Flee

2017 Oscar Nominated Short Films: Documentary

The Nansen Passport

On July 5th, 1922, Norwegian explorer, scientist and diplomat Fridtjof Nansen creates a passport with which, between 1922 and 1945, he managed to protect the fundamental human rights as citizens of the world of thousands of people, famous and anonymous, who became stateless due to the tragic events that devastated Europe in the first quarter of the 20th century.

Riverboom

In the year following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, young journalist Claude Baechtold finds himself in the war zone of Afghanistan. Not entirely voluntarily, the avowed anti-militarist is dragged by two fearless reporters on a round trip through the entire country.

Testament

As the war wages on, Ukrainians under everyday threat find ways to live. A soldier returns home, a chaplain grapples with the weight of responsibility, and a mother grieves the loss of her family. These stories, amidst others, are a testament of Ukraine’s history, perseverance and plea to be remembered.

Art and Pep

Art Johnston and Pepe Peña are civil rights leaders whose life and love is a force behind LGBTQ+ equality in the heart of the country. Their iconic gay bar, Sidetrack, has helped fuel movements and create community for decades in Chicago's queer enclave. But, behind the business and their historic activism exists a love unlike any other.

June 1940, the Great Chaos

From May 10, 1940, France is living one of the worst tragedies of it history. In a few weeks, the country folds, and then collapsed in facing the attack of the Nazi Germany. On June 1940, each day is a tragedy. For the first time, thanks to historic revelations, and to numerous never seen before images and documents and reenacted situations of the time, this film recounts the incredible stories of those men and women trapped in the torment of this great chaos.

The Water Map

The Water Map is an essayistic journey through the ethnography and landscapes of the Region of Murcia. These places are in the process of disappearing due to the increasing and abundant agricultural exploitation. Water has marked the territory and the culture of the area, and with its disappearance, the memories of four characters fade away.

5x7

A beautiful collection of pictures ties Frank Cancian, an elderly photographer and retired professor of anthropology, American with origin from Veneto, to the people of Lacedonia, a small town in southern Italy. Thanks to the rediscovery of the photos taken in 1957 by the young Cancian in that rural village where he had arrived almost by chance, the story resumes there where it was interrupted 60 years earlier. And the thread of memories ties back to people and places, bringing with itself some essential reflections on how photography can become an ethnographic look at small communities.

Full

A collage film documenting dissociation, sexual assault, and all the times I didn't have words for myself.

Penis Poetry

This is a poetic film about The Penis becoming a diary with a unique story to tell. Penis Poetry is made in collaboration with Andre Medeiros Martins who wrote on his lovers' penises his personal thoughts. Andre's words reflect how much our modern society glorifies the exhibition of The Penis, how much we worship it and how much social media and apps allowed us to share our most private parts with the world.

A Scavenger Hunt For People Loneliest In Their Own Homes

An eighteen-step scavenger hunt for people loneliest in their own homes. This animated video collage serves as a survival guide and an ode to the imaginations that protect us. Statement from Daniel Lobb, the Director: Our performance is first and foremost a resource for people who are isolated in unsupportive homes. It presents self-preservation strategies to those who rely on media and imagination to withstand in potentially abusive environments. The composition is based on the writer, Lexie Bean, growing up as queer, trans, and a survivor of incest in Michigan and Ohio, which we’ve all processed through our respective art forms. These iterations of inspiration and reformation ultimately led us to a video collage and sound-score that seek to buoy the main text: an ode to imagination, a scavenger hunt, a survival guide. Our hope is to bolster the viewer’s capacity for imaginative resilience.

Attila

Filmmaker Stephen Hosier takes a journey with Richard Csanyi, his childhood friend, as he investigates the life and death of his twin brother Attila, who was found dead on a rooftop in 2020.

Secrets of the Gay Sauna

Gay saunas are places where men meet strangers to have sex. With exclusive access to one Nottingham business, this candid one-off documentary enters the often controversial and always secretive world of the gay sauna for the very first time. The programme meets the people who go there for sexual pleasure - from teachers to plumbers to Tory councillors - and the staff who clean up after them.

The Stranger by the Shore

Abandoned after coming out, Shun befriends Mio just before he has to move. Years later, Mio returns with a confession. How will Shun feel?

How It Was Done in Odesa... or Odessans of All Countries, Unite!

A concert movie dedicated to the formation of the World Club of Odesa under the leadership of Mikhail Zhvanetsky. "Let many people be proud of the expanses and fields," says Mikhail Zhvanetsky himself about his favorite city, "someone falls to his favorite birch tree, thinking that it grows only here. We have the only homeland - Odesa, the only party of Odessites. Odesa is halfway around the world, from America to Australia. Odesa is a phenomenon, an Odessite is a character. Odesa was, is and will be one of the most famous cities on this temporal globe. And we, who stayed, and you, who left, will live and live with it.... Odesa is worth dedicating your youth and old age to it, and it will repay you like a native land".

The Boy of The Fish

"The Boy Of The Fish" follows Noon, a young boy living in a Syrian refugee camp, who finds solace and a sense of freedom in a whale-shaped doll he names "Bahr." Set against the challenging realities of camp life, Noon’s journey is both a story of resilience and a testament to the boundless imagination of childhood. Through vivid symbolism and a unique soundscape, the film explores themes of loss, hope, and the longing for freedom amidst confinement. Shot entirely on an iPhone due to restrictions in the conflict zone, the film combines raw authenticity with poetic depth to capture the emotional landscape of a young soul navigating adversity.

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. With news footage of him pale and shell-shocked reverberating around the world, he spoke of a catalogue of horrors from lacerated bodies, to amputations without anesthetics, orphaned children with no surviving family, and the deliberate targeting of medics and hospital facilities.

Chicago 10

Archival footage, animation and music are used to look back at the eight anti-war protesters who were put on trial following the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Tent City

The story of a group of Cubans who arrived in Miami during the Mariel Boatlift and were housed in an improvised camp in the heart of the city. Everyone lived together —men and women, homosexuals and heterosexuals, separated only by cloth curtains that hung from ropes suspended between the beds, like floating walls.

Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain

An intimate, behind-the-scenes look at how an anonymous chef became a world-renowned cultural icon. This unflinching look at Anthony Bourdain reverberates with his presence, in his own voice and in the way he indelibly impacted the world around him.