritizes wildlife conservation and tourism over subsistence farming. Communities voice their dissatisfaction with the new Conservancy, which has done little to help people farm and improve their lives.


Director info

Adrian Strong is currently undertaking doctoral research at Griffith University in the field of ethnographic film, with particular reference to the representation of indigenous people. Adrian grew up in the UK, where he studied Science and Philosophy before moving to Africa in 1984. Adrian's had many work incarnations ranging from farming to development work to business. It was in the late 1980s that Adrian lived and worked in the Kalahari with the Ju/’hoansi and also developed an interest in film-making. In 1997 Adrian moved from Namibia to California for additional post-graduate studies, gaining a Masters in Mythological Studies and Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. He has been living in Australia since 2000, where he has also worn many hats, but is at his happiest teaching, researching and film-making.

FILMOGRAPHY (Documentaries)

Fantome Island (2011) - Producer
Bitter Roots: the ends of a Kalahari myth (2010) - Director
Wollemi: A Land Inscribed With Story (2011) - Director
Djulirri: An Aboriginal Library of Encounter & Experience (2011) - Director
Made in Malarrak (2010) - Director
Esther Remembers (2009) – Director
Buffalo Hunt (2009) - Director
Lamajugu: Gateway to Jinsha River Rock Art (2009) – Director
Journey to the Centre of the Art (2008) - Producer
Accented Body (2007) - Director

Caetshage

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 48 min
  • Director: Lotte van Leengoed, Maria Kolossa
  • Country of production: The Netherlands
  • Shooting location: The Netherlands
  • Distributor:
Description

In the middle of the residential areas of Culemborg, The Netherlands, lies City Farm Caetshage. Here, since 2008, the farmers Todd and Boudien grow organic vegetables. Through vegetable packages and a farm shop, they sell their products to the inhabitants of Culemborg. For three months, Maria and Lotte worked and filmed at the farm. The life of Todd and Boudien is slightly different than that of the average farmer. In cooperation with the municipality, the foundation board of Caetshage determined several targets. Besides the production of organic vegetables, the farm offers a working place for disabled people and several education programs. The film shows how Todd and Boudien, by working hard, manage to keep standing, without losing their ubiquitous enthousiasm. This makes their farm a unique place, where a variety of people likes to come and enjoy organic vegetables. 

Director info

Maria Kolossa (25) is in her last year of the study Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University (The Netherlands) after studying the Performance of Art for three years. Lotte van Leengoed (24) finished her Bachelor in Anthropology in 2010. She did fieldwork on music and dance among Afro-Peruvians. Last year, they followed two courses in Visual Anthropology at Leiden University. Caesthage is the product of the second course.

Creation and Chanting of Lik Yaat: Chanting Conveys Heart and History

  • Year of release: 2010
  • Duration: 26 min
  • Director: Satoru Ito
  • Original Language: Tai (known as “Shan” in Burma)
  • Country of production: Japan
  • Shooting location: Yunnan Province, China
  • Distributor: Satoru Ito
    Satoru_worldmusic@yahoo.co.jp
Description

Dehong Tai people embrace Theravada Buddhism. In order to live better in this world and the next, they perform dignified rituals and acquire "merit". For the rituals they spend years and save money, then they do a good deed like contribution of Buddhist statues and building the bridges. Chief donators commission an intellectual to write historical scriptures to hand down the good deed to posterity. It is called "Lik Yaat" in Tai and written with beautiful words and rhyme. There is a woman, Wan Xiang-ya, who strives for the tradition of “Lik Yaat”



Director info

Satoru Ito is anthropologist and ethnomusicologist He is a Ph.D. candidate,  The Graduate University for Advanced Studies [Sokendai]  (National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka).

Crests and Throughs: the Life of a Coastal FIsherman

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 52 min
  • Director: Riho Västrik
  • Original Language: Estonian
  • Country of production: Estonia
  • Shooting location: Estonia
  • Distributor: OÜ Vesilind
    vesilind@vesilind.ee
Description

The Baltic herring fishing season lasts only one month for coastal fishermen. As authorized catches are to be used collectively by fishermen, each missed hour of fishing is translated into a decrease in income. The fishermen themselves compare the situation to an Olympic running race: once the race is on, there is no mercy until the finish line is crossed. This means that the working day lasts for almost 24 hours. And when the phone finally rings with the news that the quota is exhausted and fishing is to be stopped, the fishermen don’t really know whether to laugh or cry.

Director info

Riho Västrik is born in August 4th, 1965. He has graduated Tartu University in history and journalism and made MA on Film Arts in Baltic Film and Media School.
His big interest in mountaineering was the first reason to consider making a documentaries, beauty of mountains and human sufferings yearned of recording.
Since 2003 Riho has become attracted to the Siberia and Far North. He has directed and produced films about Taimyr Peninsula, Sami reindeer herders and musk oxen.

Earth To Earth: Natural Burial and the Church of England

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 30 min
  • Director: Sarah Thomas
  • Original Language: English
  • Country of production: UK/Iceland
  • Shooting location: Cambridgeshire, UK
  • Distributor: Sarah Thomas, professor Douglas Davies
    Isafjardarvegur 6 – Bogguhus
    410 Hnifsdalur, Iceland
Description

Set in the ever changing landscape of Barton Glebe – a Christian woodland burial site near Cambridge, UK. Through conversations with people who have various relationships to the site, Earth to Earth: Natural Burial and the Church of England explores changing attitudes towards death, disposal and relationships with the landscape. With beautiful sound and images of the minutiae of nature shot on location, the film immerses us in the therapeutic possibilities of 'nature' for the grieving process, and the freedom it allows for diverse and original expressions of memorial and grief. Through anecdote from those who have invested significance in this landscape, we see how it engenders both a sense of continuity and continued relationship with the deceased, and the possibility of reconceiving part of the self in terms of one's funeral destiny. We see how a burial site really can feel so full of life.


Director info

Sarah Thomas is a Visual Anthropologist and film maker. She spent much of her youth in Kenya,  which allowed her to experience first hand that there are many ways of seeing the world. Her interest in people led her to a degree in Anthropology and subsequently a Masters in Visual Anthropology at the Granada Centre Manchester, in 2003. Her graduation film, 'After The Rains Came: Seven short stories about objects and lifeworlds', saw her return to Kenya, and has had screenings at festivals worldwide.

She has since worked on multiple ethnographic films for a research project about migration and visual culture at Tate Britain gallery London, and in 2008 made 'Hannah Frank: The Spark Divine' – a biographical documentary to mark the centenary exhibition of Glasgow Jewish Artist Hannah Frank.

Her latest film, Earth to Earth: Natural Burial and The Church of England is now touring the international film festival circuit and being used within the field of Death Studies and among professionals in the Natural Burial industry.


Flowers of Zion

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 50 min
  • Director: Josu Larunbe, David Moncasi
  • Original Language: Portuguese, shangana
  • Country of production: Spain
  • Shooting location: Mozambique
  • Distributor: Promofest
Description

A remote rural community in Africa, where people die because of a terrible epidemic they don't understand. A bishop of a local sect that offers solutions by reading a very ancient book where everything is written. Powerty, illiteracy and faith: a discouraging combination. Flowers of Zion.



Director info

Josu Larunbe and David Moncasi have worked together for over ten years. They directed "Forgotten in the Sahara" and "The silent epidemic", which won the prize for Best Documentary in the Academy of the Arts and Television award in 2004. They collaborated in the documentary "The Space Doll", which won awards in Documenta Madrid, NEF and DIBA Barcelona in 2007. They are currently working on a new project.

For Women Only

  • Year of release: 2012
  • Duration: 28 min
  • Director: Kullar Viimne
  • Original Language: Estonian
  • Country of production: Estonia
  • Shooting location: Estonia
  • Distributor: Rühm Pluss Null
    Gonsiori 21-804, Tallinn, 10147
    +372 506758565
    film@plussnull.ee
Description

Officially there are over 16,000 hunters in Estonia, most of them are men. Only 200 active hunters are women. Merle, the oldest daughter in the family with long hunting traditions, in spring decides to go to hunter's training courses. She wants to become a first class hunter like her younger sister and take part in the popular annual women's hunting trip where only women are allowed to participate.

Director info

Kullar Viimne was born in 1980 in Võru, Estonia. After finishing his studies in social work he went on studying film at the Baltic Film and Media School.  In 2006 and 2007 he studied at the FAMU International Filmschool in Prague, Czech Republic. In the same year he spent three months in Uganda shooting the documentary film “Innocent” together with Sophie Haarhaus. He has worked as a cinematographer and director in several Estonian and international film projects.

In Absentia

  • Duration: 42 min
  • Director: Tareq Daoud
  • Country of production: Switzerland/Cuba
  • Shooting location: Guantanamo province, Cuba
Description
The Rancheria is a small isolated village in the mountains of the province of Guantánamo, Cuba. The peasant community that lives there is descended from the original inhabitants of the island. Five centuries after the genocide perpetrated by the Spanish colonists against their Native American ancestry, In Absentia explores through their specific case the broader question of the survival and transmission of a culture.

Director info

Born in 1976 in Kabul, Afghanistan. Master degree in Life Sciences from Geneva University followed by a cinema training at EICTV (Escuela internacional de Cine y Television) in La Havana, Cuba. Author of several fiction shorts. He lives and works between Geneva, Marseille and Istanbul. He currently develops his second documentary, with the help of the Swiss Federal Department of Culture, as well as a first feature film.

Iran, southwestern

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 52 min
  • Director: Mohammad Reza Fartousi
  • Original Language: Arabic
  • Country of production: Iran
  • Shooting location: Iran
  • Distributor: Mohammad Reza Fartousi
    No 2, 16st, kianpars, Ahwaz
    Tel: 00989169153746
    mohammad.fartousi@yahoo.com
Description
Iran, Southwestern is the story of Al-Azim marshland, drying in southwestern of Iran, and a look at the last residents living in the marsh.


Director info

Producer, director, researcher & photographer

Member of The Iranian Documentary Filmmakers Association
Member of Europe Documentary Network (EDN)

Producing of 15 short film and documentary films
Directing of 7 short film and documentary films
Editor of 26 short film and documentary films
Writer of 2 books about Middle East cinema (Ready for publish)
Writer and translator of more than 50 articles in field of Medias

I shot my love

  • Year of release: 2010
  • Duration: 70 min
  • Director: Tomer Heymann
  • Original Language: Hebrew, German
  • Country of production: Israel
  • Shooting location: Israel, Germany
  • Distributor: Deckert Distribution GMBH, info@deckert-distribution.com
Description

Seventy years after his grandfather escapes from Nazi Germany to Palestine, Israeli documentary director Tomer Heymann returns to the country of his ancestors to present his film “Paper Dolls” at the Berlin International Film Festival, and there meets a man who will change his life.
This 48-hour love affair, originating in Berghain Panorama Bar, develops into a significant relationship between Tomer and Andreas Merk, a German dancer. When Andreas decides to move to Tel-Aviv, he not only has to cope with a new partner, but to manage the complex realities of life in Israel and his personal connection to it as a German citizen.
Tomer’s mother, descendent of German immigrants was born and lived all her life in a small Israeli village, where she raised five sons. One by one, she watches her children leave the country she and her family helped to build, and now cannot help but try to influence the life of Tomer, the one son who remains.
“I shot my love” tells a personal but universal love story and follows the triangular relationship between Tomer, his German boyfriend, and his intensely Israeli mother.


Director info

Tomer Heymann was born in Kfar Yedidia in Israel in 1970 and has directed many documentary films and series in the past ten years, most of them long-term follow-ups and personal documentations. His films won major awards at different prestigious film festivals including his first film “It Kinda Scares Me”. “Paper Dolls” won three awards at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival and the audience’s award at the Los Angeles Festival. The film and TV series “Bridge over the Wadi”, directed with his brother Barak, won the Israeli Documentary Film competition, participated in IDFA Festival’s prestigious competition and won many awards around the world.

The Kurdish lover

  • Year of release: 2012
  • Duration: 98 min
  • Director: Clarisse Hahn
  • Original Language: French, English, German, Turkish
  • Country of production: France
  • Shooting location: Kurdistan
  • Distributor: Nicole Craime
    lesfilmsduprésent
    19 rue de la république
    13200 Arles
    France
    T + 33 4 90 49 69 66
    F + 33 4 90 49 50 06
    contact@lesfilmsdupresent.fr
    http://www.lesfilmsdupresent.fr
Description

The Kurdish lover is Oktay, a man of Kurdish origin with whom I share my life. We have been drifting through a devastated region brought to a standstill by war and economic misery. How do people manage to co-exist in this place? This is the question posed by the film.
Here we live in close proximity to one another, in a tightly woven network of geographical and social ties. Loving someone can become confused with having a hold over them. It is with an often black humour that the characters featured in this film find ways, within their community, to affirm that they truly exist.
A shaman goes into trance in front of the television, sex-starved hermit dreams of marriage, a ewe is sacrificed and eaten, an old woman prevents her daughter-in-law from learning to read, a shepherdess lives at the top of the mountain and would like to return to the valley, the military watch over the village, a man who came from Europe goes off to request the hand in marriage of a young girl living with her mother.
It is through these situations that we discover the reality of families doing what they can to find a way of living together, to take the best - or the worst - from each moment.



Director info

Clarisse Hahn (1973) is a French filmmaker. She pursues documentary enquiry through her films, photographs and video installations. Her documentaries are combined with her sustained involvement in the lives of the people she films. She follows her subjects for a minimum of one year; observing, filming, and becoming part of their daily life. She delves into the complex network of personal and communal values which bind people together. Hahn's documentaries come from her desire for intimate communication with her subjects. Her interests lie specifically in showing how individuals deal and react with their environment.

Lost down memory Lane

  • Year of release: 2010
  • Duration: 90
  • Director: Klara van Es
  • Country of production: Belgium
  • Shooting location: Antwerpen, Belgium
Description

Lost down Memory Lane is the first documentary about living with Alzheimer’s, as seen through the eyes of the people who suffer from it. The characters live together under constant supervision and care, in an apartment called Iduna. This is a somewhat unusual department of The Bijster, a nursing home for people with dementia in Essen, near Antwerp in Belgium. The eight residents of Iduna are – scientifically considered – in the first phase of the disease: flurries of lucidity, falling into oblivion and forgetfulness, alternate constantly. These eight individuals are followed during one year. The different narrative levels are the daily routine, the braking of it and the characters' life stories. At the end of the film, the characters are not the same. Not only because their illness has changed them, but also because of their advanced disease, they may have disappeared completely, physically or mentally.


Director info

Klara Van Es studied Art History and built up an impressive career as radio- and television producer. She has worked as a reporter, journalist, director and editor in chief of several television production companies. She taught (art) history and reviewed books and exhibitions on (contemporary) art for public radio. With Lost Down Memory Lane Klara introduces herself as a documentary film maker. The experience she gained in film and radio producing, allows her to tell the stories in her own quirky way.


Odysseus' Gambit

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 12 min
  • Director: Alex Lora
  • Original Language: English
  • Country of production: Spain/USA
  • Shooting location: New York
  • Distributor: Alex Lora
    Comlessa Sobradid, 7 21
    08002 Barcelona, Spain
    al@alexlora.es
Description

During his lifetime, each man plays cosmic chess against the devil.


Director info

Alex Lora is an internationally awarded Spanish filmmaker from Barcelona, based in NYC. He has studied Filmmaking and worked professionally across Europe, South and North America.
Alex has obtained several scholarships that lead him to earn a Master Degree in Film & TV Production, finish his PhD courses, and teach in prestigious Spanish universities such Elisava, Blanquerna and University of Barcelona.
His work has obtained more than 70 prizes and mentions and has been showcased throughout more than 40 countries in almost 300 international film festivals. Among the most relevants Alex has taken part of the Berlinale Talent Campus, the Cannes Short Film Corner and has been nominated 2 times to the Catalan Gaudi Academy Awards.
During the last year Alex has been awarded with a Fulbright scholarship and invited to United States to course a MFA program focused in Writing and Directing for fiction.
Recently, one of his shorts has been selected to participate at the official competition of the Sundance Film Festival.

On The Way Home

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 56 min
  • Director: Sergey Kachkin
  • Original Language: Russian
  • Country of production: Russia, Germany
  • Shooting location: Russia
  • Distributor: Sergey kachkin
    Dneprovskaya st. 29,
    614018, Perm
    Russia
    Tel: +79028019266
    sergkachkin@gmail.com
Description

his story is about a journey, a relationship and returning home. He’s already been driving his truck for twenty years throughout Russia while she waits for him at home. He is alone on the road. She’s together with her beloved pet, faithful friend and protector Irbis. This could continue for longer if he wasn’t terminally ill.


Director info

Sergey Kachkin is a Russian film director and producer who received his education in Moscow at the Higher School of Journalism and Documentary Film. Since 2006 he has made several documentaries as a producer, film director and DOP. The films have been screened and awarded both in Russia and abroad. Two of his films were shown in the USA in 2007-2008 as a part of the Cultural Leaders/Filmmakers Program. In 2008 he took part in the Aristotle Workshop supported by Arte. He spent a month in a Romanian village filming gypsies. In 2009-2010 he took part in the DOXPRO Workshop in St. Petersburg, led by Tue Steen Müller, international documentary consultant, and Iikka Vehkalahti from YLE TV2 Documentaries. In 2010 Kachkin received an EEFA grant to develop and finish his feature length documentary On the Way Home, a film about a long-distance truck driver, his wife and her beloved pet. His next documentary, Perm-36, a Territory of Freedom, is about political repression during Soviet times and modern-day Russia.

The Ordinary Gesture

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 64 min
  • Director: Maxime Coton
  • Original Language: French
  • Country of production: Belgium
  • Shooting location: Belgium
  • Distributor: CVB centre vidéo de bruxelles
    111 rue de la poste 1030 bruxelles belgium
    Tel: 003222210167
    Philippe.cotte@cvb-videp.be
Description

The Portrait of a discreet man, of a workman. Marc Coton’s portrait, the father of the director.
The echo of a warm silence, which has screened off his family from the racket of the steel industry, where he has been working for 30 years.
The story of an uncompleted inheritance, of a silent promise: „My son, you’ll become a different man“. The film leads to reconciliation achieved through the years, through daily acts.



Director info

Maxime Coton was born in La Louviére in 1986. He studied sound engineering at INSAS where he mixed his passions (music and writing), discovered radiophonic art, electroacoustic music and cinema as well. Today he is not only a sound engineer or a sound editor, but has also his own projects as a film director (“Entre Création Et Exil”, “Les Vagues Et L’Enfant”, “Nicolas Treatt, des voix, des visages”, “A l’Improviste”...). He is also involved as a poet (“La Biographie de Morgane Eldä”, “Le Geste Ordinaire”, “Le Mot Minimal”), as a musician (TOPE!, Aorte, Alibi), and finally in the organization of a public house (éd. Tétras-Lyre), and audiovisual production (Bruits asbl). Le geste ordinaire is his first movie.

Polyphony - Albania's Forgotten Voices

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 90 min
  • Director: Björn Reinhardt, Eckehard Pistrick
  • Original Language: Albanian
  • Country of production: Romania, Germany
  • Shooting location: Albania, Shpati Mountains
  • Distributor: Maramures-Filmarchive
    Björn Reinhardt
    Valea Vinului 84,
    435700 Viseu de Sus
    Maramures, Romania
    Tel: 0040 262 352 849
    valeavinului@aol.de
Description

Two shepherds in the Albanian mountains, Arif, a Muslim, and Anastas, an orthodox Christian, have been friends for years in spite of religious barriers. Their profound friendship is constantly strengthened by a local musical tradition, the polyphony. In 2005 this vocal tradition has been declared UNESCO-World Heritage.
The film sets up unforgettable images of the severe poetry, the harsh fates and the almost magical power of the human voice, which helps people in the mountains to master their surreal daily routine at a contradictory stage of a post-socialist change. On another level, the film gives an example of how music – even in the Balkans – can build bridges between people and religions.

Director info

Born in Eastern germany in 1963, Björn Reinhardt worked for many years as a stage designer and documentarian before emigrating to Romania in 2002. For the last 10 years he has been making internationally appraised documentaries mainly in the Maramures region, but also Crete, Northern Greece, Albania, and elsewhere. Since 2007 he has also been working as a photographer.

Qatar, The Race

  • Duration: 52 min
  • Director: Alba Sotorra
  • Country of production: Spain
  • Shooting location: Qatar, Doha
Description

Qatar, 2011, is the country with the fastest growing economy: highways carved into the desert connect the old world with the new reality. As skyscrapers grow everywhere, thousands of workers of all origins are drawn by the black gold fever. "Qatar, the Race" follows the personal race of a western expatriate who is responsible for the construction of a monumental power plant, and a Qatari entrepreneur supervising the training of his camels for a big international race. The illusory scenario in which they both act elucidates the fate of humanity in the race.



Director info

Documentary filmmaker, writer and director, with wide international research and shooting experience including Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Qatar, focuses on creative video productions for cinema and television.

Ritual Journeys

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 75 min
  • Director: Dawa Tshering Lepcha, Anna Balikci
  • Original Language: Lepcha
  • Country of production: India
  • Shooting location: Sikkim, India
  • Distributor: Royal Anthropological Institute
    London, UK
Description

Ritual Journeys is an intimate portrait of Merayk, an 80 years old Lepcha shaman or Padim. Merayk lives with his family in Dzongu, Lepcha reserve in North Sikkim, Eastern Himalayas. He performs healing rituals for individuals as well as rituals for the well-being of the household, the clan and his village community. Cameraman Dawa Lepcha followed Merayk and recorded his daily life and rituals between 2003 and 2010.


Director info

Dawa Tshering Lepcha (BA Arts, Diploma in Filmmaking/direction) is a cinematographer, social worker and activist interested in indigenous people’s rights and culture preservation. He comes from the Lepcha reserve of Dzongu in North Sikkim and belongs to Sikkim’s indigenous ethnic community.  He is employed as cinematographer for the Sikkim Video Project, Namgyal Institute of Tibetology, Sikkim, India (2003-present). Prior to joining the institute, he completed a film on the Lepcha technique for constructing bamboo bridges (Lepcha and their Soam, 2003).

Urban Tundra

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 15 min
  • Director: Robi Uppin, Maria Kivirand
  • Country of production: Estonia
  • Shooting location: Estonia, Tallinn
  • Distributor: Robi Uppin, Maria Kivirand
Description

“Urban Tundra” is an observational documentary about homelessness and faith. A very big snowstorm named Monica hits Tallinn, Estonia in December 2010 and the film crew visits a soup kitchen opened for people in need. The film tries to observe the activities during Christmas holiday and document how people in need are coping with the ongoing storm.



Director info

Robi Uppin
Robi Uppin was born in 1978 in Tallinn, Estonia. When he was ten years old, he moved to Sweden. There he found interest in movies, TV-games and electronic music. In 2005 he went to Tokyo, Japan to study the language and culture. In 2006 he started studies in the Baltic Film and Media School as Audiovisual Media student and in 2011 continued his studies in Documentary and Television masters program. He has been directing and designing the sound for many short documentaries and fiction films and composing electronic music.

Maria Kivirand
Maria Kivirand was born in 1986 in Tallinn, Estonia. During high school she started to study music and theatre and from there she got inspiration to study filmmaking. In 2005 she went to Spain to study language and culture. In 2006 she came back to Estonia to study film and media. She graduated Baltic Film and Media School with BA in Audiovisual Media and is now taking MA in Documentary and Television. She has been producer, director and editor to different short documentaries and fiction films.

Violinists

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 72 min
  • Director: Alex Gentelev
  • Original Language: Hebrew
  • Country of production: Israel
  • Shooting location: Israel
  • Distributor: Go2Films, Hedva Goldsmith
Description

It is a little story of a tiny place, where people are hiding amongst the crowd and their names are not familiar to the daily news. Yet deep inside there's a big deal that flourishes out of a social distress. These people's present is the sad result of past mishaps, however what a wonderful future is happening, almost inadvertently, to their children.
We, the creators of "Violinists", were given an extraordinary chance to probe with our camera the mother of all questions a documentarist asks himself, while portraying the situation as it is: Can it be changed?
And if it is, how can it be changed?



Director info

Alex Gentelev was born and raised in Russia. He has a  master degree in Philosophy and Sociology (1982) and in film, theater and music from St. Petersburg Art Academy (1988). He immigrated to israel in 1992. Married to his wife Nina, who is a medical doctor, working in one of the biggest medical center in Tel-Aviv. Alex and Nina have two children.
Filmography
2005-2006
The Rise and Fall of the Russian Oligarhs (90min)
Thieves in Law

Retrospective of the visual anthropologist: Stéphane Breton

Description

Stéphane Breton (1959) is an ethnologist and documentary filmmaker. He is a specialist in Melanesia. He is a lecturer at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris), where he teaches anthropology and documentary filmmaking. As part of a general anthropology of Melanesia, he has studied West Papua (Indonesian province of Papua, New Guinea Island) – wodani language and ethnography. His research interests include witchcraft, trade and currency,ethnolinguistics, body and sexuality, but also museography and image, documentary film and television.

A French non-fiction filmmaker and anthropologist (who teaches at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris), Stéphane Breton does camera work and sound recording for his films,that he shoots alone in remote parts of the world (West Papua, Kyrghyzstan, New Mexico, Nepal, and hopefully next time in Siberia), but also also in the street down the block where he lives in Paris. His films include “Them and Me” (2001), “Heaven in a Garden” (2003), “A Silent Summer” (2005), “The Outside World” (2007), “Night Rising on Clouds” (2007), “The Empty House” (2008), “Ascent to the Sky” (2009). He has published several books: The masquerade of gender (1989, anthropological essay); Rivers motionless (travelogue in New Guinea). Men appointed mist (with Jean-Louis Motte) (1991, photo album and travelogue in New Guinea).

Films screened at retrospective

Them and Me
(original title: “Eux et moi”, 63 min, 2001, France, West Papua)

Shot behind the scenes, from the point of view of a subjective camera, the film shows the ambiguous relations and negotiations of the ethnologist with the wodani people who live in the small hamlet lost in the mountains of New Guinea where he did his fieldwork.

The Empty House
(original title: “La maison vide”, 52 min, 2008, New Mexico – USA)

Shot like a western without a gun, at a drunkard’s distance, the film takes place in New Mexico (USA) among an ancient Spanish community eaten to rack and ruin by rust, beer, and dust storms.

Ascent to the Sky
(original title: “La montée au ciel”, 52 min, 2008, Nepal)

In a small valley in Nepal, at the end of a path worn out by so many feet and so many centuries, two old shepherds escape from their village to climb the mountains. Shit all around, purity of heart, bedazzlement.

Retrospective is supported by Centre of Excellence in Cultural Theory (EU, Regional Development Fund).

The Hidden Smile

  • Year of release: 2010
  • Duration: 13 min
  • Director: Ventura Durall i Soler
  • Original Language: Amarico, English
  • Country of production: Spain
  • Shooting location: Addis Abeba
  • Distributor: Marvin&Wayne Short Film Distribution
Description

Following a 10-year-old kid who arrives at the Ethiopian capital after escaping from his home and his misfortunes to integrate into a street children group, The Hidden Smile constructs a realistic tale on the values that flourish in a society formed by children.

Director info

Ventura Durall i Soler (Barcelona, 1974) Scriptwriter, director, fiction and documentary producer. ESCAC (Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya) graduate with a major in script. In 2000 he established the production company Nanouk Films with the intention to create an artistic platform of reference in the Catalan and European audiovisual scene and a new communication canal of investigation between documentary and fiction fields. He focuses his pedagogical vocation from ESCAC, as he is the head of documentary department, supervising the diploma thesis projects and leading the Documentary and Society Master Programme.

The Lover and The Beloved: A Journey Into Tantra

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 70 min
  • Director: Andy Lawrence
  • Original Language: Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, English
  • Country of production: UK
  • Shooting location: India
  • Distributor: Andy Lawrence
    Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology, Arthur Lewis Building,
    University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL UK
Description

A film about one man's journey across northern India and his search for enlightenment. Rajive McMullen, a history teacher suffering from a debilitating illness, makes the painful journey into the heart of Tantra, searching for meaning in holy shrines, coming close to death in cremation grounds and enjoyng the chaos of the Aghori seekers.
This film offers dramatic insight into Tantric ideas about the life cycle, particularly, death and contributes much to our understanding of how we seek knowledge and how we die. The Lover and The Beloved also represents a realistic attempt to understand both the practice and illusive theory behind Indian Tantrism, and is intended to challenge widespread Western misinterpretations of this system of thought. Along the way we visit Kamakhya Devi in Assam and Tarapith in West Bengal, two of the most important centres of Tantric hinduism.


Director info

Andy Lawrence is a freelance filmmaker using anthropological theories and ethnographic research methods to explore issues in film and video. He is interested in the human life course, particularly birth and death, with regional specialisation in the UK and India. His work explores the proximity of childbirth and death to our lives and the ways in which knowledge around this is mediated. He is filmmaker in Residence at the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology, at the University of Manchester, where he teaches on the MA in Visual Anthropology. Andy has made films for broadcast as well as producing award-winning films for festival release.
Recent directing credits include the 2008 documentary feature. Born, a mediation on birth made in collaboration with the radical midwife Judith Kurutac. Born was made for Birth Rites, an international touring exhibition of art about the politics and practice of childbirth. Andy has also worked in drama, collaborating with the acclaimed poet Mark Gwynne Jones to produce the award-winning short film. The Message, which looks at the fragile nature of inter-generational transmission of knowledge.

Estonian film 100 film program

Description

Estonian film will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2012. This year’s Worldfilm festival decided to mark this event with two special programs:
“Life at the coast of the gulf of riga” will bring to a screen films that have captured fading Livonian nation and life on tiny Ruhnu island through 20. century.

Ruhno
(dir. Theodor Luts, Theodor Luts Film Production 1931) 17 min

Ruhnu
(dir. Andres Sööt, Tallinfilm 1965) 10 min

From the Livonian Coast
(original title: “Liivi rannikult”, Eesti Kultuurfilm 1940, text by dr. hist. Ferdinand Linnus) 10 min

On the coast of Livonia
(original title: “Liivi rannal”, dir. Endel Nõmberg, Eesti Telefilm 1966) 20 min

Livonian stories
(original title: Liivlaste lood”, dir. Enn Säde, Eesti Telefilm 1991) 30 min


“Peoples from close and far away” recalls the seventies and eighties in Estonian documentary, when search for the roots and identity turned some filmmakers attention to Finno-Ugric peoples and other peoples in the North. Two less known films by legendary Estonian filmmakers Peeter Tooming and Mark Soosaar and Lennart Meri’s enchanting “Shaman” are on the screen.

Living history
(original title: “Elamise lugu,” dir. Peeter Tooming, Tallinfilm 1980) 10 min

Millennial music
(original title: “Tuhandeaastane muusika”, dir. Mark Soosaar, Eesti Telefilm 1976−1978) 40 min

Shaman
(Original title: “Šamaan”, dir. Lennart Meri, 1977/1997) 22 min

The Man from Jupiter

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 57 min
  • Director: Erik Strömdahl
  • Country of production: Sweden
  • Shooting location: Sweden
Description

Hans-Erik has been living isolated in a bubble for 45 years. Sitting behind his iron barred windows, he doesn’t answer the phone or open the door if somebody would ring the bell.
His decision not to have a single friend was taken when he was 16 years old, after a conflict with his one and only friend. His total isolation began when his mother died.
His childhood was strongly marked by a violent and overprotective father and a problematic school situation where he was badly bullied. His congenital heart defect kept him from running and playing like other children. The fact that he had got a minor brain injury after a heart surgery and was skinny like a stick with a pale blue skin, didn’t improve his life situation.
What still makes him want to get up every morning is his intensive work on a giant boat model. He has been working with it for nine years and now it completely occupies his living room.
The film is an exciting journey into a psychological landscape with an improbable development. Hans-Erik’s participation in the film makes him feel noticed and important for the first time ever and reluctantly he starts to reconsider his decision to isolate himself. Hesitantly he looks out of the bubble…


Director info

Studies at College of Art (interior architecture) in Stockholm 1968–73.
Architect work in Dublin 1973.
Studies of film science at Stockholm University 1974–75 .
Immigrant teacher (Gypsies) 1975–78.
Since 1975 full-time freelance filmmaker combined with film work at SVT.
In 1990 arranging “Around the Baltic” film festival at Gotland.

2004 Production manager. Since 1994 part-time teaching at “Kulturama” film academy.


The Fourth One

  • Year of release: 2012
  • Duration: 26 min
  • Director: Liis Lepik
  • Country of production: Estonia
  • Shooting location: Estonia
  • Distributor: Kultusfilm OÜ, Niine 8e-8, 10414 Tallinn, info@kultus.ee
Description


The Fourth One was filmed only on one Sunday. It is a day in the life of an old lady named Emilia. The day starts off being quite ordinary but as the story progresses, new and surprising facts reveal themselves. The day turns out to be anything but ordinary. It is a very human and touching story. Questions about life and death, the relationship between mother and daughter, and contrasts between old and new life rhythms arise.

Director info

Liis Lepik (27) studied Visual Anthropology in Berlin and in the Masters program of Social and Cultural Anthropology and Documentary in Tallinn University. She has worked in the field of training and has taught the analysis of documentaries to high school students. Liis is the founder of the enterprise Kultusfilm OÜ and works as a producer. The Fourth is the first documentary she has directed.

The Shaman’s revenge

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 55 min
  • Director: Laetitia Merli
  • Country of production: France
  • Shooting location: Tuva Republic, Russia
Description

Kara-Ool is the Supreme Shaman of Tuva Republic. He leads the “Bear Spirit Centre” in Kyzyl where about ten shamans work regularly. Looking to the future, he counts on an international development of shamanism and a worldly ecological awareness. Between healings and purifications of any sorts, he tells us his projects and his vision of the world.

Director info

Laetitia Merli is an anthropologist (PhD, EHESS, Paris) and a documentary film maker (Master in Visual Anthropology, Granada Centre, University of Manchester).
Specialist of shamanism in Mongolia and Siberia, she focuses on tourism and neoshamanism. The Shamans’ Revenge is her fourth film on shamanism.

The Wild Ones

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 30 min
  • Director: Lucy Kaye
  • Original Language: English
  • Country of production: UK
  • Shooting location: Liverpool
  • Distributor: Lucy Kaye
    210 Iverson Rd London nw6 2hl
    Tel: +44(0)7841825832
    Lucykaye101@yahoo.com
Description

Impact Pupil Referral Unit, in Bootle, Liverpool, provides a last chance for teenagers expelled from school to gain qualifications. This term, seven pupils get to leave the Unit to try a new way of learning in an unlikely sanctuary for rescued horses, in the heart of this run-down neighborhood. Run by local resident Bernadette Langfield, several wild ponies that she saved from being culled need taming. But these horses, like the pupils have their own troubled backgrounds and in order for a relationship between them to develop, both horses and teenagers have to first deal with their own behavioral difficulties.

Director info

Born in London, Lucy Kaye graduated from the National Film and Television School, UK in 2009. Prior to coming to the school she studied Visual Anthropology at the Granada Centre in Manchester, where she went on to work as an Assistant Producer with director Marc Isaacs on prominent BBC Documentary films. Her graduation films were screened at festivals world wide and she has gone on to direct a documentary film for Channel Four .

The Trip

  • Duration: 13 min
  • Director: Bartoz Kruhlik
  • Original Language: Polish
  • Shooting location: Poland
  • Distributor: Poland
Description

A 13-year old Asia goes on an excursion with her grandfather. Grandpa teaches her how to drive a scooter, shows her the beauty of nature. He's got also something to tell her...



Director info

Bartosz Kruhlik was born in 1985 in Lubsko (Poland). He finished Secondary Art School in Zielona Gora and Film College in Wroclaw. Now he is studying in PWSFTViT in Lodz – in the Directing Department. His first documentary film “Tomorrow…” got nearly 40 awards.

The Ulysses

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 83 min
  • Director: Agatha Amciaszek, Alberto García Ortiz
  • Original Language: Punjabi
  • Country of production: Spain
  • Shooting location: Ceuta (Spain), India
  • Distributor: Agatha Amciaszek, Alberto García Ortiz
Description

In the densely forested hills above Ceuta, a Spanish enclave in Africa, 57 young Indian immigrants await their fate. They have crossed half the planet to get to Europe and now they can see Gibraltar and the Spanish coast – just 14 kilometers away on the other side of the Strait – but they cannot reach them. They are stuck in the juridical limbo of Ceuta and after 2 years in the city’s migrant detention centre, and faced with a deportation, they decide to flee one night, and set up shanty camps in the nearby mountains.
The film approaches the experience of the group through a very intimate portrait of five main protagonists. Babu, Mili, Rocky, Happy and Guri are very different characters, thrown together by circumstances and bound to each other for survival. Their lives are buffeted by geopolitical realities they cannot control such as the incipient crisis and stricter European migration policies. The viewer shares in their anxiety as they await a solution, and joins them in the emotional conclusion.


Director info

Alberto García Ortiz
(Burgos-Spain, 1972).
Graduated at the University of Edinburgh in 1995. Soon he discovered his real passion: documentary cinema and from then on, he took several courses and workshops related to the cinema.
Agata Maciaszek
(Lodz-Poland, 1980)
She moved to Spain at the age of 12. Graduated in Audiovisual Communication from the Complutense University of Madrid. Completed her cinema education with several workshops, including one with filmmaker Jose Luis Guerín, a great referent in her documentary cinematic view. She combines her work in film/video direction and production with audiovisual translations for the Spanish National Filmhouse.

The Well: Water Voices from Ethiopia

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 56 min
  • Director: Paolo Barberi and Ricardo Russo
  • Original Language: Oromo (Ethiopian language)
  • Country of production: Italy
  • Shooting location: Ethiopia
  • Distributor: GA&A
    Via Cicerone, 64 – 00193 Roma, Italy
    Tel: 0039 06 3613480, laurar@gaea.it
Description

Each year, when the dry season reaches its peak in Southern Ethiopia, the Borana herders gather with their livestock around their ancient wells.

Huge hand-excavated craters, known as “singing wells”, allow them to survive during the long annual droughts. Here, every day, the young shepherds form human chains, allowing them to reach the depths of the well and bring up the water. Their work is accompanied by a song which seems to draw the great herds as they slowly come near, after days of walking in a dry land.

The documentary follows the Borana life throughout the drought until the long-awaited rain comes.

Through interaction with several characters, the film introduces us to a unique water management system that allows the Borana shepherds to manage the small quantity of available water as the property and right of everyone.

Nobody can be denied to access water, neither the herders of an enemy tribe in need.

While all around the world the access to drinkable water is still not considered a fundamental human right, the Borana deserve a special attention for the extraordinary way in which they guarantee general and indiscriminate access to water in one of the driest inhabited regions on earth.



Director info

Paolo Barberi, Ravenna 1968, Anthropologist and filmmaker, teaches cultural anthropology at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. He founded in 2004 the Esplorare la Metropoli Researchers and Filmmakers Association together with Riccardo Russo, co director with him of the documentary film The Well, Water voices from Ethiopia.


Filmography

2009 Città di mezzo (In Beetween City) -  Special Award at ROME DOCSCIENT.
2011 The Well - Water voices from Ethiopia.


Riccardo Russo, 1974, is an Italian independent filmmaker working in the field of social documentary production.
With a PhD in Human Geography and a specialization in Audiovisuals for Human Rights, he founded in 2004 the Esplorare la Metropoli Researchers and Filmmakers Association together with Paolo Barberi, co director with him of the documentary film The Well, Water voices from Ethiopia. During the last years he has released several publications and documentary films on socio-environmental themes and human rights, in Europe, South America, Africa and Oceania.


Filmography

2002 L’altra Faccia di eGoli (The other face of Egoli) - AUDIENCE PRICE, ROMA DOCFEST 2003 Lipompong - CHATWIN PRIZE 2003.
2006 L’altro Lazio
2007 La preghiera del minatore di Opale (Opal Miner's Prayer) – MIGRANT MEMORY PRIZE 2011 Piazza Tiburtino Terzo (Tiburtino Terzo Square).
2011 The Well - Water voices from Ethiopia.


Himself He Cooks

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 64 min
  • Director: Valerie Berteau, Philippe Witjes
  • Original Language: no dialogue
  • Country of production: Belgium
  • Shooting location: India
  • Distributor: Polymorfilms
    Rue T. Verhaegenstraat 18
    1060 Brussel/Bruxelles, Belgium
    Tel: +3225378569
    contact@polymorfilms.be
Description

In the Golden Temple in Amritsar hundreds of volunteers prepare 50 000 free meals every day. The spontaneoud choreography of many philanthropists hands reveals the essence and atmosphere of this fascinating place.
Director’s statement on the film:
This film reveals and highlights the humanistic gesture, those acts of solidarity in a time when religions are caricatured and stigmatized; where overconsumption provokes starvation and deprives many people of spaces for reflection and essential nourishments.
In a world of excessive consumption, extreme social differences and ecological disaster, it seems essential to us to show simple ways of acting.

Director info

Valerie Berteau was born in 1975 and now lives and works in Brussels. In the nineties, she started travelling and becoming involved in photography. After completing studies in visual communication, photography and video she began to work as a photojournalist and in film production. She was involved as coordinator of many cross-over projects with associations and NGO’s.
www.valerieberteau.be

Philippe Witjes lives and works as an independant cook and video director in Brussels. Involved in various actions related with democratic food, public oven (Recyclart), social canteens (Poverelo). Cook and Logistics manager for various cultural centers, NGOs, backstage cook for concert halls in Belgium. He started to travel and cook in various countries (Small Canteen in Antsirabe – Madagascar, volunteer cooking 1200 free meals daily in Cité Soleil-Haïti, Porthmouth-Dominica, Toubabdialaw – Senegal).
www.philippewitjes.com

Father’s Rights

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 56 min
  • Director: Isri Halpern
  • Original Language: Hebrew
  • Country of production: Israel
  • Shooting location: Israel
  • Distributor: Isri Halpern
    58. Makor Hayim st.
    Tel-Aviv 66037, Israel
    +972522309090
    Isri.halpern@gmail.com
Description

Father’s Rigths is a documentary, which tells the story of the first gender based men’s organisation in Israel. It follows, over the course of five years, four divorced men estranged from their children by a variety of false claims made by their wives. They are Yaki, a carpenter from Tel-Aviv, Nissim, an orthodox Jew, Michael, an unemployed Physics professor and Ilan, an AC technician. They embark on a public campaign to get their story heard, a difficult story to explain as it involves the intricate details of a massive array of perverted rules and regulations concerning child custody and support, and police and social workers’ policies that the public is hardly exposed to, and this movie for the first time exposes and articulates...
The film also tells the personal stories of a small group of men that are the victims of the system, and follows them as they fight for change. But more than that, this film is about love, the kind of love that sometimes is not taken for granted as well as it should – the love of fathers for their children.
Since its broadcast on Israeli TV on June 2011, it has generated more public debate and controversy than any other documentary in recent years in Israel.

Director info

Isri Halpern is one of the most interesting Israeli documentary filmmakers and the first DV guerrilla filmmaker in Israel. Isri finished filmschool in 1997 and is now in the board of directors of the Israel film director guild. His final film won a student EMMY award and numerous other awards. Since 1998 Isri is focusing on documentary filmmaking. He produces, directs and edits his own films, using his strong visual and dramatic sense and eye for untold stories. Over the last 10 years he has produced, directed and edited five documentaries:
Psychedelic Zion (2001), with Channel 3 and The New Israeli Film and Television Foundation
Shot on Yom Kippur (2001), Channel 3
The last leopard of Judaea (2004), Channel 8 and the Rabinovich Foundation
Boys do cry (2007), Channel 2 and The New Israeli Film and Television Foundation
Fathers Rights (2011), Channel 1 and “Makor”Film Fund

Men at Work

  • Duration: 32 min
  • Director: Christine Moderbacher
  • Country of production: United Kingdom
  • Shooting location: Austria
Description

“Men at work” depicts the daily routine of 35 men working for one of the last remaining governmental institutions in Austria that only employ men. Their responsibility is to look after a 40km stretch of one of Europe's biggest transit routes, the A1. Inspired by the poem of one of the road workers, the film is a sensitive journey to the world of pure masculinity, camaraderie and team spirit.

Director info

Born in 1982, studied Social Anthropology at the University of Vienna, Austria, followed by a training in media education. She worked as a social worker and media trainer with young migrants in Vienna and Brussels. From September 2009 on she conducted a Master in Ethnographic Documentary at the Granada Centre of Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester, England, where she graduated with the film “Men at work” in October 2010. Currently she is working on a documentary film about the Tunisian Revolution.

Indians like us

  • Year of release: 2011
  • Duration: 55 min
  • Director: Sylvie Jacquemin
  • Country of production: France
  • Shooting location: France, USA
  • Distributor: Vox Lucida
    pmazenod@windrose.fr
Description
A group of French people share a passion for everything Native American: every week-end they dress up as Native Americans to entertain at small village fairs in France. But their big dream is to travel to the United States and meet some real Native Americans. When they finally manage to go for a 2 week-drive across the Midwest, they discover the reality of contemporary Native Americans is quite different from their idealized vision: poverty, continued loss of land, and worse, a disturbingly active discrimination by the white descendants of the settlers.



Director info

French born, Sylvie Jacquemin started with some scientific studies (Pharmacy in France then Computer Graphics in California), then opted for Cinematography and Editing. After 9 years in the USA, directing and shooting commercials and music videos, it was a docu-portrait of American trumpeteer Wynton Marsalis, invited by the indians in 1992, which led her towards documentary and the native cultures.

Now based in France, she alternates commercials, short TV programs ( "ABC babies" TV series) and documentaries.

Regilaul, songs of the ancient sea

Description
On the shores of the Gulf of Finland, the ancient Finno-Ugric peoples originated a singing tradition of mysterious power called the Regilaul. These songs are the roots of Estonia’s renowned singing culture. Based on the continuous repetition of eight-syllable verses, they produce a haunting sound able to connect the fleeting present with the eternal circle of life. Against the stunning setting of modern Estonia, this film explores how Regi songs still fire the imagination today, weaving together people and nature through song.

Director info
Ulrike Koch was born in Birkenfeld/Nahe, Germany. She studied sinology, Japanology and ethnology at the University of Zurich as well as Chinese literature and philosophy at Beijing University/China. Her journalistic activities include writing articles and film reviews for various publications, e.g., Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Weltwoche, Positif (Paris), as well as project consulting and lecturing on China, Tibet and Buddhism. Before directing her own films she worked as casting director for The Last Emperor and Little Buddha, both by Bernardo Bertolucci; and as assistant director for Johanna d'Arc of Mongolia by Ulrike Ottinger and Urga by Nikita Mikhalkov. She lives and works as an independent filmmaker in Zollikon near Zurich.