by Valerie Blankenbyl (Switzerland, Austria 2021) In the “Villages”, the world’s largest retirement community, there are not only supermarkets, bars and restaurants. From belly dancing to synchronized swimming, everything that a pensioner’s heart desires is offered. But what at first glance appears to be the fulfilment of the American dream, cracks upon closer inspection. After […]
by Volkan Üce (Belgium, The Netherlands, France 2021) Ismail and Hakan leave their village to start working in a gigantic all-inclusive hotel on the Turkish Riviera. They observe the colourful bikinis, the un-emptied plates, the different ways of addressing people, and gradually discover new opportunities to move ahead in life. ALL-IN explores a coming-of-age within […]
by Alba Sotorra Clua (Spain, UK 2021) With unprecedented access the film enters the prison camp Roj in Syria, which holds families of ISIS fighters. Among them Shamima Begum (UK) and Hoda Muthana (US) who made it into worldwide headlines when they left their countries as teenagers to join ISIS. Now they want to return […]
by Jan Sikl (The Czech Republic 2021) Director Jan Šikl collects private film archives of different families and has found professionally filmed material that captures the invasion of the Warsaw Pact armies to Czechoslovakia on August 21, 1968. Nobody has ever seen this footage. Jan begins to search who is captured in the footage and […]
by Celina Escher (Sweden, El Salvador 2021) Fly So Far follows Teodora Vásquez, the spokesperson of the women accused of aggravated homicide and imprisoned in El Salvador for having had a miscarriage. Teodora’s case has become a symbol of the extremism in the criminalization of abortion and the cruelty against women within the Salvadoran system. […]
by Hogir Hirori (Sweden 2021) In this observational film, directed, shot and edited by Hogir Hirori, viewers meet Mahmud, Ziyad and their group, who armed with just a mobile phone and a gun risk their lives trying to save Yazidi women and girls being held by ISIS as Sabaya (sex slaves) in the most dangerous […]
by Gorki Glaser-Müller (Sweden, Denmark 2021) In 2014 Patricio Galvez’s daughter Amanda and her husband Michael Skråmo left Sweden to join ISIS in Syria. Five years later they were both killed, leaving behind seven small children. Deep in sorrow over his daughter’s death, Patricio makes a pledge to save his grandchildren. Premiere at CPH:DOX 2021. […]
by Khalid Shamis (South Africa, Libya, Qatar 2021) For 40 years, Ashur Shamis lived in exile in a quaint London suburb, organizing against the Libyan government and Muammar Gaddafi. After the 2011 Libyan revolution and fall of Gaddafi, Shamis finally returned home to his beloved country, but upon arriving, he realized the land he desperately […]
by Nahid Persson (Sweden 2020) In Be My Voice filmmaker Nahid Persson follows journalist and activist Masih Alinejad, who has gained 4.5 million followers on Instagram after urging Iranian women to rebel against the forced hijab on social media. Premiere at Göteborg Film Festival 2021. “During all my years as a documentary filmmaker, I have […]
by Antonia Kilian (Germany, Finland 2020) Hala, a young Arab woman, joins the Kurdish women’s movement to flee the Islamic State. After months, she returns to her hometown to help build a free society. She encounters resistance not only within the patriarchal traditional society, but also within her own family. Premiere at CPH:DOX 2021. “I’ve […]
