Carmen Miranda: Bananas Is My Business

A biography of the Portuguese-born Brazilian singer Carmen Miranda, whose most distinctive feature was her tutti-frutti hat. From her arrival in the US as the "Brazilian Bombshell" to her Broadway career and Hollywood stardom in the 1940s.

Chhabili

Following Israeli author Amos Oz over two years, as he meets readers and discusses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Along the way, Oz offers advice to Israeli president Shimon Peres, and is seen with fellow writers Salman Rushdie, Paul Auster and Nadine Gordimer, and the Palestinian intellectual Sari Nusseibeh.

The Fabulous Ice Age

For decades, American touring ice shows dominated family entertainment with their dazzling production and variety acts. This documentary honors them through interviews and archival footage, and depicts one skater's quest to keep this history alive.

It Changed My Life: Bikini Kill in the UK

In 1993, Bikini Kill toured the UK with grrrl associates Huggy Bear. Lucy Thane made a documentary about the trip, also featuring appearances from the Raincoats, Sister George, and Skinned Teen.

Trip to Asia - Die Suche nach dem Einklang

Journey with the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic and their conductor Sir Simon Rattle on a breakneck concert tour of six metropolises across Asia: Beijing, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo. Their artistic triumph onstage belies a dynamic and dramatic life backstage. The orchestra is a closed society that observes its own laws and traditions, and in the words of one of its musicians is, “an island, a democratic microcosm – almost without precedent in the music world - whose social structure and cohesion is not only founded on a common love for music but also informed by competition, compulsion and the pressure to perform to a high pitch of excellence... .” Never before has the Berlin Philharmonic allowed such intimate and exclusive access into its private world.

Sono Guido e non Guido

Poets Against the Bomb

An event organised by CND pits the bomb against poetry. Hear artists who hoped that words and rhymes could put an end to destructive times.

El Canto de las Moscas

The experimental animated film Song of the Flies (El Canto de las Moscas), translates the desolation caused by the violence of the Colombian armed conflict through the poetic voice of Maria Mercedes Carranza (1945–2003) and the audiovisual dialogue between 9 Colombian women. In 24 places, as a transit over the course of a day (Morning, Day, Night) a map of terror is drawn where massacres took place in Colombia in the 1990s. Archival images, the artists’ personal memories and the use of loops and analogue materials bring to life the landscapes ravaged by violence and build a polyphony of memory and mourning, a universal song of pain.

West End Jungle

1961 documentary about the history and seedy reality of the sex industry in London's Soho.

Hannah: Buddhism's Untold Journey

'Hannah' tells the story of Buddhist pioneer Hannah Nydahl and her life bringing Tibetan Buddhism to the West. From her idealistic roots in 1960's Copenhagen to the hippie trail in Nepal, Hannah and her husband Ole became two of the first Western students of His Holiness the 16th Karmapa - the first consciously reincarnated lama of Tibet in 1110. Hannah went on to become an assistant and translator for some of the most powerful Tibetan lamas and a bridge between Buddhism in the East and the West.

Komunia

When adults are ineffectual, children have to grow up quickly. Ola is 14 and she takes care of her dysfunctional father, autistic brother and a mother who lives apart from them and is mainly heard the phone. Most of all she wants to reunite a family that simply doesn’t work — like a defective TV set. She lives in the hope of bringing her mother back home. Her 13 year old brother Nikodem’s Holy Communion is a pretext for the family to meet up. Ola is entirely responsible for preparing the perfect family celebration. “Communion” reveals the beauty of the rejected, the strength of the weak and the need for change when change seems impossible. This crash course in growing up teaches us that failure is not final. Especially when love is in question.

The People of the Kattawapiskak River

Alanis Obomsawin’s documentary The People of the Kattawapiskak River exposes the housing crisis faced by 1,700 Cree in Northern Ontario, a situation that led Attawapiskat’s band chief, Theresa Spence, to ask the Canadian Red Cross for help. With the Idle No More movement making front page headlines, this film provides background and context for one aspect of the growing crisis.

The Unanswered Question III : Musical Semantics

This series comprised six lectures on music, which cumulatively took the title of a work by Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question. Bernstein drew analogies to other disciplines, such as poetry, aesthetics, and especially linguistics, hoping to make these lectures accessible to an audience with limited or no musical experience, while maintaining an intelligent level of discourse:Semantics is the study of meaning in language, and Bernstein's third lecture, "musical semantics", accordingly, is Bernstein's first attempt to explain meaning in music. Although Bernstein defines musical semantics as "meaning, both musical and extramusical" this lecture focuses exclusively on the "musical" version of meaning.

Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids

Documentary depicting the lives of child prostitutes in the red light district of Songachi, Calcutta. Director Zana Briski went to photograph the prostitutes when she met and became friends with their children. Briski began giving photography lessons to the children and became aware that their photography might be a way for them to lead better lives.

Wege Gottes

A dual portrait of young drifters on the streets of Odessa, where every day seems the same and the future keeps getting further away.

Full Metal Village

The film describes the microcosmos of the small village Wacken and shows the clash of the cultures, before and during the biggest heavy metal festival in Europe.

Here One Day

When filmmaker Kathy Leichter moved back into her childhood home after her mother's suicide, she discovered a hidden box of audiotapes. Sixteen years passed before she had the courage to delve into this trove, unearthing details that her mother had recorded about every aspect of her life from the challenges of her marriage to a State Senator, to her son’s estrangement, to her struggles with bipolar disorder. HERE ONE DAY is a visually arresting, emotionally candid film about a woman coping with mental illness, her relationships with her family, and the ripple effects of her suicide on those she loved.

完美生活

Perfect Life, the second feature by Emily Tang (Tang Xiaobai), at first revolves around Li Yueying, a young woman in the cold north-east of China. In a world where no one is waiting for an untrained, inexperienced woman, she knows that in order to fulfil her dreams she will have to resort to her own stubbornness and selfishness. Her father deserted her mother and the money saved by the family is destined for her younger brother's studies. When she stops working for a shop making artificial limbs in order to take a job as a chambermaid, she attracts the attention of a mysterious criminal, Mongol. Then in the editing, the documentary story of Jenny from Hong Kong starts to emerge. She thought she had her life perfectly worked out, but when her marriage breaks down, she also finds herself in financial problems and has to fight for the custody of her children.

فيلم ليس للكرامة جدران

'Karama has no walls' is set amidst Yemen's 2011 uprising. The film illustrates the nature of the Yemeni revolution in stark contrast to the gross violations of human rights that took place on Friday, March 18th 2011. Juma'at El-Karama (Friday of Dignity) marks a turning point in the Yemeni revolution as the tragic events that took place on this day -when pro-government snipers shot dead 53 protestors - shook the nation and propelled hundreds of thousands more to flock to the square in solidarity with their fellow citizens. Through the lenses of two cameramen and the accounts of two fathers, the film retells the story of the people behind the statistics and news reports, encapsulating the tragic events of the day as they unfolded.

Rencontres particulières