This is the story of the last two Jews in Afghanistan. All the other Jews have left a long time ago. Isaac and Zabulon live alone in the abandoned synagogue…
For the past ten years, Zabulon and Isaac, the two remaining Jews in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, have been living in the courtyard of Kabul’s old synagogue. The elderly…
Angry Monk is a road-movie and a time-travel in the footsteps of the rebellious Tibetan monk Gendun Choephel (1903-51), revealing a face of old and present-day Tibet that goes against popular clichés.
A free spirit, Choephel was far ahead of his time and has since become a seminal figure, a symbol of hope for a free Tibet. A rebel and…
In Malagasy, “Mahaleo” means free, independent.
Mahaleo’s voices and music have accompanied the people of Madagascar ever since the collapse of the colonial regime. Yet, even after 30 years of success, the group’s seven musicians still keep their distance from the world of show-business, and remain deeply committed to helping their country’s development; their professions range from surgeon to farmer,…
Like many Sri Lankan families, Dharsika’s father died in the war. She stayed with the family just long enough to bury her father, then disappeared into the guerilla’s hands.
Dharsika and Puhalchudar have a close friendship. For seven years they have been eating, sleeping, training and fighting side by side. They belong to the last batch of the Black…
This is a lyrical film about four children living in an orphanage in Xinjiang province, China. The children are Uighurs, members of China’s eight million strong largest Muslim minority. To prevent Uighur separatism, China enforces a policy of cultural and political assimilation in Xinjiang: religion is particularly targeted. (Human Rights Watch reports that 10 000 Uighurs are political prisoners, and…
In the Daliang Mountain region of Sichuan China, lives the ancient tribal Yi minority. Their priests are called Bimo.For hundreds even thousands of years, the Bimo have relied on memorized scriptures to communicate their people’s desires with the ghosts and spirits of the world.This film follows the story of three very different Bimos.
The Spell Casting Bimo comes from a…
Framed by the beautiful poetry of the oppressed Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas, this revealing documentary features memorable portraits of five gay men and one transsexual woman living in and around Havana. Their disparate stories and candid interviews dispel myths while demonstrating a range of experience, opinion and social status: A vibrant nineteen year old, Raudel attends illegal gay parties, since…
According to the belief of ‘Sufis’, the mystical Islamic, ‘Mast’ is someone who walks the road of love to reach his beloved Saint, one who is in a state of ecstasy, absorbed in an inner rhythm of meditation and trance in his search for spiritual love. ‘Mast Qalandar’ was a Sufi Saint, who settled down in Sehwan Sharif in the…
Chichester’s Choice follows filmmaker, Simonee as she investigates the life of her homeless father, Edgar Chichester who abandoned her at six years old. Twenty-three years later, Simonee journeys to the streets of Guyana and Brazil to find and reunite with her father in the hopes of forgiving and understanding him while coming to terms with who she is. It is…
“City of Memories” depicts the lives of elderly people living in a Taipei nursery home: their agony, longing and loneliness. Images of winterly Taipei, with its drizzling rain and gloomy sky, reflect these aged women’s fading mind. In the midst of all the suffering, the women’s ballad singing and story telling bring back the emotional memories of their love lives.…
Every Lantern Festival in eastern Taiwan, a group of men strips bare above the waist, and wearing nothing but red shorts, stands on a sacred palanquin, allowing people to pound their bodies with bottlerockets, singeing their skin. They are believed to be human incarnations of the god Handan. The “Scorching of Handan” has in recent years become a major event…
“Chiao Wan Jan”, the children hand puppet troupe established in 1988, is sited at Ping-Deng Elementary School, a mini school just has one hundred more students, located on Yang-Ming Mount., Taipei. Tu- Deng Yueh-Sheng is a Tibetan girl who spent three years to practice and overcome language barrier, now she is on stage to be a female hand puppet performer.…