Documentary
Kim, a Duluth, MN mother of three, is at the center of this compelling exploration of gender violence. As Kim and her daughters flee to a domestic violence shelter, we follow the harrowing struggles in a single-parenting survivor's quest to find work, housing and peace of mind.…
Self
Self
Self
Never before in Russian history has the Russian domestic intelligence services been more powerful than today. The FSB is a murky organisation that can ruin people’s lives who are deemed enemies of the Russian state and even commit murder on behalf of the Kremlin. Four people in exile open up about their experiences with the FSB.
A glimpse into the daily life of the women who work and stay in the shelter for battered women. The film collects their personal stories and throughout the process of accepting women into the shelter, starting with the operator of the emergency line and ending with the story of one of the women who lived there. The collection of stories is an opening that allows one to look at the topic of violence within the family, and to try and understand what a shelter is.
When Tehran hosts visiting foreign dignitaries, the local authorities clean up the city’s urban image through the controversial process of ‘urban beautification’. Those who are deemed unsavoury are rounded up – drug users, prostitutes and the homeless who sleep in cardboard boxes on sidewalks and who they would rather remain unseen. When these very important people leave, the men are released but the women are kept as wards of the state. An animated documentary made using hand-crafted cardboard miniatures and the voices of women to tell their story, one that has been five years in the making. A story that shows how the face of a city can change, but what is underneath often does not.
Breaking a centuries-old taboo, Ava stands as the first woman in Iran to master the male-dominated craft of carpentry. Within the grit and clamor of the workshop, she confronts a society that deems her presence forbidden. This observational documentary captures her daily battle against physical hardships and social judgment.
What happens to families in the absence of sons? What happens to land in the absence of farmers? What happens to villages in the absence of men? Sent Away Boys weaves together stories of individual ambitions and family biographies from Punjab (India) to chronicle the gradual transformation of agrarian landscape and patriarchal traditions through ongoing transnational migration. As the promise of a secure future in agriculture grows increasingly uncertain for young men across the region, escaping India to join the low-wage labor in countries like Canada and USA becomes their sole aspiration. In rural Punjab, being a successful man now entails leaving their village, traveling abroad, and sending money home. Through interviews with men preparing to undertake often risky journeys and women awaiting the return of their sons, brothers and husbands, Sent Away Boys shows how young men's decisions to emigrate implicate families and communities across North India.
The Other Side of Burka is a 2004 Iranian documentary directed by Mehrdad Oskouei. In the southern island of Qeshm, Iran, which is a very strict region in point of tradition and African-Arabic rules, all women are under the pressure of patriarch society. Their sufferance is manifested by different mental (Zar, Possession) and physical diseases which must be only treated by Zar Ceremony. For the first time, despite the danger these women face, this film tells us the sad story of their life and shows their confection in front of the camera. It tries to be an honest mirror which reflects their sufferance and unveils their Burka to reveal their real characters.
