Current Films

Cuba and cream cakes. An old pastry cook, who has to work in an indus­tri­al bakery – despite long having reached retire­ment age. A hobby baker in the menopause with … read more

A sit­u­a­tion report from the Gaza Strip in Feb­ru­ary 2009, just one month after the end of Israel’s mil­i­tary offen­sive. Destruc­tion every­where. The bombs did not even spare the theme … read more

Bombay, Indi­a’s gate­way to the West, has rein­vent­ed itself and emerged as Mumbai, a modern, self­con­fi­dent com­mer­cial metrop­o­lis. A magnet for the hopes of the rich and poor. But with thou­sands of migrants pour­ing in every day, half of its almost 20 mil­lion inhab­i­tants is forced to live in slums, between the cracks of the offi­cial city. The biggest of these slums is called Dhar­avi. With an esti­mat­ed 800,000 inhab­i­tants, it is one of the most dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed areas in the world. Once Dhar­avi was out­side the city limits. Nowa­days it’s at the heart of a con­stant­ly grow­ing metrop­o­lis, flanked by traf­fic arter­ies and right next door to Mum­bai’s new finan­cial hub. The former marsh has turned into prime real estate a play­ground for ambi­tious urban plan­ning. Ten years ago, UStrained archi­tect Mukesh Mehta has come back to India to usher in a new turn in Mum­bai’s slum reha­bil­i­ta­tion poli­cies. His for­mu­la is Public Pri­vate Part­ner­ship. Bil­lions of Dol­lars could be made if the respon­si­bil­i­ty for a rad­i­cal makeover of Dhar­avi were to be put into the hands of pri­vate investors. The gov­ern­ment has been per­suad­ed by Mehta’s vision and has appoint­ed him as the con­sul­tant for the Dhar­avi Rede­vel­op­ment Project. While thou­sands of fam­i­lies living and work­ing in the slum are facing the threat of being evict­ed, Dhar­avi is becom­ing a test case. Not only for Mumbai or India, but for the future of the under­priv­i­leged of the entire world. 

“Do you love me?” Daniel asks his wife Nati, who is busy pack­ing her suit­cas­es. They have lived togeth­er for 34 years. Soon they will be sep­a­rat­ed by a seem­ing­ly … read more

I WANNA BE BOSS… reports on how the next gen­er­a­tion of Chi­nese lead­ers is being mould­ed. In this doc­u­men­tary we follow five very smart Chi­nese stu­dents through their final high … read more

“Don’t worry about what has passed, look towards what is coming.” This far­east­ern proverb works as a mis­sion state­ment for Xiaolu Guo’s filmic kalei­do­scope. This is a mul­ti­fac­eted por­trait of … read more

In the north­ern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Sampat Pal Devi fights against forced mar­riage, vio­lence against women, and the humil­i­a­tion faced by the untouch­ables. The ener­getic Sampat, who con­trary … read more

Great tech­ni­cal abil­i­ty, craftsman’s pride, and cre­ative energy are the dri­ving forces behind the Sudanese mechan­ics respon­si­ble for cus­tomiz­ing Bed­ford Trucks orig­i­nal­ly from Eng­land to meet the local needs in … read more

The first shot of the film estab­lish­es its agenda: the arrival of the Indian ele­phant god in the streets of Paris. The ele­phant god – a symbol of power and … read more

“One day, I climbed Diosso Hill… After dig­ging, I came upon a big rock and I saw some gold. I called for help… On the sev­enth day, the hill had … read more

This is a filmic reflec­tion on South­ern Italy as it changes from a place of emi­gra­tion to a des­ti­na­tion for immi­gra­tion. The film begins in a grave­yard of refugee ships … read more