This is a documentary, which, in a very warm and gentle way, tells the story of a relationship between father and son – refugees from Chechnya. Vakha and ten-year-old Magomed emigrated from Chechnya to Poland in order to escape their traumatic past. The film shows their everyday attempts to lead a normal, peaceful life without memories, far from the turmoil of the refugee centre where they live. Despite their tough situation, the director’s goal was to show the characters and their relations in the most positive possible light.
Festivals/Awards:
The Koszalin Debut Films Festival – “The Young and Cinema” Jantar 2010 for Best Short Documentary
International Film Festival Watch Docs
A girl has an accident and is seriously injured. The driver wants to take her to hospital but cannot get through the military borders. The action takes place in London but, in fact, the movie talks about the situation in Palestine. “No way through” brings the shocking reality of Palestinian life on the West Bank uncomfortably close to our homes. This story shows in a very clear and imaginative way how one of the most basic human rights is routinely broken in that region.
Festivals/Awards:
Ctrl Alt Shift Film Competition – Winner 2009
Warsaw Film Fest
This movie is about the Kirgiz minority – the everyday life of people who come to Russia and live in closed conglomerations, often in extremely bad conditions, who at the same time do their jobs very well. They clean the streets, take care of the flowers, and always greet people very politely. At the end of the movie one of the workers is late for the bus that was supposed to take him home. So he comes back late and stops in the square where young people kiss and skateboard. Finally he gets on the city tram along with a group of skinheads…
Festivals/Awards:
Festival “Kinoteatr DOC” Moscow, winner, 2007
The Russian Open Film Festival “Kinotawr” Winner, 2007
International Film Festival in Cannes – Short Corner, 2007
International Film Festival in Oberhausen, Germany, 2007
International Film Festival in Turin, Italy, 2007
“Cinema du Reel” Paris, 2008
This is the story of a border transaction that doesn’t go to plan. In Tangier, Nico – a young Moroccan – meets a thirty-something woman, Miriam, who has just got off a ferry returning from Spain. He takes her to an apartment where he passes her a baby – a ten-week-old girl. Miriam is moved and overjoyed. The film studies the problems of illegal adoption and the individual needs of a man as well as the issues of the economic and social gaps between life in so-called Third World countries and Europe.
Festivals/Awards:
Best Short Film Award, Aspen Shortfest, USA, 2007
Hochschule fur Fernsehen und Film, Munich, Germany
Best Short Film, Audience Award, AFI Fest, Los Angeles, 2006
Short Film Award in Gold, German Short Film Award, Germany, 2006
Jury Award, Shnit international short film festival, 2007
Nominee for the Best Honorary Foreign Film, Student Academy Awards, 2007
Two brothers, Almir and Nedim, go to Bosnia. A young policeman stops them at the Slovenian border. He refuses them entry because Nedim doesn’t have a Slovenian visa. Nedim has cancer and doesn’t want to die in Germany, but in his native country – Bosnia. Amir wants to help his brother at all costs. This movie is about brotherly love in the face of a terminal disease as well as compassion for other people – compassion that has to face border-law regulations and a sense of duty.
Festivals/Awards:
Jury Prize Best Debut, Days of Croatian Film, Croatia, 2006
Nominee for the Best Short Film Award, European Film Awards, 2006
Best International Short Film - Special Mention, Regensburg Short Film Week, 2006
Prix UIP Sarajevo, European Short Film, 2006
Best Student Film, Sarajevo Film Festival, 2006
Tribeca Film Festival, USA, 2007
We see the cultural mix of a society in a Madrid neighbourhood during Chinese New Year celebrations. Not only the Spanish, but also the Moroccans, the Chinese, the Africans, and the Latinos coexist in the same space. But not everyone is happy with that. One of the movie characters – an old hairdresser – prefers to sell his shop and move out than to accept the changes. Suddenly, he finds himself in a situation that will force him to face members of other cultures.
Festivals/Awards:
Best European Short Film, 2003
Nominee for the Goya prize, 2005
Over 30 Spanish and international prizes.
The director of the movie and its title character, Mimoun, are friends. Mimoun is an irregular migrant and is forced to live away from his family in order to provide for them. As the director said – first came a desire to help a friend, and only later came the idea of making a documentary. The film was made from the desire – at least through the video camera – to join together members of a family who miss each other deeply. Thanks to that, we meet one of a thousand families torn apart by immigration. We witness a moving “meeting” of the title character with his beloved relatives who stayed in the country. A simple idea with great emotional content.
Festivals/Awards:
Human Rights Film Festival in Chile, Best short film about migration
Tercer Milenio, International Film Festival in Mexico, Best short film
Terra di Tutti Film Festival in Italy, Best foreign film
Femcurt International Short Film Festival, Banyoles, in Spain, Best documentary
Iowa City International Documentary Film Festival in United States, Special Jury Mention
International Film Festival in Badalona, Spain, Best young short film
Euromed Café, European Film Concurs in Naples, Italy, Best documentary
In addition to the above prizes, the film has also been presented at over 60 festivals across the globe.
This story takes place on New Year’s Eve on a Spanish highway. Two people meet by accident. She is a marine biologist and loves the sea, he is a former footballer from Cameroon who got to Spain illegally on a raft. Although they don’t know each other, they both have their own problems and secrets. But perhaps they will be able to help each other.
Festivals/Awards:
Euromed Cafe, Winner, Italy, 2007
FIC Mostoles, Festival International of Short Films, 2007
MedFilm Festival, Italy, 2010
Festival Espaco Feminino, Portugal
Festival Elas Criam, Brasil
This film raises the subject of the illegal crossing of the Mexican-American border. The director engages in a very risky journey. Together with a group of Mexicans, he tries to get across the Sonora desert in southern Arizona. With him, we meet his fellow travellers on this dangerous voyage and the reasons they decided to take such a risk. Unfortunately, the number of people who die on the way to the “better world” rises constantly.
Festivals/Awards:
News Program Feature DV Awards, 2007
Most Socially Relevant Documentary, 2006
Hollywood Film Festival, Finalist, 2006
Angelus International Student Film Festival
Best Student Film Plymouth Film Festival, 2006
Official Selection Arpa International Film Festival, 2006
Chema is a truck driver and a big football fan. Tonight, while he’s on the road, his beloved team, Real Madrid, are playing a Russian team. A radio defect forces Chema to stop at a roadside brothel where he can watch the game. There is only one room with a TV set. There he meets Olga.
Festivals/Awards:
Naoussa International Film Festival, Greece, 2009, Best script
October 24, 2010, will remain a red-letter day in the annals of Frontex history. Following a formal request from the Greek Ministry of Citizen Protection, the Agency’s Executive Director authorised the first ever deployment of Rapid Border Intervention Teams (RABITS). Within days the first of over 200 specialist Guest Officers started arriving in the Evros river region of Northeastern Greece that marks the land border with Turkey; at that time by far the hottest spot on the EU’s external border. This short documentary charts the landmark deployment and takes a look at the human stories behind the world’s media headlines.
The Italian island of Lampedusa lies in the centre of the Mediterranean, halfway between Africa and Europe. Thousands arrive here every year in wooden fishing boats from North Africa hoping to make it to Europe. For some, the island is a symbol of hope and opportunity but for others its shores hold unimaginable nightmares. The filmmaker meets a group of teenage survivors who are trying to make sense of their incredible journeys.
In the year 2010, some 30,000 people made the trip from Libya to Lampedusa, with many dying en route. But what happens to those that make it? They are segregated from the local community, they wait and contemplate what is next, and having left so much behind many must almost totally reinvent themselves.
Festivals/Awards:
Official selection for Sheffield Doc/Fest 2010
Festival du Film Britannique de Dinard 2010
Nominated for Best Newcomer at the Prix International du Documentaire et du Reportage Méditerranéen
For the first time, an EU country has seen its treatment of refugees described by the UNHCR as a humanitarian crisis. This report gets to the heart of the escalating tensions in Greece. "I've seen too many. They cross the river like bees," sighs a local fisherman. With as many as 400 people crossing the River Evros every day, arrests of irregular migrants in Greece have exploded from 3,500 to 20,000 in a year. Most choose to turn themselves in, but they have no idea what awaits them. Greece's detention centres are now critically overcrowded. Those who try to avoid this fate end up on the streets, such as in Attica Square in Athens, home to hundreds of Afghan refugees. With no government support, crime is rife here, and as frustration builds, racial attacks by local vigilantes escalate beyond control. Ghulam's family sleep on a bench in the square — his four-year-old son was recently attacked in the middle of the night. "If I'd stayed in Afghanistan I might have been beaten, but they would at least have spared my children. I cannot believe this is Europe."
This is an unusual story of the Berlin Wall seen through the eyes of thousands of wild rabbits that live there. In 1961, the animals were trapped in the green belt dividing East and West Berlin. They lived there until the demolition of the wall in 1989, when they became participants in the historic events. The film is an allegory that brings closer the history of Eastern Europe from the “rabbit” perspective.
Festivals/Awards:
Nominee for the Oscar – American Film Academy Awards, 2010
Canadian International Documentary Festival "Hotdocs" - Prize for the best medium-long, 2009
2009 -Planete Doc Review Film Festival, The main prize in the competition “The Magic Hour Award”, 2009
Film Festival in Kraków, National Competition – Grand Prix, 2009
Film Festival in Kraków, National competition – The sculpture of Bronislav Chromy for the Best Producer 2009- Anna Wydra
Jihlava, The International Documentary Film Festival – “Silver Eye” Awards for the best medium-long film, 2009
Polish Film Festival in Chicago, Audience Award, 2009