Miehiä ja poikia

A lonely 40-year-old man sits on the balcony of a Finnish apartment building. Joonas Berghäll has learned that he will die in 14 years’ time, unless he changes his way of living or attitude towards life. Joonas wants to make a film about the state of wellbeing of Finnish men, drawing from his own experiences and mirroring the society at large. The film is built around six stories. It starts with the context of school and proceeds through the contexts of military service, custody battle, burnout and substance abuse to end on the subject of premature death caused by health problems.

The Price of Cheap

The Price of Cheap tells the stories of modern slaves in textiles manufacturing supply chains and the brave individuals fighting on the ground against immeasurable odds to help them. We follow a man named Joseph Raj, who runs an organization called T.E.S.T. (Trust for Education and Social Transformation) in Tamil Nadu, India as he goes on raids to rescue underage children from unsafe and labour intensive factories. We hear from the survivors he has helped rescue, hear of their horrific experiences, and desire for education and change. Academics and social justice workers weigh in on why the issue of forced labour persists.

23

Bamboo Stories

A group of men in North-Eastern Bangladesh are facing a dangerous mission. They are to conquer the river, with a 70 meter long raft. The ride is 300 kilometre long, always downstream. The freight: 25 000 bamboo trees. The men's path begins in the dense forests of the Sylhet region in North-Eastern Bangladesh. Millions of bamboo trunks are hacked down there and being slid down by the workers along the dangerous mountain-stream into the valley. The bamboos reach the river Kushiara through hundreds of these channels. Here, the trunks are bundled - a giant raft arises. Then the long journey begins.

Memória de uma Criança Afogada

Cómo vivir toda una vida con apenas un te quiero

cosas que no van a morir

After finding some videos she uploaded to YouTube when she was a child, Manuela attempts to follow the trail she herself has left on the Internet. A search that looks into all that things that won't never die and that, especially, thinks about the way we look at ourselves.

Aatos ja Amine

The district of Molenbeek-Saint-Jean in Brussels has become world-famous as a center of jihadism, but for six-year-old Aatos and his friend Amine, it is a familiar home. Here, they listen to spiders, discover black holes, and fight about what is going to steer a flying carpet. Together they search for the answers to life's big questions. But the brutality of the adult world makes itself known when terrorists detonate a bomb in the neighborhood. Aaatos envies Amine's Muslim faith and looks for his own gods, although his classmate Flo questions him; she is strongly convinced that anyone who believes in God is completely nuts. Gods of Molenbeek is a wonderful portrayal of childhood friendship, inquiry and the creation of meaning in a chaotic time.

Red Dog

Country songwriter Luke Dick spent his toddler years living in the Red Dog, the rowdiest and most popular strip club in Oklahoma City. Now 30 years later, Luke has a toddler and a newborn of his own. As he began asking his mom questions about his own childhood, she turned out to be more hilariously forthcoming than he ever imagined.

Was Tun

Faced with a documentary film that included an interview with a young girl forced into prostitution, Michael Kranz asked himself the apparently banal question of “what can be done?” He travelled to Bangladesh and began to search for the girl. A film that is both self-critical and critical of society about the desire to at least do something and not to simply and passively give in to the injustices in this world.

Le monde selon Tippi

Tippi is no ordinary child. She believes that she has the gift of talking to animals and that they are like brothers to her. 'I speak to them with my mind, or through my eyes, my heart or my soul, and I see that they understand and answer me.' Tippi is the daughter of French filmmakers and wildlife photographers, Alain Degre and Sylvie Robert, who have captured her on film with some of Africa's most beautiful and dangerous animals. Tippi shares her thoughts and wisdom on Africa, its people and the animals she has come to know and love. Often her wisdom is beyond her years, and her innocence and obvious rapport with the animals is both fascinating and charming.

Every Good Marriage Begins with Tears

Two Bangladeshi girls born and raised in London have weddings arranged for them against their will by their family. Shahanara, the rebel of the family, banished from the family in her teens for being "too Western", has to swap her pink hot pants for a sari as she goes off to the airport to meet her new Bangladeshi husband. Her sister Hushnara is the opposite of Shahanara; a devout Muslim who agrees to marry so she doesn't upset her parents.

Between Earth & Sky

For her entire professional life, renowned ecologist Nalini Nadkarni pioneered climbing techniques to study "what grows back” after an ecological disturbance in the rainforest canopy. Now, after surviving a life-threatening fall from a tree, she must turn her research question onto herself in order to understand the effects of disturbance and recovery throughout her life.

Postal (O, desde la distancia eres un espejismo)

"The palm trees on the reverse are a delusion; so is the pink sand". This line, taken from a poem by Margaret Atwood, lights the path traced in "Postcard". As the years go by, landscapes transform, take on new meanings, and hold onto joys that will never be regained. The sea and the beach, once stages of happy summers, romances, and encounters, will turn into concentration camps or centers of detention and torture. This occurs across different times and places. In this piece, I embark on a journey through some of my works that explore the relationship between testimony, spaces, and time, engaging in dialogue with the beautiful film directed by Alejandro Segovia in 1972.

O Começo da Vida 2: Lá Fora

Genuine connections between children and nature can revolutionize our future. But is this discovery still possible in the world's major urban centers? The new chapter of "The Beginning of Life" reveals the transformative power of this concept.

The Devil's Miner

'The Devil's Miner' tells the story of 14-year-old Basilio who worships the devil for protection while working in a Bolivian silver mine to support his family.

“(ಥ﹏ಥ) ✧_My Parents Are CIA Psy0ps_!!!* ಠ_ಠ"

On a sleepy summer night in 2004, eyes peer into the world-wide-web: traveling between conspiracy sites, malware, porn, and mp3 databases in an attempt to lose (find) themselves. Passing through blog graveyards, broken hyperlinks, and digital spirits, they begin to realize the Internet is so much more. Lost websites, anon forums, and inexplicable pixels singing to a prepubescent soul. An ode to the 2000s webpage and flash game culture.

Remnants of the Lost Childhood

In an abandoned house, three young adults tried to reminisce about their childhood lives and the community they were once part of. As the storytelling continues, we find remnants of tragedy and trauma from their past.

Le maître est l'enfant

As a young father, watching his daughter go through her life experiences, film director Alexandre Mourot discovered the Montessori approach and decided to set his camera up in a children's house (3 to 6 years of age) in the oldest Montessori school in France. Alexandre was warmly welcomed in a surprisingly calm and peaceful environment, filled with flowers, fruits and Montessori materials. He met happy children, who were free to move about, working alone or in small groups. The teacher remained very discreet. Some children were reading, others were making bread, doing division, laughing or sleeping. The children guided the film director throughout the whole school year, helping him to understand the magic of their autonomy and self-esteem - the seeds of a new society of peace and freedom, which Maria Montessori dedicated her life work to.

AN 27