2014 Films

For centuries, inhabitants of Abu Haraz, a small village in the desert area of North Sudan, have lived in harmony with the Nile and its floodings. When they learnt of a project to build a gigantic dam, people realised that their stern, albeit joyful world might soon come to an end. Unfortunately, their attempts to turn back fate had no impact and their village was flooded (...)

When James decided to leave Chico, a small provincial town of California, because his parents would not accept his homosexuality, he headed for San Francisco with Tyler, his teenage lover. Yet their dreams were soon shattered against a reality which did not match their expectations of a gay-friendly community, and the return to their home town ended up fraught with (...)

Natasha, an opera singer, left her husband and daughter in Russia to join Rafael, Minister for Sports of Abkhazia, an autonomous territory within Georgia only recognised internationaly by five foreign countries. Set in a crumbling seaside resort on the Black Sea coast, the film swings between comedy and documentary, creating an ironic yet affectionate atmosphere which (...)

Bob, a retired cowboy and forest addict, is a free spirit and a good friend of Marcel. Now that his wife has left him, Marcel does his best to regain control of his life from time to time. The two stooges fill their boredom in the Walloon countryside with friendship and drunkenness.

Two young Tunisians struggle to survive by working in the hay trade. Their day starts very early and seems to never end. With no other alternative than unemployment or exploitation, their dreams of a carefree youth quickly turn to despair.

The dream of directing a film created a strong relationship between seventeen-year-old Regina Nicholson, in the final stage of a terminal illness and fifty-year-old filmmaker Henry Corra. The film questions ethical boundaries in filmmaking and results in a rich and complex documentary that is extremely disturbing and irresistibly moving at the same (...)

Twenty-two year old Hind from Morocco has had not official status since she was raped when she was fourteen; she was subsequently kicked out from her family home and left with no other choice than engaging in prostitution. Despite the odds of her situation, she has refused to give up her dream of dignity, motherhood and love and has been trying to make ends meet by (...)

Ekoué, Léon, Blacky and Zorro live in Lomé, in a slum known as “Katanga“, a place where the local fishermen hang around. Always looking for a deal to strike or a bargain, they spend most of their time together. Known to the other residents of Katanga as the “Hustlers“, they are always ready to take whatever job they are offered, be it legal or (...)

Since Hai’er has been expelled from school, he has wandered around in town. When he isn’t drinking or getting into fights, he’s racing motorcycles with his gang. Beatings by his father simply won’t stop him. Having turned fourteen, he reckons it’s about time to go to the city for some shady (...)

Amir, an Iranian immigrant, has been renting a modest flat in Athens, which gradually became a place of transit for migrants. But Greece is only a stop-over: all of them are dreaming to move on to Western countries but in the meantime, they find themselves stuck at Amir’s, hoping for ID documents, contacts and eventually a smuggler to whom they might entrust their (...)

National Diploma follows a group of young Congolese high school students who are about to sit the exam for their National Diploma, the equivalent of the French baccalaureate, in Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo. Dieudo Hamadi’s camera films them as they prepare for the exam, from the benches of the school that they are regularly ejected from because they haven’t paid (...)

This feature-length cinematographic documentary was entirely shot inside one of the world’s most restricted environments: the Takhar Prison, a no-burqa detention centre where forty women and thirty-four children are rotting in four cells. Unprecedented access to the lives and stories of the Afghani women prisoners enabled the director to explore how “moral crimes” are used (...)

Pine Ridge Reservation, home to the Oglala Lakota Nation, has been the site of some of the most tragic events in Sioux history. With high unemployment, a large number of residents living below the federal poverty line, troubling rates of teen suicide and low life expectancies, the youth of Pine Ridge struggle to make sense of an uncertain (...)

At the beginning of the twentieth century, large numbers of marble quarrymen from Carrara in Italy crossed the Atlantic to work in the granite quarries of Barre, Vermont. In the 1930s, when the industry was already in decline and many quarrymen had succumbed to the occupational lung disease of silicosis, dozens of interviews with Barre’s inhabitants were transcribed by (...)

While her mother went to work in Italy to provide for their needs, fifteen-year-old Georgiana looks after her six brothers and sisters in the suburbs of Bacau, Romania.

« Behind The Redwood Curtain » takes the spectator on a mesmerising journey through the dark and eerie Redwood forest. Seven forest dwellers - loggers, scientists, activists and Native Americans – invite us to familiarise with their environment. The ancient Redwoods have always kept the region isolated but now that the logging industry has become intrusive, the survival of (...)

The film profiles Thomas Sankara, the late President of Burkina Faso, who was murdered in 1987. Committed to liberate his country and transform the mentalities of his fellow citizens, contest the world’s political order and challenge the powers of the mighty players, Sankara stood out strongly in the history of modern Africa and of the whole (...)

Mashti Esmaeil spends most of his time three hours’ walk from home, where he grows rice. With an impressive autonomy despite his blindness, he proves in this affectionate portrait to be a serene and wise man with an incredible sense of humour.

Salt is everywhere, lying just beneath the cracked, baked surface of the earth. This is the Little Rann of Kutch, 5000 sq kms of saline desert in India. And for eight months of the year, Chhanabhai and his family live here without water, electricity or provisions – tirelessly extracting salt from this desolate landscape. Under the blinding glare of the sun, they work on the (...)

On the shores of the Black Sea, Captain Jack and his pirates lived on a remote beach where a legendary seafarer was said to have buried his treasure. Fuelled by gold fever, these dropouts blew lumps of rock into the air… until the project of a luxury resort forced them out.

“In one hundred years, it’ll be Woodstock!” In his village near Belgrade, Zivan Pujic, aka Jimmy, has been organising his own punk music festival for six years, turning the concrete slab of the sports ground into a stage and relying on performers to help move the rows of seats. If need be, Zivan’s guests might as well provide some cash to pay for a new light bulb in the (...)

One million Syrian refugees live in Lebanon, many of whom in camps. The Syrian diaspora includes an invisible generation of young artists and entrepreneurs whose future expectations were destroyed in their own country. “A City without Dreams” depicts the disillusion of a whole Syrian generation torn between Beirut, Lebanon and Aleppo, in (...)

Now that she is living on her own, seventy-five year old Alba can only remember the moments she spent with her daughter Alai. Immersing herself in those memories, she finds a sense of joy.

Follow David, a father of three, getting organised for his morning run to school. Will the family make it on time?

For the past fifteen years, contract worker Sidhiq Ali has spent all his spare time and money to feed five hundred stray cats in the streets of Abu Dhabi instead of sending his salary back to his family in India.

As Egypt’s official executioner, Ashmawi is convinced of being God’s hand on earth. While he is a meticulous and skilled legal murderer, sentenced persons share their pain and their nerve-wrecking conditions on death row.

An estimated five million people are homeless in Russia, and one million of them are children. Showing the hardships they face and the dreams they hold on to, this film takes an uncompromising look at a group of children surviving in a garbage dump outside of Moscow.

Miah, a Bengali immigrant, decides to tell his wife about his hard life in Italy. Using a hidden camera, he starts filming his little shop...the “Sexy Shopping”.

Luis David lives in Congo Mirador, on the shore of Lake Maracaibo, where houses are built on stilts. This is also Venezuela’s largest oil field. Adults move around using motorboats while children can only swim, but some of them use old barrels as makeshift crafts.
Sometimes, children organize barrel races: Luis David is dying to take part in one of them, but he needs to find (...)

Kinga habite chez son petit-ami. Face à la caméra, elle brosse le portrait sensoriel de Jarek, son compFrom her boyfriend’s home, Kinga recalls key moments she spent with Jarek and shares memorabilia to draw up a passionate tribute to her dead companion.agnon disparu.

«Takanini» is a group of Marquesan musicians with a unique style of reggae. They sing in their language, stand up for their culture and promote their values. Their message is somewhat disturbing, yet the evocative power of their music captures the imagination. Torn between tradition and modernity, the members of « Takanini » sing the difficulties of building their identity; (...)

The Warumpi Band originated in the 80s in the Australian bush. Singer and charismatic leader Georges Rrurrambu made his claim to fame with a range of English-sung hits, but the first Aboriginal rock group is chiefly reminded for singing in Aboriginal languages.

Bruno, Jean-François, David and some others left France a good while ago, sacrificing to the myths of sun-drenched islands, pristine lagoon waters and lush forests. Once there, they were quickly disillusioned: seeking a job and trying to integrate in small communities proved more challenging than they thought, and this documentary found them today uprooted and (...)

Fifteen-year old Ngaa Rauuira is a precocious and highly talented adolescent who can already see himself as a Prime Minister of New Zealand. The camera follows him when he enrolls in the prestigious Yale University, a once in a life time experience for this young student who caries the hopes of his small Maori (...)

In the Fifties, the United States carried out sixty-seven atmospheric nuclear tests within the Marshall Islands, exposing populations to significant radioactive fall-out which caused burns, cancers and birth defects... Islanders from Rongelap and Bikini had to leave their devastated islands but some of them were relocated on highly contaminated (...)

Mixing fiction with reality, « Un caillou et des livres » takes you on a journey to familiarise yourself with New Caledonian writers. Come and visit a realm where authors enjoy a genuine freedom of expression when talking on social and cultural issues.

In Tindu, on the outskirts of Nouméa, as everywhere across New Caledonia, bingo addicts go regularly to illicit game sessions known among the population as « wild » bingos. The documentary reflects the most shared views on the benefits and drifts of this well-established activity.

In 2013, WWF in New Caledonia, in partnership with ADEME (a public body promoting sustainable development) and the Northern Province launched a program to raise awareness on domestic composting, mulching and natural fertilization techniques. One hundred participants from the tribe of Gööpä expressed interest in learning these simple and eco-friendly (...)

There has never been a bridge spanning the Ouaième River. The only way to cross and reach the other bank is to take a ferry. This survival of the old days is highly symbolic as it is the last one of its kind in New Caledonia.

Following unique life courses, this documentary recounts the settlement of the ever low-profile Indonesian community in New Caledonia.

First, there was Confucius, a Chinese philosopher born in 551 BC, who taught that filial piety ensured social and family harmony. Then, there was Peter and Mary, Japanese/Vietnamese grand-parents. And finally comes Cristèle, a mother of two mixed-blood children, questioning in 2013 how best to transmit this (...)

Starlady is a unique social worker, using creative means to fight against the despair of young Aborigines and their isolation: she teaches make-up, hair dye and hairdressing within communities of remote desert areas in Australia, helping foster greater trust and pride among these people.

Following a tragedy that claimed the lives of five of them in the subdivision of Tuband, a group of youth feels the need to pay their respect to the victims through music while embracing the future.