Students' Films

Just like any teenag­er the young Egypt­ian Abdo is in search for his iden­ti­ty. One dif­fer­ence is, how­ev­er, that his coming of age hap­pens to be in the midst of the … read more

Tajik­istan is one of the most remit­tance-depen­dent coun­tries in the world. Every year, hun­dreds of thou­sands of migrant work­ers leave Tajik­istan in search of employ­ment. The money sent back pro­vides … read more

“While I was doing research in Oua­gadougou, Burk­i­na Faso, for a film about the rela­tion­ship between Africa and Europe, I became acquaint­ed with the young dress­mak­er Bintou. She spent a … read more

At the end of Wash­ing­ton Boule­vard, where the streets of Los Ange­les merge into the ocean, the Venice Pier begins. The rough con­crete pier braves Pacif­ic storms and pro­vides still­ness … read more

Eliamani’s hus­band has left her behind at their cow­dung home on the Tan­zan­ian savan­nah in order to look for work, and she has not heard from him for a long … read more

In Istan­bul 2014, the young nurse Asli becomes a polit­i­cal oppo­nent by chance when she spon­ta­neous­ly hides a pro­tes­tor from a police crack­down during a polit­i­cal protest out­side the hos­pi­tal. … read more

After China imple­ment­ed its family plan­ning policy, the pop­u­la­tion declined sharply. As a result of the con­struc­tion boom in the 1960s, every Chi­nese vil­lage has an ele­men­tary school, and every … read more

After their retire­ment about 15 years ago, Mrs. and Mr. Kikuchi left Tokyo and start­ed a new life in the rural and moun­tain­ous region on the island of Kyushu in … read more

Tami, a new­com­er to the online 3D-world of Second-Life, approach­es owners of vir­tu­al Second-Life homes in an attempt to re-dis­cov­er her own lost home. Blend­ing Second-Life and real-life footage, Tami … read more

There are carom clubs scat­tered all across Mal­vani, one of Mumbai’s urban slums. Most boys there know how to play carom, and 11-year-old Imraam is one of them. He makes … read more

Iulian, an orphan boy living on the streets of Bucharest, is look­ing for his family. He final­ly finds a new one when he is an adult. The charis­mat­ic young man … read more

This LITTLE SHORT FILM is an exper­i­men­tal auto-ethno­graph­i­cal ani­ma­tion based on a con­ver­sa­tion between the direc­tor and her mother. The short film impli­cates Euro­pean his­to­ry, war and regret. LITTLE SHORT … read more

Nelson Mon­heguete, José Alfre­do Cossa, Aure­lio Timane, Aly Bunaia and Lino Fenias are in a hope­less sit­u­a­tion today. In the 1980s, the five immi­grant work­ers from Mozam­bique worked in the … read more

MEIO tells a story of the con­se­quences of migra­tion on dif­fer­ent gen­er­a­tions. The 83-year-old Lina lives with her hus­band in the small town Vila Rica (orig­i­nal­ly Vila Rick­ert), sit­u­at­ed in … read more

“After having lived in the Nether­lands for over 20 years, my par­ents, Gulzar and Shwan, decid­ed to move back to Kur­dis­tan. Escap­ing the Iraqi regime as refugees in the early … read more

San Fer­nan­do is the most noto­ri­ous juve­nile prison of Mexico City, where the young pris­on­ers serve their sen­tences for seri­ous offens­es. This doc­u­men­tary result­ed from a series of film and pho­tog­ra­phy work­shops inside the prison, which were con­duct­ed by film­mak­ers for inmates aged 15 to 19. During the project, these tough young men were able to express their view of their expe­ri­ences in prison by means of short film and photography.

Keep­ing their faces ‘out of focus’ to pro­tect their iden­ti­ties, the par­tic­i­pants show their new­found pas­sion for the arts. They write short sto­ries, weave, make tra­di­tion­al papier-mâché sculp­tures, paint, shoot films, and make music. Inspired by the project, sev­er­al ques­tions arise: Once they are released from prison after many years, what will life be like? Where will their new inspi­ra­tion lead them? Cholo, a young inmate reflects: “In my com­mu­ni­ty and in all of Mexico, even inter­na­tion­al­ly, I want to be known as an artist, not just as a thief and a failure.”

 

How do you doc­u­ment or cap­ture the par­tic­u­lar “tone” of local inhab­i­tants living in their every­day sur­round­ings? And how do you get each of them to express their own per­son­al­i­ty … read more

Is this a dream palace, a temple of excess or some­thing total­ly dif­fer­ent? SOLARIS expos­es the clos­ing hours and the night-time heart­beat of Tallinn’s Solaris shop­ping mall – a place … read more

Set on the out­skirts of the Bow­land Fells, North York­shire, this film con­tains no dia­logue, but is instead a sen­so­ry explo­ration into the realms of an Eng­lish dairy farm. Paired with … read more

What is it like to grow up in a world that is on the verge of dis­ap­pear­ing? Descend­ing from a long line of actors in an ancient Indian the­ater tra­di­tion, … read more

We con­sist of frag­ment­ed infor­ma­tion, frag­ment­ed sto­ries. What parts of us derive from our ances­tors? Do we repeat their pat­terns? What is left of our family his­to­ry? Their sto­ries are … read more