unbarmherzig

The animated documentary - a mix of live-action footage and animation - tells of the brutal everyday life in the orphanages of the 60s / 70s. Often led by Christian orders, more than one million children were physically and physically abused here. The anonymous protagonist tells of her childhood and her very personal struggle against the nuns' arbitrariness and their ruthless authority.

Come Find Me

After the collapse of the Communist regime in 1989, over 100,000 children were discovered living in Romanian orphanages. Follow Nori Vito, one of those orphans, as she journeys from her adopted American home to Romania and Greece to find the family she lost almost 30 years ago.

S-21, la machine de mort Khmère rouge

Documentary of the S-21 genocide prison in Phnom Penh with interviews of prisoners and guards. On the search for reasons why this could have happened.

The Last Season

In search of the lucrative matsutake mushroom, two former soldiers discover the means to gradually heal their wounds of war. Roger, a self-described 'fall-down drunk' and sniper in Vietnam, and Kouy, a Cambodian refugee who fought the Khmer Rouge, bonded in the bustling tent-city known as Mushroom Camp, which pops up each autumn in the Oregon woods. Their friendship became an adoptive family; according to a Cambodian custom, if you lose your family like Kouy, you must rebuilt it anew. Now, however, this new family could be lost. Roger's health is declining and trauma flashbacks rack his mind; Kouy gently aids his family before the snow falls and the hunting season ends, signaling his time to leave.

Missä tiet kohtaavat

What happens when a group of Finns travel to a tiny village in Benin to participate in a vaccination study? By participating, they can aid in the development of a diarrhea vaccine for children in developing countries – and, at the same time, have a different kind of vacation in West Africa. The complicated side of helping people and the clashes between two cultures rise to the forefront of Mia Halme’s delicious documentary film.

Waiting for the Sun

In China more people are on death row than the rest of the world combined. The children of the convicts are often left alone, stigmatized and living in the streets. Grandma Zhang, as the kids call her, is a former prison guard who has founded an orphanage in Nanzhao.

Les enfants de Vercheny

Defending Brother No.2

Two Dutch lawyers, Michiel Pestman and Victor Koppe, travel to Cambodia in 2011 to defend Nuon Chea in an international tribunal. Nuon Chea, also known as Brother No. 2, was the second man after Pol Pot in the Khmer Rouge regime. He is being charged with mass murder and crimes against humanity. For four years, the documentary follows the lawyers in their attempt to give this man a fair trial, but the UN tribunal is beset by local interests and a government which consists partly of other former members of the Khmer Rouge who would really like all of the blame to rest solely on the defendant. What should've been the crowning achievement in the careers of the lawyers turns out very different.

Finding Hope Home

The story of Pastor Lucy and her husband Duncan Ndegwa, who began feeding and sheltering children from the streets of Nairobi, Kenya in 1996.

Bophana, une tragédie cambodgienne

Based upon documentation of forced confessions made during the Khmer Rouge era in Cambodia, this film reconstructs the relationship of a young woman, Hout Bophana, and Ly Sitha before they were tortured in executed in 1977.

Rain Falls from Earth: Surviving Cambodia's Darkest Hour

On April 17, 1975, the face of Cambodia would forever be changed. As Khmer Rouge soldiers marched into the capital city of Phnom Penh, the unsuspecting people of Cambodia had little idea they would be forced into a living nightmare that would last nearly four years. Rain Falls From Earth is a story of courage, a story of survival and a story of eventual triumph over the Communist regime that was responsible for the deaths of over two million people. The voices of many Cambodians are heard as they convey their thoughts, ideas and emotions - the very things they were forced to abandon in the "killing fields" of Cambodia. Their stories are an eyewitness account to genocide.

Kampuchea inför kriget

Documentary about Cambodia featuring a long interview with Pol Pot

Să zâmbească toți copiii

The film's protagonists are the orphaned children taken into custody by the state and institutionalized at Children's House no. 6 from Bucharest. For Mészáros, the concern for the situation of children left orphaned during the Second World War is autobiographical: the director directly experienced the absence of parents in her own childhood.

The Donut King

Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy builds a multi-million dollar empire by baking America's favourite pastry: the doughnut.

Side by Side

Through daily routines in a rural village, an indigenous elder couple recall their strange marriage to their grand-daughter, and sometimes to each other, in the changing rhythm of nature around them.

Hexenkinder

The movie recalls children who suffered mental and physical harm both during the last century, particularly in religious orphanages, and during the time of early modernperiod witch-hunts. It shows that the mindsets and behavioural patterns of both time periods are more alike than one might think.

Blood Brother

Rocky Braat went to India as a disillusioned American tourist. When he met a group of children with HIV/AIDS, he decided to stay. He never could have imagined the obstacles he would face. Or the love he would find.

CREATURE OF GOD

Cambodia, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge

Between April, 1975 and January, 1979, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million people in Cambodia. A quarter of the population were wiped out in one of the most brutal and virulent genocides of the twentieth century. This new film explores the life of Pol Pot, the ever-smiling, obsessively secretive leader of the Khmer Rouge. What drove him to inflict such a radical experiment on his own people? How did the Khmer Rouge turn from a band of nationalist revolutionaries into a ruthless killing machine? And why did the West stand by and let it happen?
 As an international tribunal in Cambodia finally brings the surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge to justice, it's time to re-examine the gruesome legacy of Pol Pot.

Kinshasa, générations Matuidi