Movies that matter 2023
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- DirectorVuslat KaranBurcu MelekogluStarsOnur Rüzgar ErkoçlarOn October 4, 2012, a beaming Rüzgar Erkoçlar received his first testosterone injection, marking an important step in his gender affirmation. Could he have imagined then how arduous that journey would be? That traditional Turkey would make him front-page news because formerly he was a well-known actor? Maybe so, because this film leaves no doubt about the degree of homophobia and transphobia in Turkish society. The crowning glory of this transition is the exchange of his pink identity card for a blue one. The entire process, a path paved with frustration, humiliation, and endless waiting, is captured in home movie-esque observations and self-assured phone videos. An intimate report of a struggle with self-realization and acceptance in a traditional society, under intense media scrutiny.
- DirectorMaksym NakonechnyiStarsRita BurkovskaValivots LiubomyrMyroslava Vytrykhovska-MakarReturning home from the front line after being held captive for two months, soldier Lilia (29 y.o.) discovers that she is pregnant after being raped by her warden. Will she manage to survive this trauma and save the child in a society that is not ready to accept either of them?
- DirectorPhyllis EllisStarsMatt SchichterWhen international sport governing bodies rule that "identified" female athletes must medically alter their bodies, four champion runners fight back against racism, policing of women's bodies, and the violation of their human rights.
- DirectorEmmanuelle NicotStarsZelda SamsonAlexis ManentiFanta GuirassyDalva is 12, but she dresses and lives like a woman. One day, she's taken away from her house. Dumbfounded at first, she later meets Jayden, a social worker, and Samia, a teen with a temper. A new life seems to start for Dalva.
- DirectorLaura Baumeister de MontisStarsVirginia Raquel Sevilla GarciaCarlos GutierrezNoé HernándezAn 11-year-old and her mother are separated as the try to eke out a life on Nicaragua's largest landfill.
- DirectorJenifer MalmqvistSofia, Hedvig and Maja grew up together on the countryside in Southern Sweden with their mom Carolina - a radiant personality and a devoted mother. In 2010 Carolina took her own life.
- DirectorReber DoskyA group of Yezidi women and girls, who were used as sex slaves by Islamic State, now have to rebuild their lives. With each other's love and support, and inspired by wise theatre-maker Hussein, they find the strength to look forward again.
- DirectorMatthieu RytzStarsJason MomoaThe fate of the planet's last untouched wilderness, the deep ocean, is under threat as a secretive organization is about to allow massive extraction of seabed metals to address the world's energy crisis.
- DirectorInna SahakyanStarsAnzhelika HakobyanArpi PetrossianShushan AbrahamyanA genocide survivor becomes a silent movie star: Aurora Mardiganian's odyssey is close to unreal. After losing her family, escaping slavery, and enduring Hollywood greed, she journeys far to tell the world of the Armenian Genocide.
- DirectorPuk Damsgaard AndersenSøren KlovborgStarsPuk Damsgaard AndersenSøren KlovborgSean LanganA film about the IS members known as The Beatles who were the brutal prison guards of many western hostages including American war correspondent James Foley.
- DirectorMaxim ArbugaevEvgenia ArbugaevaStarsMaxim ChakilevFollows a man waiting in his hut in the desolate expanse of the Russian Arctic. He is holding out in order to observe a natural event that occurs here, every year, but ocean warming is taking its toll.
- DirectorNishtha JainStarsMaqsoood AlamBabujaanS.C. ChandraOutside Kolkata a few jute mills crank on, virtually unchanged since the industrial revolution. Powered by steam and sweat, work is a dance to the dictate of profit and century-old machines. The Golden Thread follows the weft and warp of jute work alongside the creative labour of the film's own making. In this near dystopian industrial town can there be a potential for a collective re-imagination?
- DirectorBoubacar SangareCenters on 16-year-old Rasmané, who barely seems like a teenager any more. In Burkina Faso, young men look under the earth for gold - and a better future, follow their journey in a 100-metre abyss of small-scale mining.
- DirectorDavid DoutelVasco SáStarsAntónio DurãesDavid DoutelPaulo CalatréA Garrano horse is forced to pull a heavy load under the sun's blazing heat. The young boy, Joel, discovers a man who is about to set the forest on fire.
- DirectorJoseph ParisStarsLogan de CarvalhoYasser LouatiFollowing the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, France declared the state of emergency. This set in motion an exit from the rule of law, with Muslims as the first, but not the only victims.
- DirectorBernardo RuizAn unlikely meeting between a legendary American forensic scientist and a group of Argentine students ultimately changes the course of forensic science and international human rights.
- DirectorNegin AhmadiDream's Gate is an observational documentary where Iranian female director Negin Ahmadi starts a personal journey into the combat zone of North Syria to question what it means to be a woman. Alone with her camera, she decides to look for an answer for her questions by encountering the women who embody the strongest contemporary myth of female strength and freedom: Kurdish female fighters. The personal search and internal struggles turn into an intimate women diary written in the first person. Following, sharing, witnessing the life of this other Kurdish women put into question the image that the director has of herself and of the cost of equality and freedom in this difficult region.
- DirectorLaura Mora OrtegaStarsCarlos Andrés CastañedaDavison FlorezBrahian AcevedoFollows five young men and about the marginalized, excluded humanity who seeks a place in the world.
- DirectorViesturs KairissStarsKarlis Arnolds AvotsKristiana BerzaBaiba BrokaAn aspiring filmmaker tries to search for who he is against the backdrop of Latvian independence in this dark but dreamy coming-of-age story.
- DirectorRoman LiubyiStarsAnastasiia AnykevychBridget FiskeSofiya GakhAn investigation into the circumstances surrounding the downing of flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014.
- DirectorGuy DavidiMaking a war is a storyteller's job. A good story is crucial to legitimize the use of military force. That's why militaries need strong promotion and Israel is a model country in promoting its military ventures. We've successfully colonized, occupied and overgrown, and only got stronger and more accepted amongst the nations. Our history as persecuted Jews, our enlightened democracy are both in use in our solid PR kit. But before pitching our story to the world, we need to pitch it to our children. As moral corruption linked with apartheid thrives, avoiding service becomes a threat. For some children we'll offer benefits, for most we'll sell fictitious promises. Every child is screened to serve with bearable pressure and an adjusted amount of exposure to violence. 'Innocence' tells the story of children who resisted to be enlisted but capitulated. Their stories were never told as they died during their service. Through a narration based on their haunting diaries, the film depicts their inner turmoil. It interweaves first-hand military images, key moments from childhood until enlistment and home videos of the deceased soldiers whose stories are silenced and seen as a national threat.
- DirectorJoão GonzalezEvery day, a father and his son jump with a parachute from their vertiginous cold house, attached to a cliff, to go to the village on the ground, far away where they sell the ice they produce daily.
- DirectorTal KantorStarsMoriyah MeersonAlexander PelegAyelet MargalitA traumatic memory from a Holocaust survivor transports a young schoolgirl on an inner journey.
- DirectorSteve BuscemiStarsTessa ThompsonLogan Marshall-GreenDerek CecilFollows a helpline volunteer who is part of the small army that gets on the phone every night, fielding calls from all kinds of people feeling lonely, broken, etc.
- DirectorLisa CortesStarsLittle RichardRalph HarperNewt CollierThe life and career of Little Richard, the one-of-a-kind rock 'n' roll icon who shaped the world of music.
- DirectorDmytro Sukholytkyy-SobchukStarsAndriy HoldiyOrest VoytekhivskiyRoman SovaIn Western Ukraine, sculptors who used to make religious statues retrain to fight the Russian invasion.
- DirectorAbinash Bikram ShahStarsPriti JhaSujita SahAnkita YadavA mother sings lullabies to her 12-year-old daughter in order to calm her down. But, when the lullabies end, and the daughter comes to her senses, the reality turns out to be much grimmer, and life-altering.
- DirectorKarsten de VreugdStarsHidde BoersmaKarsten de VreugdGeorge MonbiotPaved Paradise is a playful, Dutch documentary about a serious problem: the loss of biodiversity due to human agricultural land use.
- DirectorAli AsgariStarsMayra PitambersinghAlan YadegarianWinnie AugustusYoung Fatima is rushed to the hospital by her father. She has a secret that she can only tell the doctor. What will the doctor tell her father?
- DirectorVladlena SanduStarsVladlena SanduGigantic portraits of Putin, Kadyrov Senior and Kadyrov Junior all over the city of Grozny are shot from a moving car. A document of the birth of fascism in Russia.
- DirectorJosé Miguel RibeiroStarsFeliciana Délcia GuiaVitória Adelino Dias SoaresElisângela RitaAngola. Three generations of women in a 25-year-long civil war: Lelena (the grandmother), Nayola (the daughter) and Yara (the granddaughter). Past and present interlace. Nayola goes in search of her missing husband at the height of the war. Decades later, the country is finally at peace but Nayola has not returned. Yara has become a rebellious teenager and a subversive rap singer. Lelena tries to contain her for fear of the police coming to arrest her. One night, a masked intruder breaks into their house, armed with a machete. An encounter like nothing they could have imagined.
- DirectorBatoul KarbijhaFilmmaker Batoul decides that making a film about what happened to her sister Maysoon, who disappeared on the Mediterranean Sea years ago, is the only way to deal with a pain so great that no one in her family can talk about it.
- DirectorSteffi NiederzollStarsReyhaneh JabbariShole PakravanFereydoon JabbariFollows a female student in Tehran who was hanged for murder. She had acted in self-defense against a rapist. For a pardon and after seven years in prison, she would have had to retract her testimony.
- DirectorJoseph PierceStarsSam SpruellZahra AhmadiEvelyn Neghabian PierceDriving along the motorway, Will loses his sense of scale. As his condition deepens, he struggles to unpick the sequence of events that led to this predicament, before he's lost forever.
- DirectorAnna VasofShort documentary essay is a goodbye film to director parents' house. As a point of departure for Anna Vasof, a survey of the damage left by a flood in her parents' house reveals a simple yet multi-layered work about memory, loss, and how we deal with the past.
- DirectorLloyd Lee ChoiStarsLimin WangMingjie LiLei HanOne bad night for a New York City delivery driver.
- DirectorIryna TsilykStarsYuriy IzdrykAndriy CherednykVladyslav BaliukA story about relationships between children and adults broken by shaky 1990s in Ukraine. The boy Tymophii befriends a weird man named Felix. He's the veteran of Afghan war, he has PTSD and he loves music.
- DirectorEva DzhyshyashviliHannusia puts the burden of farming in the Carpathian Mountains on herself after Dmytro, her husband of 30 years, losses his leg defending independence of modern Ukraine. Their grandchildren of 6 and 3 years old help them too.
- DirectorMohammadreza FarzadIt follows an accounting never being applied to one's life's products.
- DirectorMaryam Ebrahimi
- DirectorRita BaghdadiStarsAlaa AlnawaShery BecharaTatyana BoughabaLilas and Shery, co-founders and guitarists of the Middle East's first all-female metal band, wrestle with friendship, sexuality and destruction in their pursuit of becoming thrash metal rock stars.
- DirectorKevin OsepaStarsMalcolm DamianaKendrick EtmonYolanda FaneytThanks to the magic of Curaçao, a mother and her son rise above a painful loss.
- DirectorLin AllunaStarsAleqa HammondPaninnguaq HeilmannAsta HelmsRenowned Inuit lawyer Aaju Peter who has led a lifelong fight for the rights of her people. When her youngest son unexpectedly passes away, Aaju embarks on a personal journey to bring her colonizers in both Canada and Denmark to justice.
- DirectorÁdám CsásziStarsKelvin AcquahÁgota BenedekDávid CsányiA white Hungarian director rehearses a play with five young Roma actors. His play tells their real-life stories of abuse, drug addiction, and crime. However, instead of representing the truth of their experiences, it only capitalizes on their pain and exploits them. The actors quit the play, only to find that their white director has already sold the show to Berlin's biggest theatre and the premiere is looming. Their rehearsals turn into a surreal exploration of racism and white guilt, blurring the lines between fiction and reality - and the play and the film itself. The film features an all-Roma creative team and is based on an actual play written by them about their real-life stories, presented in Deutsches Theater, Berlin. It asks the question of whether left-wing white intellectuals trying to help people of color actually end up helping to perpetuate systemic racism. Can the artistic representation of Romas, the biggest ethnic minority of Europe, ever be done without falling back on racist stereotypes?
- DirectorMarc WieseStarsPaúl Jarrín MosqueraFernando VillavicencioRafael CorreaWhen Rafael Correa becomes president of Ecuador in 2007, the West will no longer lend money to the country. Instead, the president turns to China and starts making a flurry of deals and contracts with the Chinese, giving the big Asian country mining, oil and influence over infrastructure in the small South American country, among other things. But not all Ecuadorians are happy. In the lush mountains, villages are setting up guerrilla armies led by eco-activist Paúl Jarrín Mosquera, who, on horseback, wearing a red hat and carrying guns, is trying to sabotage Chinese mining and ensure Ecuador is not re-colonised. And in the capital, Quito, journalist Fernando Villavicencio exposes government corruption to such an extent that he has to flee for his life. 'This Stolen Country of Mine' is an intensely dramatic blockbuster about the consequences of globalisation, and the earthbound nationalism of an outraged population.
- DirectorLukasz KonopaEmil LangballeStarsKrispus AyenaDominic OgwenAs a nine-year-old boy, Dominic Ongwen was abducted and conscripted into Joseph Kony's army of child soldiers. Some 30 years later, he is the first former child soldier to be indicted in International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes.
- DirectorJafar PanahiStarsJafar PanahiNasrin SotoudehBanned from making movies by the Iranian government, Jafar Panahi poses as a taxi driver and makes a movie about social challenges in Iran.
- DirectorVincent KelnerStarsLamya EssemlaliRúni NielsenJens Mortan RasmussenEvery year, 700 pilot whales are slaughtered on the Faroe Islands despite the protests of animal rights activists.
- DirectorShuli HuangAs a young Chinese filmmaker returns to his hometown in search for himself, a long due conversation with his mother dives the two of them into a quest for acceptance and love.
- DirectorSarah VosHow can we be more inclusive? That is a question that many companies ask themselves, including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. And there the search for more diversity turns out to be more difficult than expected.
- DirectorVinay ShuklaStarsRavish KumarSushil BahugunaDeepak ChaubeyHow independent news reporting in India and beyond is increasingly under threat by budgetary cuts and especially, extremists leveraging alternative platforms to spread misinformation.
- DirectorThanasis TrouboukisAs a mountainous village in Greece sinks under the lake, the memories of its inhabitants emerge from the water.
- DirectorClaire Ledru
- DirectorScott McGeheeDavid SiegelStarsDennis HaysbertMel HarrisSab ShimonoAfter his brother tries to kill him, a man survives only to find himself in another man's body.
- DirectorPaddy BreathnachStarsBrendan GleesonPeter McDonaldAntoine ByrneIrish action comedy. An ex-con is forced into taking on a new task by a ruthless crime-boss, but finds he is hindered by the partner he has been teamed up with. However, he soon realizes they must work together if they are to survive.