Sanctuary

Everyday in Gaza

Filmed in the heart of the Gaza Strip in the spring of 2025 and produced by WeWorld as part of a project funded by the European Union, in collaboration with Save the Children, the film tells everyday stories of resistance and humanity: a barber who continues to welcome his clients amid the rubble, restoring dignity and beauty; Wafa, a woman who dedicates her life to children with disabilities or those who have been orphaned, offering care, education, play, and a sense of normalcy. An intimate narrative that illuminates the strength of the community even in one of the world's most fragile and war-torn contexts, like Gaza, where the population has been under constant attack for two years and under blockade for over 18 years.

Un racisme à peine voilé

October 2003, Alma and Lila Levy are excluded from the Lycée Henri Wallon in Aubervilliers solely because they were wearing a headscarf. What follows is a deafening political and media debate, justifying in most cases the exclusion of girls wearing head-scarves to school. February 2004, a law was eventually passed by the National Assembly. "A thinly veiled racism" is about this controversy since the affair of Creil in 1989 (where two schoolgirls were excluded for the same reasons) and attempts to "reveal" that maybe what hides behind is the desire to exclude these girls. This film gives them a voice as well as others - teachers, community activists, feminists, researchers - gathered around the group "A School for You-All" fighting for the repeal of this law they consider sexist and racist ... This movie was censured in Septembre 2004 in France.

Rikers

This film from Bill Moyers is the first documentary to focus exclusively on people formerly detained in New York City’s notorious Rikers Island Jail. They tell their compelling stories direct to the camera, revealing the violent arc of the Rikers experience – from the trauma of entry to extortion and control by inmates, to oppressive corrections officers, violence and solitary confinement.

Trial and Error

This Anti-ELAB (Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill) Movement documentary short takes us back to the airport occupation on 12 August 2019. Although this new form of protest soon turned into a crisis, it became an important lesson for the protesters. Compared to the tension inside the airport terminal, the long walk home at sunset on the Lantau highway, which connects the Hong Kong International Airport to the residential areas, felt like a reminiscence of a school field trip.

Visit Palestine

What drives a young, well-educated Westerner to volunteer as a “peace activist” in the Middle East? Caiomhe Butterly is one of a growing number of volunteers who risk their own safety to intervene in the long-running and bloody conflict between Israel and Palestine. Several internationals, including her, have now been injured. Some have died. In this film, she describes witnessing the aftermath of the attack on Jenin in April 2002. The film follows her work, the main emphasis being “the accompaniment of communities at risk”. Despite being threatened, shot in the leg and deported later that year, she is determined to go back.

Menino Joel

Documentary about Joel da Conceição Castro, a ten years old boy killed by a police bullet in 2010.

Os Mortos Resistirão Para Sempre

Cinepoem about the current Palestinian tragedy, with Brazilian films from 1922 and 1932 (the indigenous catastrophe), documentaries from 2023/2024, essays by Jean-Luc Godard, Hani Jawharieh and Mustafa Abu Ali, statements by Edgar Morin and Noam Chomsky, and a poem by Mahmud Darwich.

Home Feeling: Struggle for a Community

This feature documentary takes us to the heart of the Jane-Finch "Corridor" in the early 1980s. Covering six square blocks in Toronto's North York, the area readily evokes images of vandalism, high-density subsidized housing, racial tension, despair and crime. By focusing on the lives of several of the residents, many of them black or members of other visible minorities, the film provides a powerful view of a community that, contrary to its popular image, is working towards a more positive future.

Bus 174

On 12 June 2000, in Rio de Janeiro, Ônibus 174 was taken by an armed young man, threatening to kill all the passengers. Transmitted live on all national networks, this shocking and tragic event became one of violence's most shocking portraits, and one of the most terrifying examples of police incompetence and abuse in recent years.

Kofia: A Revolution Through Music

The inside story of the Palestinian-Swedish band Kofia, told through film and music. Singer-songwriter George Totari fled Palestine during Israel's 1967 war and founded a band dedicated to liberation. Bringing the sounds and struggles of the Palestinians.

I ragazzi di Hebron

Bil'in Habibti

The Israeli filmmaker Shai Corneli Polak records the building of the 'security wall' through Palestinian territory at the village of Bil'in. The villagers protest mostly peacefully, while the Israeli army doesn't react peacefully. By now the Israeli High Court has ruled that the building of the wall was illegal.

Burn Motherfucker, Burn!

An in-depth and provocative look at the 1992 Los Angeles riots exploring the roots of civil unrest in California and the relationship between African Americans and LAPD.

In Defense of Justice in Denver

The only people charged over the brutal police murder of Elijah McClain are community activists who organized mass peaceful demonstrations calling for justice. They are facing up to 48 years in prison - among the highest charges for peaceful political protest in recent history.

LA 92

Twenty-five years after the verdict in the Rodney King trial sparked several days of protests, violence and looting in Los Angeles, LA 92 immerses viewers in that tumultuous period through stunning and rarely seen archival footage.

Better Dead Than Drafted

Yonatan, an ultra-Orthodox young man protesting against conscription into the IDF, offering his perspective on the yeshiva, the conscription, and socks.

A State of Passion

A feature-length documentary film by Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi. After 43 horrific days working round the clock under constant bombardment in the emergency rooms of Gaza’s Al Shifa and Al Ahli hospitals, British-Palestinian reconstructive surgeon, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, emerged to find himself as a face of Palestinian resistance.

West of the Jordan River

Amos Gitai returns to the occupied territories for the first time since his 1982 documentary FIELD DIARY. WEST OF THE JORDAN RIVER describes the efforts of citizens, Israelis and Palestinians, who are trying to overcome the consequences of occupation. Gitai's film shows the human ties woven by the military, human rights activists, journalists, mourning mothers and even Jewish settlers. Faced with the failure of politics to solve the occupation issue, these men and women rise and act in the name of their civic consciousness. This human energy is a proposal for long overdue change.

Zeit der Verleumder

A documentary by Dror Dayan and Susann Witt-Stahl, Germany 2021

From Spikes to Spindles

This raw, gutsy portrait of New York's Chinatown captures the early days of an emerging consciousness in the community. We see a Chinatown rarely depicted, a vibrant community whose young and old join forces to protest police brutality and hostile real estate developers. With bold strokes, it paints an overview of the community and its history, from the early laborers driving spikes into the transcontinental railroad to the garment workers of today.