Shipwreck at the Threshold of Europe, Lesvos, Aegean Sea: 28 October 2015

On 28 October 2015, a migrant boat left the coast of Western Turkey heading to the closest European coast – the Greek island of Lesvos. The shipwreck resulted in the death of at least 43 people, making it the deadliest incident of that period, also known as “the long summer of migration.” One of the survivors, the artist Amel Alzakout, recorded the journey and the shipwreck on a waterproof camera attached to her wrist. This footage – which also forms the basis of her subsequent film Purple Sea – provides a unique situated perspective on this tragic event at the threshold of Europe.

Heldentod - Der Tunnel und die Lüge

It was the biggest escape in the history of the Berlin Wall: in one historic night of October 1964, 57 East-Berliners try their luck through a tunnel into West Berlin. Just before the last few reach the other side, the East German border guards notice the escape and open fire. Remarkably, all the refugees and their escape agents make it out of the tunnel unscathed, but one border guard is dead: 21-year-old officer Egon Schultz.

Tunten lügen nicht

Bosom buddies BeV StroganoV, Ovo Maltine, Ichgola Androgyn and Tima die Göttliche are four Berlin drag queens who met in the mid 1980s. These four queens became Germany’s most popular drag performers and have been busy fertilizing the German cultural scene. Besides being performers, they are also political activists – in AIDS awareness, anti-gay violence, the sex workers movement and the struggle against the extreme right and racism. The film tells their story.

We've Been Around

In this documentary, director Rhys Ernst tells the previously untold histories of transgender pioneers. Trans people have always been here, throughout time, often hidden in plain sight.

Julia

Julia is a young transgender woman who left her home country of Lithuania. Now living in Germany, she walks the streets of Berlin, working as a prostitute to survive. This documentary revisits Julia over a ten-year period of her life.

2017 Oscar Nominated Short Films: Documentary

The Valley

As thousands of migrants attempt to cross the French-Italian border on foot through treacherous mountain routes, the state cracks down on the local communities that come to their aid in this revealing look at an unfolding human rights crisis.

Dylan Mulvaney's Day 365 Live!

Dylan Mulvaney celebrates a entire year of girlhood performing several songs and playing some of her old tiktoks in a Live stream full of celebrity surprises.

Lettres ouvertes

Between 1931 to 2002, Switzerland issued some six million seasonal residence permits, known as "A" permits, to immigrant workers. This status carried drastic rules, such as a ban on family reunification and a stay in Switzerland limited to nine months a year. In open letters, former seasonal workers and their children recount the impact this system had on their lives.

Borders

A film about borders and border checkpoints, poetically following the people that come into contact with them - one way or another. Borders is about men and women dreaming of a better life in Europe and the high price they often have to pay for it - if they succeed at all. Without taking an immediate moral stance, the film follows the route that many immigrants take from the heart of Africa to the centre of Europe, stopping at each border: Nigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal , Mauritania, Morocco, Spain, France, Belgium, and finally, the Netherlands.

Eternas

A short documentary film that delves into the life of Eleggua Luna, a karmairi-mokana-motilona Afro-Caribbean trans woman born in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, to delve into the constant struggle that black, trans and indigenous people live in Abya Yala as a result of colonization.

Miraggio

Mali - Algeria - Libya - Italy. Issa’s escape from West Africa to the European mainland lasted ten years. Everything was supposed to be better here. But when he arrived in Rome, the only thing waiting for the young man was a life of homelessness and unemployment – which meant no money to send home. Drissa and Sekou share a similar fate, waiting in Italian asylum centres for a residence permit. Then there’s Bubu, who, forced to move from job to job, is unable to settle down. And lastly comes Alassane, who lives without identity papers in a state of constant uncertainty in a refugee camp near Rome. They all have one thing in common: after a gruelling odyssey, none of them has found the Italy they were hoping for when they arrived. Disillusioned, they find themselves in a vacuum of waiting, reflecting on the time they live in and the time that lies ahead.

TRAY TRAY KO

Draped in an electric blue fabric, the artist acts as a conduit between the tangile and the spiritual, blurring the boundaries between human form and natural elements.

Pollinator

The artist walks through a garden, with additional footage featuring Black trans activist Marsha P. Johnson.

La opción cero

There are countless stories of Cubans reaching their dream destination of Florida as boat refugees. A lesser known route to the United States starts with a flight in a ramshackle plane to Guyana. Then the refugees travel to Colombia where they cross the jungle to arrive in Central America, from where they hope to reach the promised land of America—a hard and dangerous journey. Cuban filmmaker Marcel Beltrán visits them in a refugee camp in Panama, where one of the residents gives him an idea. Many people here have filmed their journey, she says, and these videos tell their real story. These jerky, shocking videos are interspersed with Beltrán’s footage of the camp, tangibly illustrating the difference between the hectic pace of the journey and the insecure life at the reception center.

El Camino

Hausordnung

In buildings where foreign workers lived in Germany, there were strict rules of conduct, defined by the house rules and supervised by the building superintendents. Many rights regarding the freedom of movement, communication and behavior were abused. Interviews with the tenants and with the "orderlies" which point out absurd situations and clashes caused by these restrictions.

Lua

Joseph Wilson meets the dance teacher fighting transphobic violence through voguing in Rio’s favelas.

Notes about identity

Amazing Journeys

By land, by air, and by sea, viewers can now experience the struggle that millions of creatures endure in the name of migration as wildlife photographers show just how deeply survival instincts have become ingrained into to the animals of planet Earth. From the monarch butterflies that swarm the highlands of Mexico to the birds who navigate by the stars and the millions of red crabs who make the perilous land journey across Christmas Island, this release offers a look at animal instinct in it's purest form.