A Bunch of Questions With No Answers

Princess Diana: The Mourning After

In "Diana: The Mourning After" Christopher Hitchens sets out to examine the bogusness of "a nation's grief", tries to uncover the few voices of sanity that cut against the grain of contrived hysteria. His findings suggested that the collective hordes of emotive Dianaphiles sobbing in the streets were not only encouraged but emulated by the media. In the aftermath of Diana's death a three-line whip was enforced on newspapers and on TV, selling the sainthood line wholesale. The suspicion was that journalists, like the public, greeted the death as a chance to wax emotional in print, as a change from the customary knowing cynicism, to wheel out all those portentous phrases they'd been saving up for the big occasion. Sadly, they just seemed to be showboating; the eulogies, laments and tear-soaked platitudes ringing risibly hollow.

La Ballade des sans-papiers

Even the Walls Cry

October 7, 2023 was one of the deadliest days of fighting ever in Israel, with around 1,200 people killed after Hamas launched its attack and 250 taken hostage – many of whom have either died in captivity or not yet released. The project features testimony from four victims and first responders, who witnessed the massacre and its aftermath: a farmer who helped rescue young people, a young survivor of the Nova music festival who took refuge in a shelter only to witness friends being murdered, an ultra-orthodox musician who volunteered to identify victims, and a mother whose son was kidnapped and taken to Gaza. A sentence uttered by the musician, who had seen 100 dead bodies in a single day, was the inspiration behind the title.

Yamamoto Senji Watanabe Masanosuke Worker-Farmer Funeral

After his Tokyo farewell ceremony, Yamamoto's ashes were sent to Kyoto on March 9. Many friends and citizens gathered at his home in Uji. On the 15th a worker-farmer funeral was held at the Sanjo YMCA. Prokino's Kyoto Branch shot these five days of activities. The long line of cars is filled with taxis, whose drivers deeply admired Yamamoto. The Watanabe in the title refers to the head of the Communist Party of Japan. Watanabe was returning to Japan from Taiwan when he was stopped by authorities. He committed suicide in their custody. Yamamoto and Watanabe were mourned together.

America first, the Nazi plot

April 17, 1944. A high-profile trial for sedition opens in Washington. Dozens of individuals—including members of Congress—are accused of cooperating with German forces, participating in pro-Nazi movements, and plotting to overthrow the U.S. government. How did this happen in the world's greatest democracy? And why does no one remember this major episode in American history?

Gaza Fights for Freedom

Gaza Fights for Freedom depicts the ongoing Great March of Return protests in the Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine, that began in 2018.

Alvaro Cunhal

A personal biography of the leader of the PCP (Portuguese Communist Party) seen through the eyes of those who were close to him and those who studied his trajectory and thought.

1948

The documentary records the memories of a group of Palestinian elders, mainly veterans from the 1948 expulsions. Their stories of refugee struggles are interspersed with poems of Mahmoud Darwish.

Uncensored Women

The story of a group of actresses who, in the Spain of the seventies, and in the midst of the democratic Transition, decided to appear nude in the films of that time of radical political change, defying the rigid and deeply rooted social rules.

The Good Canadian

The world knows the image of the good Canadian. But what if there was a dark secret behind a national identity? THE GOOD CANADIAN exposes the truth behind the idea of a True North strong and free. In this unflinching and eye-opening documentary, directors Leena Minifie and David Paperny move us through the corridors of systemic inequity, from the Indian Act to residential schools, to modern-day family separation. Fusing shocking footage with detailed interviews with experts, advocates, whistleblowers and politicians, THE GOOD CANADIAN challenges national myth-making, while offering Canadians the chance to forge a new identity from the truth.

When We Were Apollo

Who were the men and women of Project Apollo? Where are they today? What do they think of the extraordinary effort they helped make possible? Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing in 2019, When We Were Apollo is an intimate and personal look at the Apollo Space Program through the lives and experiences of some of its most inspiring behind-the-scenes figures: engineers, technicians, builders and contractors who spent the better part of a decade working to get us to the moon and back.

Torn: The Israel-Palestine Poster War on New York City Streets

After Hamas kidnapped 251 people from Israel on October 7, and as Israel’s war in Gaza unfolded, a conflict thousands of miles away erupted on New York’s walls. TORN captures the emotional fallout of the now-iconic “KIDNAPPED” poster campaign - a grassroots act of solidarity that quickly became a flashpoint, igniting fierce confrontations between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian New Yorkers. Through the voices of artists, activists, and hostage families, the film unpacks the motivations behind those putting up and tearing down the posters, exposing a complex proxy war fought in stickers, slogans, and torn paper. By revealing how a distant war fractured daily life in one of the world’s most diverse cities, the film forces a reckoning with identity, free speech, and empathy in an age of polarization.

Gaza, Since October 7

Montage film by Aymeric Caron, broadcast at the French National Assembly on May 29, 2024. “Is it a dream or a reality? » demands a little girl stunned by her injuries. It is a nightmare, without a doubt, and nothing can justify it, neither the crimes of October 7 nor the detention of Israeli hostages by Hamas. Condemning all the crimes of October 7, before and after, condemning anti-Semitism and all forms of racism is common sense. However, it seems that this needs to be clarified. Everyone present normally wishes that the surviving hostages can one day be reunited with their families and that the massacre in Gaza stops immediately. But to follow through with the process is to see things face to face, to see what has been happening in Gaza since October 7, what the Israeli army is doing, what the television channels are not showing.

Severed

Severed tells the story of Mohamad Saleh, an 18-year-old from Gaza who has lived through five major assaults on the Gaza Strip. In those attacks, he lost his home, family members, his best friends, and, at the age of 12, his leg. Now living in exile in Egypt, Mohamad struggles to piece together the shattered fragments of his life. Through his eyes, the pain and trauma endured by thousands in Gaza are laid bare, alongside their remarkable strength, resilience, and determination to live.

444 jours qui ont fait plier l'Amérique

On January 20, 1981, 52 members of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran were released after 444 days of captivity. Told by those who lived through it, a crisis that traumatized America and upset the political balance in the Middle East.

Letter to My Tribe

Letter to My Tribe started with a question: Why don’t more Jews and Israelis speak out about Palestine? Over many years my mother, who represents a more messianic perspective, and I have had numerous arguments, some recorded, some not. These form the backbone of this video essay in which Israelis and Jews, journalists, activists and a rabbi are interviewed, and in which documentation of actions on the ground, in the West Bank, are woven with more personal family histories and journeys to Iraq and to Poland.

Rather Be Ashes Than Dust

Memories of his four-year journey focused on the Hong Kong protests. Narrated in the first person, is rich with reflections and contemplations, most intertwined with feelings of guilt.

Karikpo Pipeline

The Karikpo masquerade - a traditional dance of the Ogoni tribe - is transposed onto the remnants of a faded oil industry programme in the Niger delta.

Stacey on the Front Line: Girls, Guns and Isis

September 2016: Stacey Dooley embeds herself on the frontline with the extraordinary all-female Yazidi battalion, who are fuelled to take revenge against the so-called Islamic State. As the battle to take Mosul from ISIS advances in Northern Iraq, in this extraordinary film for BBC Three, Stacey finds these young women's lives have been transformed by a desire to avenge their loved ones who were murdered by Isis.

Relatively Free

A short film following the release of journalist and activist Barrett Brown from prison, and his drive across Texas to a halfway house. 'Relatively Free' is an examination of Brown's return to a very different world, post the election.