Behind the Mask

Oaxacalifornia: The Return

The Mejia family emigrated from Oaxaca to Fresno, California 40 years ago. Filmmaker Trisha ZIff filmed the family in 1996, and returns now to see the changes that have settled over them, and follows the family on their return to Mexico.

La Trifulca I. Five Billion Dollar. A Trilogy

An exodus of migrants settled in Tijuana and they hope to cross each day regardless of the consequences, the children tell us what they see, want and what they are willing to pay.

SON

A mother and her homeless son’s last line of communication–cement walls, electrical cabinets and dusty windows.

News from São Paulo

A discussion with her family brings a daughter an occasion to ponder the past. Presence and absence lead to an immersion into memories, and ultimately, to the future.

Was uns bindet

A documentary about the parents of director Ivette Löcker, who have been living apart in their shared home for 20 years.

Pāragate

From Belgium, Jialai Wang maintains contact via smartphone and camera with her mother and grandmother in China. When her grandmother’s health deteriorates, Jialai returns to Shanghai, but when she arrives, her grandmother has already died, and she is left alone with her mother. A devout Buddhist, her mother seems to pay more attention to her daily prayers, Maoist past and dog Dongdong than she does to her daughter. She herself had been abandoned as a child by her own mother, when she divorced Jialai’s grandfather and moved to the city.

After You

"My mother is spending all her time with her dying father. I’m spending all my time filming her. As the end is getting closer, my mother and I start doing the filming more and more together. It becomes our way of dealing with the time we have left." —Marius Dybwad Brandrud

Parasisi

On the border of Surinam and French Guyana, indigenous Wayana territory is overrun by intruders. Illegal gold miners poison the river, missionaries repress indigenous identity, and even doctors with the best intentions leave marks that are often silently violent. The Wayana call these intruders Parasisi.

Whitney: Can I Be Me

The life and tragic death of Whitney Houston.

Chuy, The Wolf Man

Jesus 'Chuy' Aceves and a dozen living members of his extended family suffer from the very rare condition of congenital hypertrichosis, meaning they were born with excessive hair on their faces and bodies. Due to their appearance, they suffer from discrimination in all areas of their lives: the children are made fun of at school and abandoned by their 'non-hairy' parents, and the adults cannot find work unless they choose to exhibit themselves as freaks in circuses. This moving and visually arresting documentary is a portrait of Chuy and his family members. It examines their day-to-day lives and their struggle to find love, acceptance and employment.

This Beggar's Description

It's a sensitive, moving doc chronicling the life of Tétrault's brother Philip , a Montreal poet, musician and diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. A promising athlete as a child, Philip began experiencing mood swings in his early 20s. His extended family, including his daughter, share their conflicted feelings love, guilt, shame, anger with the camera. They want to make sure he's safe, but how much can they take?

Behind Banana Vacuum

What is a true punk band? We sit down with St. John's punk band, Banana Vacuum, to explore punk culture and question what it takes to be punk in today's world. This new band has gained some notoriety in the past year for it's unusual lead singer and themes throughout the album. This film explore the people behind Banana Vacuum and the music that has made fans all over Canada go wild for their unapologetic true punk identity.

The Tattooed Police Horse

Barred from racing for breaking stride, a trotting horse finds a new career as a police officer's mount in Boston.

A Conversation Between Parents

A year after Thadd and Shannon gave birth to their son, A Conversation Between Parents highlights a climactic conversation in their lives -- as both young parents grasp at the last threads of their ideal family. On an afternoon off of work, the couple sits on their couch, while their son sleeps in his crib, and the family grapples with their limited options one last time. Dietrich’s camera ties the couple’s painful conversation together with flashbacks of both parents’ precious memories of their first year with Jasper, attempting to find a way to articulate their struggles in the last conversation they have together as a couple.

Ensayos y errores

Fie

An older woman cooks for a fisherman by the sea.

Homebound

Through first person narration, Tari reveals personal stories related to her decision to work in Taiwan, her strained family relationships, the risks involved in working abroad and the traps she has fallen into.

Alma Anciana

Three juxtaposing stories taking place in Portugal, Austria and Cuba create an intimate and poetic portrait of the daily lives and struggles of the elderly in an unstable world, seen through the eyes of their grandchildren.

La bisabuela tiene Alzheimer

A meeting between the daughter and the grandmother of the director, Iván Mora Manzano, at a time when the memories of one, the girl’s, were taking shape, and the other’s the grandmother’s, were vanishing. This starting point is used as a pretext to talk about other topics such as the importance of family memories and the search for memory.

A Distant Noise

During the rice sowing season, Jun, a young Catalan of Chinese origin, works as a seasonal worker in the Ebro Delta. This ancient labour will make him confront his own roots and the distance that separates him from his family.