Where to see the films of the 2021 FIFDH?
Fictions
The Translator by Rana Kazkaz & Anas Khalaf
In 2000, during the Sydney Olympics, a simple slip of the tongue forces Sami, a translator for the Syrian team, to seek asylum in Australia. In 2011, at the onset of the Syrian revolution, his brother is arrested. Sami returns to Damascus to try to find him. Exactly 10 years after the uprising against Assad's regime, this intense thriller, carried by outstanding actors, perfectly retraces the anguish and hope that reigns in Syria.
Available in movie theaters
Ghosts by Azra Deniz Okyay
Istanbul, in the near future. While the city is plagued by political unrest, four characters see their destinies collide. For her debut feature film, a prize-winner during the Venice Film Festival, filmmaker and photographer Azra Deniz Okyay delivers a complex and moving opus. With brilliant editing and punctuated by a magnificent soundtrack, she paints a powerful portrait of contemporary Turkey and an ode to its ghosts.
Available in movie theaters and online in VOD
Creative documentaries
Downstream to Kinshasa by Dieudo Hamadi
For the past 20 years, victims of the Six Day War have been struggling to obtain the financial reparations promised by the Congolese government. In the face of political apathy, and despite severe handicaps, they strive to make their voices heard in Kinshasa, at the heart of power. Then begins an adventure on the Congo River. This powerful film, selected at the Cannes Film Festival, is the work of one of contemporary African cinema’s masters.
Winner of the Gilda Vieira de Mello Award at the FIFDH 2021
Available online in VOD
Notturno by Gianfranco Rosi
For three years, Gianfranco Rosi filmed along the borders of Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria and Lebanon. Step by step, with patience and extraordinary talent, he captures the humanity that awakens each day from a seemingly never-ending night and tells the story of how people come together beyond arbitrary geographical borders. A masterful and painterly, Notturno is a jewel of light chiseled from the dark matter of Middle Eastern history.
Available in movie theaters
The New Gospel by Milo Rau
What would Jesus preach today? Who would his apostles be? Moved by the fate of migrants, Swiss director Milo Rau sets off for Matera in southern Italy to follow in the footsteps of Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew. The bubbling Cameroonian activist Yvan Sagnet takes on the role of Christ. His apostles? Migrants, peasants and sex workers. An implacable political film, somewhere between documentary and fiction forms, noticed at the Venice Film Festival.
Available in movie theaters and online in VOD
Coronation by Ai Weiwei
January 2020. Faced with the pandemic, China devises a new concept: containment. Wuhan is completely closed to the outside world. What really happens inside? From Europe, Ai Weiwei asked 12 people from Wuhan to film from the heart of hell, in hospitals, delivery car parks, confined flats or the morgue. From 500 hours of image, the artist has created a masterpiece that finally gives both a face and a voice to a people swept away in the name of national interest.
To discover on Vimeo
Grands reportages
Coded Bias de Shalini Kantayya
How does artificial intelligence encroach on our freedoms? What sexist and racist biases does it internalise? And how should we respond to these attacks? Selected at the Sundance Festival, this hard-hitting investigation gives the floor to women at the cutting edge of science: researchers, data scientists and futurists, all of them turned activists in favour of better regulation of AI, one of the major challenges of the 21st century.
Winner of the OMCT Prize (World Organisation Against Torture) at the FIFDH 2021 edition
To discover on Netflix
Pandémie, la révolte des citoyens contre l’Etat by Matteo Born & Françoise Weilhammer
Across Europe, tens of thousands of people lost relatives in the first wave of Covid-19. Were we ready for a pandemic? Many criticise the unpreparedness and negligence displayed by governments and are organising themselves to hold their political and health authorities to account. For the first time, this report from Temps Présent takes a look at these citizen mobilizations in Switzerland, Austria and Italy, and gives a voice to those who are calling for the justice system to fulfil its duty.
To discover for free on RTS Play
White Noise by Daniel Lombroso
How is far-right nationalism built in the United States? By following three representatives of the American hard right in their daily lives, the journalist at The Atlantic Daniel Lombroso dissects the mechanisms at work within the populist and racist movements that had been marginalised in the past but which are present in the dominant discourse as well as on the major social media platforms. An urgent film that reveals the fabric of extremism and supremacist ideology from the inside.
To discover on sur Apple TV, Google Play and Amazon
Special screenings
Call Me Intern by Nathalie Berger & Leo David Hyde
In 2015, Geneva is stunned by the case of David Hyde, an unpaid UN intern who slept in a tent on the shores of Lake Léman: a scandal with global reverberations. A cleverly-orchestrated publicity stunt to demonstrate the injustice suffered by Millennials, sometimes forced to work for years without any pay. From within international Geneva, the two filmmakers set up an implacable investigation into a worldwide system that puts young people in a precarious position, afflicted by what can only be called a perfectly legal form of modern slavery.
To discover on Vimeo
Marchands de sommeil, les nouveaux profiteurs de la précarité by Gabriel Tejedor & Antoine Harari
The Filipino community in Geneva continues to grow, yet it is one of the most discreet. Undocumented for the most part, its members live in hiding, at the mercy of crooks. Unable to legally obtain a housing lease, many are forced to rely on slumlords. These unscrupulous characters profit from their misery by renting rooms at 3 or 4 times the market price. An exclusive Temps Présent investigation on a still little-known subject.
To discover for free on Play RTS
Binti by Frederike Migom
Little Binti and her father are evicted from their squat in Belgium. Undocumented, they are forced into hiding to avoid being sent back to Congo. Bold and lively, Binti expresses herself with wit and humour on social networks. One day, she meets Elias, a little boy who could allow her to live legally in Belgium... A touching and funny film, filmed from a child’s perspective, with Belgian-Congolese rapper and artist Baloji.
To discover online in VOD
Taïwan, une démocratie à l'ombre de la Chine by Alain Lewkowicz
To China, it is a separatist province that should return to the homeland. To its 24 million inhabitants, it is a sovereign State with its own constitution and democratically elected leaders. Now that Hong Kong has been aligned, Taiwan intends to stand up to Beijing as a vibrant young democracy, while facing countless cyber-attacks aimed at destabilising its institutions and exacerbating divisions.
Co-presented with ARTE
To discover online on Arte.tv
