Category: Documentary

Greyland is the story of what was the fastest shrinking city in the United States, Youngstown, Ohio. Once the booming centre of American steel, when the bottom fell out of the industry in the 1950s, 60% of the population moved out. Today, 37% of those left, live beneath the poverty line. Like Rocco and Amber. A recovering heroin addict turned urban archeologist, Rocco hunts through hundreds of abandoned houses. Vintage clothing, records, art works, everything he finds goes to Greyland, his art gallery come thrift store, to be converted into cash. Meanwhile Amber is a single mother and the president of the Neighbourhood Association of Homeowners, leading the fight against city hall for their inaction in cleaning up her neighborhood. “We want to believe,” Amber says, “that there’s good, hopeful things coming.”
Through poetically apocalyptic imagery of a town taking its last breath, Greyland tells the story of two individuals’ resilience when everything has fallen apart around them. ‘You can try, but you’re not going to change it. All that trying just becomes part of the way it goes’, Rocco sings echoing the struggles of a generation in limbo. Youngstown has been held up as a symbol of post-industrial decline not only in the United States, but in the modern world. And if it can happen in the land of opportunity, it can happen anywhere. Greyland follows Rocco and Amber’s search for meaning and hope in the midst of economic decline and a political landscape out of synch with the needs of its community. Should Rocco and Amber continue to fight for their city or flee like thousands before them? ¨Leave if you want to leave,” says Rocco, “but don’t turn it into something it’s not.” Question is, without change, can the community of Youngstown continue to satisfy anyone? What can grow back in a land burnt to the ground?

Director: Alexandra Sicotte-Lévesque

Producer: Alexandra Sicotte-Lévesque, Sylvia Van Brabant

Runtime: 1 hour 17 minutes

Country of Origin: Canada

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Subtitles: No

Alexandra Sicotte-Lévesque

Alexandra Sicotte-Lévesque is a humanitarian aid worker and filmmaker. Originally from Montreal, Canada, Alexandra has always believed in the power of media for social change. She cofounded the non-profit organization Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) in 2002 for which she received Canada’s Governor General Medal for Meritorious Service.
After working for nearly 3 years in Sudan, with BBC Media Action and the United Nations peacekeeping mission, Alexandra produced and directed the feature documentary film, The Longest Kiss, about the split between Sudan and South Sudan. The film received the Corus-Hot Docs Fund, was aired on Super Channel in Canada and was awarded a special mention for the Magnus Isacsson Prize at the Montreal International Documentary Film Festival (RIDM).
Alexandra currently works for the Red Cross Movement in Switzerland, where she combines her passion for visual storytelling and important social issues of our times. In recent years, she has worked in humanitarian crises in Iraq, Jordan, Haiti and the Philippines..

For a long, long time, perhaps since the dawn of time, the Pasvik Sami managed their small borderless area in harmony with nature. Then Norway, Russia and Finland divided the area between them. Mining and power plants changed the landscape and the river. On the Norwegian side, the language and culture were almost obliterated. But they never managed to eradicate the East Sami genes.

In the film, we follow Venke Tørmænen who wants to learn to sew the Skolt Sami womenś hat her great-grandmother wears on an old picture. – I feel that when I can sew it and put it on my head, the ring is closed. I want the world to know that we exist. We are here and we live here. ”

Director: Anstein Mikkelsen, Harry Johansen

Writer: Anstein Mikkelsen, Harry Johansen

Producer: Anstein Mikkelsen

Keycast: Venke Tørmænen “herself”

Runtime: 60 minutes

Country of Origin: Norway

Country of Filming: Finland, Norway

Language: Finnish, Norwegian

Subtitles: English

Anstein Mikkelsen, Harry Johansen

Directors Harry Johansen and Anstein Mikkelsen
We are both filmmakers born and living in Finnmark, the northernmost part of Norway.
Totally we have made more than fifty films, mostly documentary films.
Harry Johansen has worked in Swedish Sami television and now as a freelancer for the Norwegian Sami television. He has also directed and photographed a lot of Sami documentary films.
Anstein Mikkelsen is the only filmmaker in the world continuously making Kveni films, but also some Sami films. Most of the films is about people living in the northern areas of Norway, Finland, Sweden and Russia, but also nature films, experimental films and fiction.

Set amid the remote hills of Eastern Bosnia, THEN COMES THE EVENING provides a quiet meditation on the seemingly uncomplicated pastoral lives of two women. Through simple and precise composition with attention to light and texture, the mundane details of their lives are rendered with the tactile richness of an oil painting. Their every action and word is infused with ceremony, ritual, and intangible cultural heritage in this intimate yet epic examination of how nature and humanity interact.

Director: Maja Novaković

Writer: Maja Novaković

Producer: Maja Novaković, Milan Milosavljević

Cinematogarphy: Jasna Prolić

Editing: Marija Kovačina

Sound design: Luka Barajević

Keycast: Obrenija Radić “herself” , Vinka Radić “herself”

Art director: Maja Novaković

Production assistan: Nikica Novaković

Runtime: 27 minutes 30 seconds

Country of Origin: Serbia

Country of Filming: Bosnia and Herzegovina

Language: Serbian

Subtitles: English

Maja Novaković

Novaković holds a Master’s in Art History and is currently undertaking a Ph.D. on the work of Sergei Parajanov at the University of Belgrade, she is also a researcher at the Mathematical Institute at the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Then Comes The Evening is her first film.

In 2008, local authorities evict 2,000 villagers from Guanzhou, a river island in Southern China to build a presumed Ecological Parc. In spite of the demolition of their houses and police pressure, a handful of inhabitants return to the island. For 7 years, Boris films their battle to save their ancestral land, from the ruins of the village where nature is slowly reasserting itself, to the worksites of the mega city which inexorably advances towards them. Will they share the same fate of 5 billions of Chinese peasants expropriated yearly?

Director: Boris Svartzman

Writer: Boris Svartzman, Laurine Estrade

Producer: Anne-Catherine Witt, Antonio Magliano

Editing: Suzana Pedro, Emma Augier

Sound editing: Nans Mengeard

Sound mix: N’Dembo Ziavoula

Color grading: Lucie Bruneteau

Runtime: 1 hour 11 minutes 20 seconds

Country of Origin: France

Country of Filming: China

Language: Chinese, Yue Chinese (Cantonese)

Subtitles: English

 Boris Svartzman

Boris Svartman is a Argentinean and French photographer and director. As graduate in Chinese and Sociology, he spent over ten years living in China.
Since the beginning of the millenium, Boris has documented the social consequences of urbanisation in China. As a Sociologist and Photographer, he is interested in forced eviction in big Chinese cities and in the countryside. His principal series of photographs, “Tabula rasa” and “Disrupted China”, were exhibited in several festivals, notably in: Visa pour l’image, Lianzhou International Photo Festival, Architecture Museum of Stockholm…
Boris focuses on the expansion of Chinese cities in rural areas and the progressive disparition of the dwindling peasantry in China. For a decade he has filmed the resistance of residents of one Chinese village faced with the urbanisation of their land, the subject of his first documentary. He has also published a scientific paper on this issue, “The leap to the city”, in the academic review China Perspectives.
Boris Svartman has also collaborated on several documentary movies, as assistant director, second camera and sound recorder on the film South, Water, North, Displaced by Antoine Boutet (2014), and as a translator on several films linked to China (The Dying Souls by Wang Bing (2018); A Young Patriot, by Du Haibin, 2015)

Tomorrow is Djurdjevdan*. The locals of Oparic are preparing the Saint Patron’s Day dedicated to the Holy and Great Martyr George and they are glorifying the holiday that follows winter, evokes spring and awakens all the senses. Despite the fertile land, there are fewer cultivated fields in Oparic, and more weeds and abandoned gates. However, people, plants and legends in this village in the Levac area are still weaving colorful Djurdjevdan’s wreaths together. From the beginning of time to Instagram.
* Djurdjevdan (St. George’s Day) has been in the National Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Serbia since 2015. This Christian and national holiday is celebrated throughout Serbia, but each region nurtures specific beliefs and customs that celebrate St. George’s Day.

Director: Predrag Todorović

Writer: Predrag Todorović

Producer: Predrag Todorović

Camera: Zlatko Đurđević

Researcher: Marko Mirković

Interviews: Slađan Bogdanović

Keycast: Marija Bogosavljević, Miloš Lazić

Editor: Predrag Todorović

Runtime: 50 minutes

Country of Origin: Serbia

Country of Filming: Serbia

Language: Serbian

Subtitles: English

Predrag Todorović

Predrag Todorovic (1976) has 25 years of work experience in media production as an editor, producer and director. In collaboration with his colleagues Marko Mirkovic, Sladjan Bogdanovic and Zlatko Djurdjevic, he is the author of the numeros documentaries awarded at TV and film festivals.

Where can I get a screw? My neighbor has one, but I had a fight with him yesterday. That’s a big problem when you live isolated in the middle of the Atlantic on a small island at the westernmost edge of Europe. On Corvo.
There is a fantastic volcanic crater that attracts some guests and an airport on the edge of the small town. But those who come here hardly stay longer than a day. And miss stories of pirates, a saint and a very special community. The 440 inhabitants stick together on the mini-island – as best they can. And in the end, there is always a suitable screw to be found somewhere…

Director: Anders Lang

Writer: Anders Lang

Runtime: 50 minutes

Country of Origin: Germany

Country of Filming: Portugal

Language: English, Portuguese

Subtitles: English, German

Anders Lang

Anders Lang was born in Hamburg in 1966 and lives and works there. More info: www.anderslang.de
I experienced a massive loss of field of vision after a stroke and made my first longer film that dealt with exactly that. What is the visual experience like when you can no longer see much? I went travelling with my camera and discovered many new perspectives and exciting stories.

The first lasting structures weren’t built for the living, but for the dead.
Megaliths, the ‘great stones’ erected during the Neolithic and Bronze Age, are the beginning of architecture, the first expressions of our domination of the planet and her resources; of our ability to alter and shape the earth. They signal the r/evolutionary moment some 10,000 to 5,000 years ago when our ancestors razed the forests to cultivate plants and breed the animals they’d tamed, spreading and multiplying in an ever expanding pattern of settlements and chiefdoms, boom and bust.
Through the agency of stone, the gods, and the cosmic dead, these first farmers affirmed their divine right to the spaces they cleared and claimed. They carved petroglyphs on living rock, constructed tombs for the ruling elite and raised monoliths and stone circles to mark social and religious boundaries that transformed the natural landscape into a cultural landscape; a ritual topography that linked soil and sky, past and present, with man at its center.
The great stones bear witness to a time when we first stood apart from the wilderness and looked back at it in awe; the moment of separation and the birth of the modern world: the biblical Fall. Like visual cues, the monoliths direct our gaze across time and space to ancient horizons that enclose us still. Facing them we confront ourselves and our origins in an agrarian death cult to which we are heir.
A journey into the sacred landscapes of prehistoric Armenia, “Embers of the Sun” evokes a primeval earth transfigured by monuments of mysterious design: rock art found in the desolate volcanic wastes of the Geghama and Syunik mountains, solitary monoliths and cyclopean tombs in rural fields, and the megalithic complex of Zorakarer; vestiges of a lost Bronze Age cosmology that haunt the modern mind.
The impressionistic aesthetic of analog video – the cinematic equivalent of watercolor or polaroid – conveys the emotional impact of the monoliths and the numinous beauty of the spaces they address. Equally integral is the soundtrack by the British group Urthona, taken from the album “Urthona plays Atlantis?”, a collaboration of the band with legendary musician, writer and prehistorian, Julian Cope. Neil Mortimer’s thundering guitar, Michael York’s ethereal duduk (a traditional Armenian wind instrument), and Cope’s ritualistic percussion conjure up a vanished realm that mirrors the film’s images in sound: the vastness and majesty of the mountains, the raw energy of the elements, the intimation of ancient powers, cosmic and chthonic.
At once a lyrical documentary and archeological science fiction, “Embers of the Sun” is an apocalyptic vision of the future in the past. In the prehistoric landscape it sees a post-historic age where civilization ends where it began: an event horizon through which we disappear – by ecological disaster, famine, plague, or genocide – leaving only the ruins of our dreams behind..

Director: Zareh Tjeknavorian

Writer: Zareh Tjeknavorian

Producer: Visa Koiso-Kanttila

Camera: Vahagn Ter Hagopian

Editing & Sound Design: Alina Tjeknavorian

Music: URTHONA

Runtime: 12 minutes 27 seconds

Country of Origin: Armenia

Country of Filming: Armenia

Language: English

Subtitles: English

Zareh Tjeknavorian

In the words of the visionary musician and writer, Julian Cope:
“Zareh Tjeknavorian is something else and I don’t know what, but he’s actually from the same planet as me and it’s a moving thing. He’s a…poet, a Metalhead AND a Krautrocker, and a de-coder of stuff.”
Zareh was born in Fargo, North Dakota into a family of musicians and grew up in Tehran, London, Frankfurt, Paris and New York. At age 4 he abandoned his dream of being an astronaut on watching the horror classic “The Brides of Dracula” in Iran. After graduating from NYU film school he began his directing career amidst the ruins of the USSR, drawn to stories set in the aftermath of genocide and dictatorship. Over the years he’s pursued his obsessions with esotericism, ancient life-ways and forgotten histories through short and long-form films. His acclaimed “Enemy of the People”, about life during the Stalin purges, was broadcast on PBS and recommended by National Geographic as one of the three most important movies about Armenia, along with Sergei Parajanov’s “The Color of Pomegranates” and Atom Egoyan’s “Ararat.”
Zareh’s work screens regularly at festivals and has won numerous awards, including the Grand Prix at the 2019 Kinoskop Analog Experimental Film Festival in Belgrade, the Theremin Award for Best Sound Design at the 2019 Hermetic International Film Festival in Venice (where he won Best Foreign Documentary in 2018), Best Experimental Film at the 2021 Caligari Festival Internacional de Cine de Terror in Valencia, Best Visionary Short at the 2021 Psychedelic Film & Music Festival in NYC, and the Mercure Award for Best Picture at the Hermetic International Film Festival in 2021.
His curiosities and obsessions as a director go beyond the frame: The Enigma of Space, a panoramic study of the mysterious ‘dragon-stones’ of the South Caucasus, was recently published by the Institute of Archaeology & Ethnography in Yerevan, Armenia.
Zareh currently lives in Denmark, where he teaches Directing at the European Film College

This is a story about us – Homo Sapiens. Where do we come from and where are we heading to?
The story of the film takes place in Turkana, Kenya. This unique place is also known as the
Cradle of Humankind where the discoveries of prehistorical human origins are made. The area
is nowadays inhabited by the indigenous pastoral tribe called Daasanach.
Our main character Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares, Spanish ethno ecologist arrive to Turkana to
study the relationship between humans and nature. He becomes friends with a tribe member
Job Nasak, who guides him into the daily life of the village.
Alvaro gets impressed by traditional fables and animal stories of the tribe and he is asked
to collect them for the first ever Daasanach language story book. The stories paint a picture
of vivid nature and a rich wildlife. But while exploring the natural park Alvaro discovers dry
and bare landscape with hardly any animals left.
So starts a fascinating story from the Cradle of Humankind, a story of the nomadic people’s
struggle to survive, of poaching, nature reserve rangers, tribal wars over scarce resources and
prehistoric fossils. The two worlds of biologists and the tribe members collide revealing the values
of wildlife and nature for both..

Director: Iiris Härmä

Writer: Iiris Härmä

Producer: Visa Koiso-Kanttila

Runtime:  1 hour 14 minutes 30 seconds

Country of Origin: Finland

Country of Filming: Kenya

Language: English

Subtitles: English

Iiris Härmä

M.A. Iiris Härmä is a documentary film director renowned for her artistically high-quality films
that depict their characters in a gentle and humanistic way.
She has produced and directed several award-winning short and feature-length documentaries
that have acclaimed international reputation at various film festivals around the world. She hasa degree in cultural management and a degree in cultural studies (ethnology).
Her previous work WHO MADE YOU? (2019) is a film about artificial intelligence and ethics. The film asks what the development of AI means for humanity, community and how it will affect ourperception of a human. The film was broadcasted by many international TV-channels (NHK, SVTUR, YLE etc.) and won several festival awards like the Best Documentary Film Award in Raindance(UK) and KI-Science Film Festival (Germany).

Selected Filmography
WHO MADE YOU? (2019)
LEAVING AFRICA (2015)
THE CHILD OF SILENT WINTER (2012)
LOOK AT ME (2010).

Mama Irene, Healer of the Andes, is the story of a remarkable 84 year old Shaman (Healer) from Peru who draws upon indigenous knowledge and traditions in danger of being lost forever. This film is not only a vital document of endangered wisdom; it is also a story about Women empowerment and a testament to living harmoniously with Mother Earth.

Director: Elisabeth Möhlmann, Bettina Ehrhardt

Writer: Elisabeth Möhlmann, Bettina Ehrhardt

Producer: Elisabeth Möhlmann

Editor: Monika Abspacher

Cinematographer: Franz Zavala, Tenmy Johan Carrasco Monzón

Sound: César Centeno

Original Music: Jim Papoulis

Co-Producer: Torsten Bönnhoff

Still photography: Carl A. Hyatt

Key Cast: Juana Irene Contreras Pumayalli “Mama Irene”

Key Cast: Puma Fredi Quispe Singona

Key Cast: Natividad Pañiuhuara Contreras

Key Cast: Natividad Pañiuhuara Contreras

Runtime:  1 hour 11 minutes

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: Peru

Language: English, Quechua, Spanish

Subtitles: English

 Elisabeth Möhlmann, Bettina Ehrhardt

New York-based Elisabeth Möhlmann is the founder of Blaze a Path Productions, and a former actor and stage director. Born in Munich, Germany, Elisabeth grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and studied philosophy before moving to New York City to study acting at the Lee Strasberg Theater & Film Institute. She later returned to New York City and established a successful real estate career before meeting Mama Irene. That fateful encounter helped heal Elisabeth from a debilitating illness, and ultimately sparked the creation of this project. Mama Irene has granted Elisabeth the exclusive rights to document her life and healing crafts.
MAMA IRENE, Healer of the Andes is Elisabeth’s debut as a filmmaker.
BETTINA EHRHARDT
– Co-Director/Co-Writer
Documentary film producer and director Bettina Ehrhardt holds a Master’s degree in French Literature and a diploma in Film Studies both from Lyon 2 University.Her favorite subjects range from ethnology. nature and politics to the arts. Passionate about music, she has made several films dedicated to composers and conductors like Claudio Abbado, Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano, Pierre Boulez, Luigi Nono, Helmut Lachenmann, Bernd Alois Zimmermann. Her films are broadcast on channels as diverse as ZDF, Arte, WDR, BR, Radio Canada, RAI and were awarded on international documentary film festivals. In 2009 she founded bce films & more GmbH. A tireless traveler, by taste and profession, Bettina Ehrhardt is based in Munich.

Archaeology has had a long, strained history with Indigenous America. A review of past controversies and egregious conflicts with Native people and Tribal Nations in America begins with a chronological telling of the federal statutes that progressively went from protecting sites and places of heritage and research for archaeologists, to statutes that protect the interests of Native America. The story tells how statutes and training a new generation of archaeologists have been used to repair and restore damage done over the centuries.
The narrative follows the excavation of the oldest site for European settlement in North America along side a Native American village. Archaeologists consult with these Native Nations that today are the descendants that can be associated with this 450 year old site. Archaeological methods are followed within a set of legal guidelines for points along the process that demonstrate how respect and consideration for the Native American community is adopted as part of the training, understanding and processes of the new generation of archaeologists and anthropologists.

Director: Victoria Sutton

Writer: Victoria Sutton

Producer: Victoria Sutton

Key Cast: Naysan Adlparvar “Narrator”

Runtime:  14 minute 39 seconds

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United United States

Language: English

Subtitles: No

Victoria Sutton

Victoria Sutton is a filmmaker with film festival awards including Producer’s Award, Best Documentary Made in Texas, Audience Award and many others. She is a member of the Lumbee Tribe.
www.barbarasanti.co.uk