Sauacker

SauAcker depicts the obstacles faced by Philipp, a young farmer determined to modernize his father's old-fashioned farm. His motto is "I'll do it my way". Philipp is fully committed and is even risking his relationship to attain his goals. The documentary paints a funny and charming picture of the two wayward heroes and presents an entertaining angle on the realities of contemporary society.

Les Frères Bapst, charretiers

The Bapst Brothers: Romain, Maurice and Jacques – whom we will also meet in The Gruyere Chronicle (produced in 1990) – are peasants and carriers and work with their father. In autumn and winter, they bid for the community’s wood, cut down the pine trees and bring down the logs through the snowy woods by horse-drawn sleigh.

Der lange Weg ans Licht

Koyaanisqatsi

Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.

Sen San Juan

The last representatives of Mixteco culture inhabit a village in the Sierra Madre. Deprived of their identity by modern civilization, they are facing an even bigger threat: a landslide that may destroy the village during the next torrential rains. The mayor tries to prevent the disaster. He wants to invite a geologist, so that the approaching danger can be officially confirmed. But no help is coming and the inhabitants must simply wait for the disaster.

Terres noires

Pseudo-ethnological documents about two villages which, without roads and electricity, "stopped existing"

El campo para el hombre

"El campo para el hombre" was a politically militant documentary about the small holdings of land in the north of Spain and the large estates in the south of the country. This film portrays the exploitation and misery of the Spanish peasants, but also their class-consciousness and their will to fight for their rights and freedom. The film was shot in the late years of Franco's dictatorship, so it was made in secrecy (the directors were connected to the Spanish Communist Party).

Wrestling For Jesus: The Tale of T-Money

A man from rural South Carolina tries to find solace from the demons of his past by starting a Christian professional wrestling league. His goal is to use wrestling to evangelize his neighbors. However his passion and vision for his ministry are tested when his personal life begins to disintegrate.

天竜区奥領家大沢　別所製茶工場

A documentary directed by Hori Teiichi who was a production assistant on the 1994 documentary Otentousama ga Hoshii and has worked in a wide variety of genres from pink films to ordinary theatrical releases. The lifestyle and scenery of Osawa, a village situated 740 meters up on the mountainous slopes of Hamamatsu city's northern region in Shizuoka Prefecture, are the focus of this first installment to the "Tenryu-ku" series. It straightforwardly captures the tea harvest in late May and the tea processing conducted in a factory while showcasing mist shrouded tea fields drummed by rain as well as the beauty of the glistening green of the tea leaf shoots.

North by Current

Filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax returns to his rural Michigan hometown following the death of his infant niece and the subsequent arrest of his brother-in-law as the culprit. Using the audio-visual approaches of essay film, first-person cinema vérité, staged actions, and decades of home movies, Madsen navigates a town steeped in opioid addiction, economic depression, and religious fervor, while using the act of filmmaking to rebuild familial bonds and reimagine justice. Posing empathy as a tool for creating a more just world, North By Current does not seek to investigate a crime, but creates a relentless portrait of an enduring pastoral family, poised to reframe and reimagine narratives about incarceration, addiction, trans embodiment, and ruralness.

Dans la forêt de Borek

Werner We Love You

When Werner Herzog was still a child, his father was beaten to death before his eyes. His mother was overwhelmed with his upbringing and thereupon shipped him off to one of the toughest youth welfare institutions in Freistatt. This was followed by a career as a bouncer in the city's most notorious music club and an attempt to start a family. Today, the 77-year-old from Bielefeld lives with his dog Lucky in a lonely house in the country. Despite adverse living conditions, he has survived in his own unique and inimitable way.

Bikes for Africa

Bikes for Africa is an entertaining, insightful and moving documentary following the life adventures of Hap Cameron and Mandy Todd, and their attempt to help implement a self sustainable bike workshop in rural Namibia with a container load secondhand donated bikes from Melbourne. The film investigates how a bicycle can fundamentally change the lives of rural Africans, and brings to focus the great works of two-wheeled charities Bicycles for Humanity and the Bicycling Empowerment Network Namibia.

Recuerdos en la tierra

Cisza

A portrait of a family living in a village in Masuria.

America's Hate Preachers

Director Hannah Livingston spends 6 months tracking two of America's most radical Christian hate groups - a notorious pastor from Arizona and a network of extremist preachers.

Navarra, las cuatro estaciones

Still

The documentary tells the story of Uschi, a farmer living free and recluded in the bavarian alps. Shot in epic black and white pictures, Still follows Uschi's life over a ten year period. From an untroubled summer of making cheese through pregnancy and the uncertain future of the parental farm, Matti Bauer portrays Uschi's struggle to keep alive the dream of a way of life that has become rather untypical in this day and age.

Lida

"LIDA" takes place on the day of Lida's 70th birthday. This already special day is made more unusual by the recent arrival of her grandson, Lev, who had immigrated to the United States with his family in 2001. Returning to Ukraine for the first time as an adult, Lev documents his grandmother as she tends to the small homestead and prepares for the birthday celebration in the rural village in Ukraine. By capturing moments of arduous labor, as well as through personal conversation, Lev inquires into his grandmothers relationship to her home, land - and their family.

Berbères des cimes

At the heart of the Moroccan High Atlas mountains, water is a resource in short supply. The village of Tizi N'Oucheg has undergone a transformation thanks to Rachid Mandili, who is well-aware that the development of his village depends on access to clean water and on his strong leadership of this project. Mandili rallies all the villagers together and calls upon the knowledge of French and Moroccan scientists to tap water sources, to purify, and reuse waste water for irrigation. The documentary highlights the Berbers' community ties and ingenuity in their dream of independently managing their village water resources. It equally paints a portrait of a man whose initiative and resourcefulness has opened Tizi N'Oucheg up to modernity while still conserving its cultural heritage. Tizi's example presents some of the problems of water access in semi-arid regions and puts forward concrete solutions to these problems.