Florence November 27th - December 4th 2015

International documentary film festival

  • BIKING FOR YEMEN

    Netherlands 2015 10'
    Directed by: Nina Aqlan, Bushra Al Fusail
    Bushra Al Fusail is a young photographer living in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen. The city has been under siege for weeks now, ever since the civil war swelled into a geopolitical conflict involving Iran and Saudi Arabia. Driving became so expensive that men often used bicycles. Bushra Al Fusail, using Facebook, invited eighty women to come for a bike ride through the streets of the capital city. She filmed the event, and posted it on Facebook as Bike4Yemen. The event, scandalous in Yemen, quickly became a political issue, and from New York to Cairo, from Australia to Paris, solidarity bike rides were organized.

    2015 Saturday, november 28th, Odeon, 9:30 pm

  • CALLING UKRAINE

    Netherlands 2015 12'
    Directed by: Jean Counet
    Since the revolution on Maidan Square in Kiev, the situation in Ukraine has turned out to be really difficult. The filmmaker, interest in how the war affects the daily lives of people, made a short film about it. The film makes us aware of the distance between western Europe and events in eastern Ukraine. The film shows an older woman in Latvia, who gets in touch with her sister and daughter in Donetsk (eastern Ukraine) through Skype. What follows are two intimate conversations, larded with images of their existence, which create an alarming portrait of the war.

    Watch the trailer

    2015 Sunday, november 29th, Odeon, 9:30 pm

  • COMING OUT

    Netherlands 2015 7'
    Directed by: Ruben Pater, Jaap van Heusden
    Coming Out is part of the series: Behind the Blue Screen. The authors collected personal stories from Iran. With their approach they explore a new kind of journalism, a direct narrative form combined with an artistic presentation. This series of video-selfies was grouped under the same name because it uses a special technology to artistically mask the faces of the protagonists so as to ensure the confidentiality of the stories they told. In the case of Comnig Out, the story is about a young man who ‘comes out of the closet’.

    2015 Monday, november 30th, Odeon, 9:30 pm

  • INSIDE FOXCONN

    Netherlands 2015 15'
    Directed by: Tu Qiao
    Tian Yu was seventeen when, in early 2010, she left rural China and headed to the metropolis of Shenzhen. There she began working for Foxconn. One of the world’s biggest companies, Foxconn produces among other things iPhones and iPads in astounding quantities. In 2010 Tian Yu jumped off the roof of a Foxconn building. She was not the only one: that fatal year some eighteen exhausted and overworked employees jumped from the factory buildings of Foxconn. The film offers a unique glimpse into the lives of people who make our iPhones in China.

    2015 Tuesday, December 1st, Odeon, 9:30 pm

  • O PARTO

    Netherlands 2013 13'
    Directed by: Elizabeth Rocha Salgado
    Rio de Janeiro: Elizabeth Salgado is filming on her way to the hospital. She is pregnant and needs a check up. Elizabeth is convinced that her health insurance should provide a “natural birth” if she chooses so. But the doctors decide for a Caesarian. Between 80 and 90% of all women in Brazil have a Caesarian to give birth, one of the highest percentages in the world. According to the World Health Organization 15% is already too much. But in Brazil this seems the only way; especially for poor women with no health insurance coverage.

    2015 Friday, December 4th, Odeon, 5:30 pm

  • SHIPWRECK LAMPEDUSA

    Netherlands 2014 14'
    Directed by: Morgan Knibbe
    In October, 2013 more than three hundred migrants drowned off the coast of the Italian island Lampedusa. Dutch filmmaker Morgan Knibbe was present with his camera, and shot a mesmerizing short film, called Shipwreck Lampedusa which shows the immediate aftermath of the disaster. The visual style of the film is particularly striking; the camera moves and floats, in a ghost-like manner, while one of the few survivors, Abraham, recalls his terrible memories in a whispering voice.

    Watch the trailer

    2015 Thursday, December 3rd, Odeon, 9:00 pm

  • THE SNIPER OF KOBANI

    Netherlands 2015 12'
    Directed by: Reber Dosky
    Kurdish filmmaker Reber Dosky travelled through Kurdistan and visited the town of Kobani in Syria, close to the Turkish border. In Kobani, the fighting between Kurdish resistance and Islamic State has been particularly fierce. Today, Kobani is completely in ruins. The film portrays the Kurdish fighter Haron. Haron is a sniper by profession. In the midst of the ruins, he shows his hide-out and reflects on his profession, his dreams as well as his nightmares in this unique portrait of the ongoing battle against Islamic State.

    Watch the trailer

    2015 Wednesday, December 2nd, Odeon, 9:00 pm

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