DOCUMENTARI - Società

During the late 1960s, Emilio Sidoti, an elementary school teacher in Albisola, decided to make some movies with his students in order to develop their critical gaze in a free and radical expressive pathway. This was the start of "Cinema dei ragazzi," Italy's first experience of "school and cinema;" it generated over twenty movies, all shot in Super8, and most of them were entirely written, directed, and edited by the children. Starting with the material of the time, this unique experience is put into relation with the present time, as the children of back then - who today are adults - are asked to recount the impression it left on them. Among the cases that clearly show the extraordinary consonance between the children's imagination and their vision as adults, and others that reveal the break between the time of childhood and present-day reality, existential pathways are drawn and emerge against the backdrop of the cultural and social transformations of recent decades, that involve a corner of Liguria but reflect what was happening throughout the country.

The rough highlands of Papua New Guinea have become the land of plenty for tourists in search of exoticism and foreign oil companies looking for new fields. Tribes get paid to dress up for visitors while a local Huli family and their clan have agreed to sell their land to ExxonMobil with dreams of modernity. But the money never comes and they are now caught between rival tribes, greedy politicians and one of the most powerful multinationals in the world. Tourists point their cameras on dances that have lost their meaning. And a world is disappearing without a sound.

Florida's most dedicated dance team for women over 60, shaking up the outdated image of "the little old lady," and calling for everyone to dance their hearts out, while they still can.

Semi-documentary film about a man going to his home country of Chad after many years living in exile in France.

A thirty-year odyssey: the world's most intriguing artists and thinkers from the fields of visual art, music, filmmaking, acting, literature, philosophy, politics, business, and science, are asked the same question: "Why are you creative?"

The world's climate is changing. Instead of showing the worst that can happen, this documentary focuses on the people suggesting solutions and their actions.

A look at Boston's city government, covering racial justice, housing, climate action, and more.

The images contain their chronology, down to the minutes and seconds: In 2006, a surveillance camera in the Arab quarter of Ramla films a car that a short while ago became the victim of vandalism. Neighbours and passersby walk past it as if nothing has happened. Do they have something to hide? Then someone puts his hand on the trunk - An absurdly patient everyday thriller that doubles as an experimental film. Images that change according to the weather become almost indecipherable at night. The device performs its function only half-heartedly. Kamal Aljafari scans its grainy recordings for traces of his late father, who years ago attached the camera to the wall. A search for life and death becomes both a game and a sincere study of what holds the world together.

Made from images filmed by the Syrian artist Amel Alzakout after the boat on which she was fleeing Syria sank off the coast of Lesbos, Purple Sea reports on the moment in which the co-director and the other passengers are floating in the sea in their life-jackets, waiting to be rescued. Her voice-over accompanies this extremely poignant experience.

People in White explores the complex relationships between doctors and clients in mental health care, from the clients perspective. In a group therapy setting, nine people share their therapy experiences and re-enact together some of the key moments. Memories vary from beautiful healing moments to the horrors of isolation and abuse. Margreet is one of them. She receives electroshock treatment (ECT) for severe depression. As a side effect of the treatment she suffers from memory loss. She has been in therapy with the same psychoanalyst for 20 years. He knows more about Margreet than she remembers about herself. He is my memory, she says, and worries about him dying before her.

The story of a bricklayer from the suburbs that one day became a prophet, the story of a man who got out of the world to reveal, from up there, a different, vaster horizon, a path where man, divinity and nature return to be one.

At the southern edge of the Sahara desert stands The House of Migrants: a safe haven for those on their way to Europe, or those returning home. Here they come to terms with their individual migration stories. How do you feel, what do you need, when your dreams have been buried in the sand, or when they are waiting to be lived?

Over one in three women in Turkey experience domestic violence. Lawyer Ipek Bozkurt's clients risk their lives while fighting the culture of violence in court

At the gates of the Negev desert, a group of young Palestinians struggles using cameras and nonviolent actions to defend their villages from the Israeli military occupation, taking back the land and the caves stolen from their families.

A fourteen-year-old boy's life in the mountains is about to end as he is soon to enroll in catering school. The institution he attends is renowned for its strict rules: the lessons on cooking, dining etiquette, and religion make each student daily confront their weaknesses, insecurities and skills.

FRAMING AGNES turns the talk show format inside out in response to media's ongoing fascination with trans people. The film breathes life into six previously unknown stories from the archives of the UCLA Gender Clinic in the 1950s.

Two Syrian refugees deal with the hardships of being separated from their children.

The Cabinet wife who spoke out during Watergate and the Nixon administration's campaign to gaslight her into silence.

A black man from the Paris suburbs seeks to escape the violence of his immediate surroundings by training to become an actor at one of France's most prestigious drama schools.

The daily routine of a doctor who treats refugees at a hospital in Paris.