Rebgong (Qinghai province, China) is well-known for its Tibetan Buddhist thangka art for centuries. However, Tibetan women were not allowed to learn or to paint thangkas, until recent years. Lutso is one of the few Tibetan female thangka painters in Rebgong. She is also a mother, a wife, and the oldest daughter in the family. The film captures Lutso’s unique life as a thangka painter, who has a career to develop and a family to support..
Brazilian Palestine
Marked by ethnic and cultural diversity, Rio Grande do Sul now houses thousands of Palestinian immigrants and their descendants. The communities born of the nakba – the Arabic word whose meaning is catastrophe or disaster – seek, in the diaspora, full integration and a new citizenship in Brazil. Today, they try to survive, grow and gain recognition for their economic, social and cultural contribution. But who are these immigrants and refugees? How do they live, preserve their identities and relate to local societies? How do you see your present reality and your future? Have your dreams of peace been fulfilled? Do you want to go back to the land where you were born? How do you perceive the current political storms in occupied Palestine? With scenes filmed in southern Brazil and the Middle East, the documentary “The Brazilian Palestine” reveals the roots, the degree of integration, the sense of belonging of six families reached by prejudices, persecutions and wars. It questions its current condition, and shows how men, women and young people stand in the face of their rights and the ethical and religious values of their traditional culture. They are narratives of the lived, that rescue lost places and stories that are behind. They are shared memories, letters, photographs and memories that re-live the past and how much of it is left in the present.
The Campfire Project
In December 2017, actress Jessica Hecht, producer Jenny Gersten, director Arin Arbus and music director Mary Mitchell Campbell made their first visit to the Ritsona Refugee Camp, one hour north of Athens. Their host was I AM YOU, an NGO devoted to bettering the lives of displaced persons through education, healthcare and legal support. The mission which Jessica was still planning became The Campfire Project.
Six months later, 15 international theatre artists, a psychiatrist, a NYC schoolteacher, a translator and a documentary crew returned to the camp. Over the next four weeks they created an Arabic language version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, provided basic educational assistance, ran wellness classes for residents of all ages and provided translation for the multitude of residents suffering from trauma- and stressor-related disorders. The film documents their journey.
Stories from Sicily
This documentary is a short snippet of the filmmaker’s grandfather’s life from being born in Sicily, going to school in fascist Italy, serving in the Italian army, then meeting his grandmother, immigrating to the United States, building a large family, and achieving the American Dream. Half of the film is from the perspective of the filmmaker’s grandfather while the second is from his grandmother’s and concludes with a mixture of the two. The film is a mixture of the expository and observational documentary modes told through the interview style with archival imagery displayed throughout.
Thaaiman agathigal
A kid from a sheep rearing family notices his father getting conned due to illiteracy and decides that getting educated is the best way to tackle the issue. This is a story whether he succeeded in his journeys.
Edu’Active: A journey through transformative experiences in basic education
Edu’Active is a documentary focused on education about transformative initiatives applied to public and private institutions of basic education that enhance students’ learning experience and promote autonomy using active learning pedagogies. Rethinking the role of the school, it investigates how the learner-centered teaching dynamics help to create the future education, more suited to contemporary needs.
Etzatlan
This project was the result of working with a theatre group in a small town in Mexico, they researched movement associated to their own memories, heritage and always with their grandparents in min.
Tambour ou Bola (Drum or Ball)
Inspired on Wilson’s Santos trajectory, the movie shows the journey of a musician and percussionist who found the Drums Orchestra of Alagoas, devoting his life to music and to the dissemination of popular percussion as a tool to social inclusion of poor youngers
Quilombola from North’s Santa Luzia, migrates to the state’s capital, drawn by his parents life’s needs. In Maceio, the boy grew up, like many other kids, without education, deprived from a dignified life, safe and warm. Sanked in a marginal world, full of needs, violence and criminality.
The film reveals the life trajectory of this real character, archetype of so many other real individuals from the Brazil periphery, face of those and each of us in our fight for survival, in our innocent memories, joys and daily difficulties. And yet, in a world where wolves devour wolves, a human being who feels and cares about the existence of so many other boys and girls, who survive at the crossroads of life, marginalized, creating and reinventing their own existence, their games and adventures, even without the aid of “Ariadne’s string” to guide them back to life and freedom. Contrary to the logic of an excludent society, with all of its adversities, our character finds in music the path to his human and professional affirmation and also an instrument to help other children and youngers.
Past Future
During an art residency (VIDEOFORMES’ Digital Artist Residency) in an agricultural high school at Yssingeaux, in the south of Auvergne (France), the Brazilian artist Kika Nicolela developed a project in collaboration with a group of students. Through different propositions, in which the camera is sometimes controlled by the artist, sometimes at the hands of these youngsters, a large amount of video was produced, a material that the artist did not touch for six years.
The film PAST FUTURE builds, simultaneously, a portrait of these teenagers – often anguished about their future – and a self portrait of the artist in a deep personal crisis, having as a background the rigorous winter and the landscape of Auvergne.
My World, Your World
Farmer, Activist, Monk and Drag Queen – Zoe Borzi’s documentary provides insights into four different ways of life by making the protagonists reflect on their modes of existence and the clichés associated with them. A film about diversity, diversity of different ways to live your life in Austria. Supporting Info and
This Project was a student project from the “Ortweinschule” http://www.ortweinschule.at/de/kunst-und-design/film
