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Agor Dromesko – At The End Of Way

8Film is an impression on one day of life of the family of Bulgarian Romanies. Characters raised in the camp settled in the country and try to fulfil their obligations arising from keeping their households.In broader sense he tries to say about a human's attempt to adjust to new living conditions, to ask a question about its value separated from tradition and most of all he expresses his longing to what is never to return.
dir. Jędrzej Bączyk, Poland, Bulgaria 15 min., 2008

Anything but black

15‘You’re born and you will die’ confidently declares an eighty year old woman trying on her future ‘death dress’. Still widely practiced amongst the elderly population in rural Lithuania, the ancient custom of preparing your own burial clothes seems much less acceptable to the younger generation. Anything But Black explores this unique tradition through encounters with those who still maintain it - proudly showing off the dresses as their sacred possession; those who express their disapproval and also those to whom this practice is completely unheard of. The film proposes a rather unconventional attitude towards death - that of acceptance..
dir. Ausra Linkeviciute, Lithuania, UK, 20 min., 2009

Cholita Libre: If you don’t fight, you’ve already lost

10What THEY want, THEY get. If THEY don’t do it, nobody does it. THEY can lose but that just means, that they will continue fighting. With their colourful, glittering skirts THEY are like flowers on the tarmac. And of course, THEY are stronger than all the men in the world. THEY are Cholitas and they are wrestlers. THEY fight on the stage to show us that this world can change. Lucha Libre (Free Wrestling) is a mix of sport, theatre, and choreography. We get to know Rosita the Heartbreaker, Carmen Rosa the Champion, Yolanda the Passionate  and Claudina the Condemned.
dir. Jana Richter, Rike Holtz, Germanz, 70 min., 2008

Cooking up dreams. The revolution from the kitchens to Peru

16Can an entire nation be represented by its cuisine?
In his native Peru, a rising culinary star, award-winning filmmaker Ernesto Cabellos journeys from the coast, highlands and jungle to the expat communities in Paris, London, Amsetrdam and New York for answers.
From the most humble family kitchens to the poshest restaurant, from stories of pioneering Peruvian chefs abroad to those who preserve ancient recipes at home, we find that Peru’s cuisine is a deliciously integrating for its people, who have historically been marked by ethnic and economic differences.
Renowned chefs such as Gaston Acurio, Ferran Adria, Pedro Miguel Schiaffino and Bernardo Roca Rey share their views on Peru’s cuisine alongside those unsung chefs, who also dream of Peru’s cuisine as a motor of development.
dir. Ernesto Cabellos, Peru, 75 min., 2009

Fire burn Babylon

17Don Letts narrates the story of a crew of Rastafarians evacuated to London after a volcanic eruption in Montserrat. Living in exile in inner-city London, the Rastamen reinvent themselves as “rude-boy” rappers and small time hustlers and pitch between enjoying the thrills of the city and committing to Rastafari ideals.
dir. Sarita Siegel, UK, 53 min., 2008

Forsaken paths

18An intimate sotry about the semi-nomadic Cepni tribe in the Black Sea Region of Turkey. Every June, the Cepni lead their cows on a two-day hike up to their high pastures called „yayla”. The film follows young Fatma and Sonnur in Instanbul, and the old woman in the village. Two young sisters have had to move to Instanbul to find jobs. They miss their hometown and the life they left behind. On the other hand, the old lady back in the village in witnessing changes in recent years and feels sad old customs and colors vanish as the popilation decreases. The two-day walk starts from the village and covers 20 kilometers up the and down the hills and valleys to reach the mountain pasture located at 2.300 meters. Cows are dresses with colorful talismanic tassels accompanying the chime od cowbells, and the girl put on their most elegant traditional costumes. Forsaken Paths ends at the remote Kadirga festival.
dir. Ruya Arzu Koksal, Turkey, 36 min., 2006

Funeral season

19In this whimsical ghost story, a foreigner finds himself in the midst of a culture where “the dead are not dead.” Village by village, locals take him on a road trip through Cameroon’s most joyous funeral celebrations. Along the way, he befriends his guides and becomes increasingly haunted by memories of his own ancestors.
dir. Matthew Lancit , Canada, 86 min., 2009

Ghosts of the capital

2Since the economic collapse of 2001 more than 6,000 families survive collecting recyclable material from the waste of the local residents of Buenos Aires. They appear in the nightfall as they arrive to the city in trains and trucks that come from the poorer parts of the province. Despite their daily presence, the so-called Cartoneros remain hidden to the eyes of the city. The film sticks close to these individuals to show the stories that rest behind their handcarts.

dir. Laura von Bierbrauer, Germany, Argentina, 50 min., 2008

Hillside beauties

12In a violent, marginalized and discriminated environment as the favelas in Rio de Janeiro, women create time and space to construct their identities and beauties.
Marcella, Thuany and Nagila are three young girls who deal with the difficulties of their social reality in a particular and beautiful way.
dir. Julia Kurc, Brazil, 30 min., 2008

Itelmen stories

20The action In the film revolves around an ancestrally used practice of hunting sable by net. Set in rural Kamchatka in the Russian Far East, where fewer than 20 speakers of Itelmen remain, the film goes beyond its original aim to recapture a language and a hunting practice that are remembered but no longer in use. Two hunters encounter the wild environs and villages of Kamchatka as a history laden homeland and memories, nostalgia, resignation and hope echo throughout the film.
dir. Liivo Niglas, Estonia, US, 68 min., 200

Khmer pots

21Mrs Khnat, potter as many women of the region of Kampong Chhnang, the „ Clay pots Port” in Khmer, makes jars according to a typically Cambodian technique. Items are then cooked under rice straw before being sold in touring in all the kingdom of Cambodia.
Through the everyday life of this family of potters-riziculteurs is outlined a fable made by unchanging traditions and by common lives, connected to the nature and to the essential elements that are earth and water.
dir. Moreau Delphine, France., 24 min., 2005

Living without men

11When given two options in 20s: submitting to an arranged marriage or taking a vow of celibacy for life, three women Lian, Yi and Fen preferred the latter. They earned their living in spinning factories and moved in a nursing home after retirement. Now in 90s, they tell their stories with pride and loneliness, but no regret: „It was the fashion.”
dir. Yi Luo, Wielka Brytania, 27 min., 2010

Mantra

6Serving the God, simple life, unwillingness to civilization, daily singing and mantra... Krishna devotees despise all new technologies and modern society. They believe people live dreaming, bound to their carnality so that they forget about what is important and who they really are. Krishna believers try to leave the vicious circle of birth and death and lose the uncomfortable bodies they are confined to. Their clear aim is to leave this material world with all its pain and miseries forever and unite with the most beautiful Lord Krishna in the spiritual land of eternal wisdom and happiness. The way to God is full of  renouncements and restrictions but it leads to full self-consciousness. It answers all of ‘life’s unanswerable questions’. It is a conscious voyage in search of true freedom and full happiness that only great love to God can assure.
dir. Łukasz Dębski, Polska, 17 min., 2008

Mawla’s wedding

22Mawla, a young man from Bangladesh living in Madrid (Spain), dreams of having a family. After seven years he decides to go back to his country for the first time in order to find a bride and get married.
dir. Zoltan Enevold, Spain, 52 min., 2007

Memoreies for sale

23Doña Rosa is an indigenous old woman who sells crafts in the market. Carlos is an enthusiastic tour guide who offers tours into indigenous people’s houses and families, including Paola’s. Their live’s work is to provide what a group of inquisitive tourists – and a filmmaker – might be looking for in an indigenous and picturesque region in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.
dir. Carolina Corral, UK, 25 min., 2009

My place in the dance

3Three migrant women who have recently returned to their homeland in Northern Greece, try to readjust to a new reality.   
After 30 years of hard work in the factories of Germany, they return to their small village to live out their lifelong dream of prosperity and easy life. But the reality is very different and they suffer from loneliness and boredom. Dancing seems to be their only way out, but it is also  the cause of major social disruption in their small community.
dir. Marianna Economou, Greece, 52 min., 2005

W Nowicy na końcu świata

24Nowica is an old village, lost in the picturesque Beskid Mountains. For years it has been a vivid Lemkovian cluster, but the inhabitants were always famous for their hospitable attitude towards other nations and cultures – Poles lived in Nowica, and there was a jewish tavern as well… Before WWII the village counted a few hundred house numbers. Today it’s just a few dozens.The director managed to avoid creating an idealized picture of the provinces, known from TV shows. Nowica is a village, which after years of marasmus, got the chance for a new life.
dir. Natasza Ziółkowska-Kurczul, Poland, 68 min., 2009

Old man Peter

1The dialogue between people, nature and gods is based upon a sacred knowledge and mythology. In the modern world only a few cultures based on myth survive. This film takes us into the word of Old Peter, the last surviving Shaman of the Kazym River, who lives alone in the depths of the Syberian taiga.

dir. Ivan Golovnev, Russia, 20 min., 2008

Saint death

13Between the end of October and beginning of November the traditional “Day of the Dead” is celebrated in most parts of Mexico. Through a dialogue between the images and some passages from the Aztec and Spanish reports of the Conquest, the performance of the “Fiesta de los Muertos” takes place, a syncretic blend  of pre-Hispanic traditions  and  catholic believes. During the night between October 31st  and November 1st , in the village of Atzompa, situated some kilometres from Oaxaca, the “indios zapotechi” go to the graveyard with offers of food, photos, alcohol, cigarettes and whatever the dead liked and they spend all the night awaiting the souls of their own beloved. Following the path traced by the smoke of “copal” and the petals of flowers the spirits arrive their relatives’ and  rest after the long journey.
dir. Cinzia D’Auria, Italy, 38 min., 2005

Shooting with Mursi

9The story of one of Africa’s most isolated tribes – the Mursi – through the eyes of an ex warrior; Olisarali Olibui. He carries in one hand a Kalashnikov and in the other, a video camera. A pastoralist tribe, living in an area of Ethiopia the size of Wales, the Mursi are surrounded by potential threats; 14 other tribes, national park proposals and the arrival of a new road bringing tourists. The film provides a compelling and at times disturbing insight into the everyday life of people whose culture, in the words of Olisarali, could face extinction.
dir. Ben Young, Et iopia, UK, 54 min., 2009

The hope

25Their country is bankrupt, their bodies broken. Neighbors consider them cursed. But in music, eight young disabled Zimbabweans may have found a way out.

iThemba is not another demoralizing documentary about Africa, an overly familiar tale of woe. Rather, it is a poignant and often funny narrative about a group of compelling young people who began as the Zimbabwean equivalent of a garage band and have slowly – with grit, grace and biting humor – built a following in their collapsing country despite ingrained prejudices against the disabled.

Rife with the unexpected, iThemba is an intimate journey into an Africa rarely seen by outsiders.  
dir. Elinor Burnett , Loli & Rex, Zimbabwe, US, 70 min., 2009

The shaman, his nephew... and the captain

4Palawan Island in the Philippines : Medsinu succeeds his father as shaman, in a community living in the forest and pressured by the modern world. His nephew Issad falls ill and can no longer work the land, so he joins the militia of the local « captain ». But he has to choose whether or not to obey the shaman’s order : to refuse medical treatment in town.

dir. Pierre Boccanfuso, France, 87 min., 2006

When dedi shake it up

26Donji Kosinj is situated In Lika, a mountainous region in central Croatia. Every year at Carnival time local men gather in groups as dedi and try to visit each household on the tour around their hamlets on Shrove Tuesday. It is customary for the host to try and run away upon their arrival. Dedi must catch him and take him back to the house on the poles that they carry with them. All the inhabitants of Donji Kosinj look forward to this custom that is still alive and well. Everyone has their own reasons to be happy: the older ones because someone comes to see them, the younger ones because they can get together and all of them because they can forget their everyday troubles for at least one day.
dir. Ivo Kuzmanić, Croatia, 42 min., 2005
 
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