This shocking but hopeful report from Ukraine follows the makeshift relief network that has emerged in the middle of wartime violence. The tireless volunteers evacuate residents, support refugees and retrieve bodies from the battlefield.

The war in Ukraine doesn’t stop at the front line. In addition to the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers, the Russian invasion has also claimed the lives of thousands of Ukrainian civilians. And many more have been driven out of their familiar surroundings. The war has destroyed homes, torn families apart and displaced populations. In the midst of this wartime violence, a complex but highly effective relief network has emerged. Support for refugees and displaced persons is ongoing, as is the evacuation of older people living near the front, and the retrieval of the bodies of civilian and military victims.

Dear Beautiful Beloved is a careful and sensitive account of several humanitarian operations dependent entirely on the boundless dedication of volunteers. They receive refugees and guide them to train stations, help distressed seniors feel at home in bare reception shelters and drive through the country to pick up bodies, keep records and safeguard their belongings. Tirelessly they continue their work. There are moments of light even in these dark times, but they never last long.

Artist couple Lynn Cruz and Miguel Coyula deploy a string of secret audio recordings to expose the various forms of control and intimidation that independent artists in Cuba have to suffer. In true Kafkaesque fashion, oppression looms everywhere.

In Cuba, artists have to be recognized by one of the state-sponsored art institutions that ensure their work complies with the state’s vision and policy. Existing as an independent artist means having no income and no rights, and being subjected to various forms of control and intimidation. When independent filmmaker Miguel Coyula casts upcoming actor Lynn Cruz in his new dystopian feature Corazón azul in 2011, it marks the beginning of a professional as well as a romantic bond. It’s also the starting point of this documentary exposing a range of disturbing interactions the artists subsequently had with a wide variety of institutions and individuals—in true Kafkaesque fashion, oppression looms everywhere. Even outside of Cuba, where they are met with similar dogmatism coming from critics of the regime.

In ten elliptic chapters, Chronicles of the Absurd tells this story mostly through audio recordings, often made in secret. Verbatim transcripts, displayed in graphic text underlining the dynamics of the conversations, are paired with head shots, logos, film posters, and paintings by Cuban artist Antonia Eiriz. The austere form reflects the hardships faced by Cuban filmmakers, whose freedom of expression is daily violated by a despotic system.

A behind-the-scenes account of the explosive 1968 televised debates between liberal Gore Vidal and conservative William F. Buckley Jr., and their rancorous disagreements about politics, God, and sex.

In the run-up to the U.S. presidential election in 1968, which would seee Richard Nixon becoming president, ABC TV invited two leading thinkers to discuss the state of the nation. In the resulting series of spectacular live broadcasts, the ultraconservative journalist William F. Buckley and the progressive author Gore Vidal hurl increasingly violent verbal abuse at one another—on personal as well as political issues. The debates would become the first American example of on-air political mudslinging. Buckley and Vidal initially express their loathing for each other’s opinions through eloquent taunts and repartee, but by the end this highbrow brawl between two talented debaters has degenerated into an exchange of vulgarities.

The color archive footage is accompanied by voice-overs of passages from the memoirs of the two intellectual giants, while others who were there reflect on this sensational political debate that marked the beginning of a new era in TV.

A warm and attentive film capturing the lives of fishermen on an island in the US facing the threat of rising sea levels. The close-knit community, rooted in faith, navigates an uncertain future with the church at the center of their lives.

For generations, fishermen have made their home on Tangier Island, in the heart of the Chesapeake Bay on the east coast of the US. Two-thirds of the island has disappeared over the last 150 years, and local people are concerned about rising sea levels—and the lack of progress on reinforcing the sea wall—but the church remains the bedrock of this small, close-knit community.

While islanders acknowledge that the climate is changing, they resist attributing it to human activity. A young preacher introduces a different perspective, suggesting that “science is a gift from God”, and subtly shifting the conversation on climate. Amid this, children play, fishermen work, and sermons resound, all set against magnificent natural scenes in an ode to an imperiled world.

The election of the current Brazilian president Lula da Silva led to the storming of Congress by supporters of his opponent Bolsonaro. In the turbulent months that preceded it, Sandra Kogut portrays a country divided to the core.

The Brazilian presidential election on 30 October 2022 ended with a victory for former president Lula da Silva, who managed to beat the incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro by a tiny margin. Lula’s supporters celebrated the victory as the salvation of democracy, but those who voted for his far-right rival candidate were convinced the election was stolen. On 8 January 2023, shortly after Lula’s inauguration, they stormed the Congress building and the Supreme Court.

Shot in the turbulent period that preceded these events, with two tense rounds of voting, this documentary by Sandra Kogut shows a country torn apart. She records the experiences of supporters of both candidates, from those who campaigned for Lula to a truck driver who was considering leaving Brazil if Lula won. She filmed the demonstrations, the work behind the scenes, the prayers in church.Increasingly we gain an impression of two parallel worlds unable to see each other. While poll workers take voting machines to the remotest corners of the country, Bolsonaro spreads disinformation about electronic voting. And the mood of fear and menace intensifies.

An unraveling of the murder of 49 Palestinian villagers by the Israeli Border Police in 1956. Featuring survivors, historians, a courageous journalist and a re-enactment of the trial of soldiers involved in the massacre.

On 29 October 1956, 49 residents of the Palestinian village of Kafr Qasim were murdered in cold blood by soldiers of the Israeli Border Police. The victims were men and women returning from their work in the fields outside the village, as well as children. They were killed because they were unaware that the curfew had unexpectedly been brought forward by an hour on that day. As they returned home, they were mowed down without mercy.

The 1957 Transcripts unravels the background, execution and consequences of the massacre. It features the testimonies of survivors, historians and the journalist who brought the massacre to light three days later, and includes a re-enactment of the military trial of 11 of the soldiers involved. The reconstruction is based on recently released transcripts of the trial. In court, the soldiers said they were only following the orders of their superiors (“carrying out the order required killing”). Moreover, the film also reveals a political plan of ethnic cleansing. The outcome of the trial is shocking to anyone who believes in justice.

Climate change and desertification force a Mongolian herder and his family to move from the Gobi desert to the big city. The loss of their animals severs their connection with nature.

“Climate change and the onslaught of desertification have been ravaging the lands of Mongolia. In the last years, hundreds of thousands of nomads have relocated from the countryside areas to urban Ger districts. Davaasuren and his wife Otgonzaya herd their animals in the Gobi desert just like the generations before them. But the volatile change in nature is putting their future at risk. When half of their herd dies in a
dust storm they make the painful decision to move the family to the city.

Director Gabrielle Brady uses some fictional elements to make tangible the richness of the life that is being lost. For Davaasuren and Otgonzaya, losing their animals means losing their identity. Their connection with nature has been severed. Davaasuren is going to work at a quarry, but he is troubled by the idea of breaking open the earth—is it even allowed? The only thing keeping the couple going is the hope of return. One day, maybe. “

A film made up of archive footage about how the US has handled climate issues since the 1970s. The fossil fuel lobby has turned the broad consensus on the need for intervention into a political battleground.

The climate crisis didn’t come out of the blue. In The White House Effect, made up entirely of archive footage (TV news, memoranda, statistics, corporate documents, presidential speeches), we see that scientists were already warning about what was named “the greenhouse effect” in the 1970s. Both Democratic President Jimmy Carter and later Republican President George H.W. Bush put the climate problem high on the agenda. “These topics have no ideology,” George Bush Senior stressed in 1988.

But fossil fuel giants were not amused by his announcement that he wanted to be “a good president for the environment.” With a PR campaign, they sowed doubts about the climate predictions. They claimed global heating was an unproven theory. The campaign also convinced Americans that “eco-imperialists” wanted to take away their cars.Public opinion in the United States changed and the Bush administration abandoned its climate ambitions. Consensus on the climate issue disappeared and the Republicans turned it into an ideological battleground. The result was a paralyzing stalemate that continues to this day.

How do you prevent a coup? How to deal with events like those that took place during the storming of the US Capitol? American political and military veterans participate in a simulation in which they are called on to avert a civil war.

How do you prevent a coup like the one that almost took place on 6 January 2021, when an angry mob stormed the Capitol in Washington? American political and military veterans take part in a simulation exercise to practice dealing with a situation like this. It is set in a darkened room where all adopt different roles: the US president, an army commander or a spokesperson. They have six hours in this situation room to avert a civil war. They will have to make all the right decisions while facing opposition from a fictional team of insurgents who are using social media and other methods to whip up the population. And things get really exciting when we discover that there are lots of insurgents in the military from local army bases who want to turn against the government. Should the president send in the army, or would that just aggravate the unrest?

We follow the participants during the enacted crisis meeting, and as they speak in individual interviews about their personal motivations for taking part. The fictional president’s impassioned address towards the end holds a reminder of what a capable leader may sound like.

Twenty-five years after a renowned ethno-botanical study in the Ecuadorian Amazon region inhabited by the Waorani, the central figures involved reunite. Members of the community talk about the genocidal colonization that still threatens their people.

At the turn of the century, a renowned ethno-botanical study took place in Quehueiri-Ono, a village in the Ecuadorian Amazon region. It was a partnership between botanists and the native Waorani community, who had lived isolated from the rest of the world until the 1950s. Director Manolo Sarmiento reunites the researchers with community members for a new expedition, aimed to give thousands of plants threatened with extinction a scientific name alongside their Waorani name. More than a record of this enterprise, Toroboro: The Name of the Plants chronicles the history of a people who have been the victims of genocidal colonization since the arrival of Christian missionaries. The main threats to the survival of the Waorani are now the oil and timber industries.