The French Revolution

A highly intelligent chimpanzee named Caesar has been living a peaceful suburban life ever since he was born. But when he gets taken to a cruel primate facility, Caesar decides to revolt against those who have harmed him.

Dramatic story of one man trying to make a difference.

Road to Revolution follows the journey of three Portuguese journalists who travel through Tunisia, Syria, Egypt and Libya, two years after the uprising that became known as the Arab Spring. There they meet the men and women who have experienced the consequences of revolution first-hand. From the bold resisters of Egypt's Tahrir Square to Syrian refugees, freedom fighters and the mothers of Libyan martyrs, Road to Revolution captures the voices of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events, standing as an honest and intimate testimony of past, present and future.

Ibn Battuta works as a journalist for an Algerian daily newspaper. While covering community clashes in Southern Algeria, he finds himself incidentally picking up the trail of long forgotten uprisings against the Abbasid Caliphate, back in 8th-9th century Iraq. For the purpose of his investigation he goes to Beirut, a city that used to embody the hopes and struggles of the Arab World...

An archival biography in three chapters, exploring the revolutionary potential of being a cinephile. A war pilot, a radical revolutionary, and a cinephile... This is the portrait of a man who left the army and built a successful career as businessman in Europe. Only a few people knew that he was also an undercover member of the resistance movement against Turkey’s military regime in early 1970s. Mekin Gönenç later dedicated most of his life to the movies. When he died after suffering a heart attack while swimming in 2011, he left behind thousands of VHS tapes and meticulously crafted home-made film journals. His death between the two blues he cherished most—the sea and the sky— now give some consolation to his wife. Through archives, we trace the journey of a 20th-century romantic.

A dramatization of the uprising in Odessa, Russia in 1905: A ship's crew, tired of being mistreated, mutinies and takes over their ship. When they reach land, a sailor who died during the mutiny is made a martyr, inspiring an uprising in the city. Then the authorities decide to repress the revolt with a brutal show of force.

In 1907, the Russian authorities learn that a revolutionary known as 'Granddad' is living in hiding with his brother. The revolutionary is soon arrested and sent to Siberia. After ten years of struggling to survive in harsh conditions, he is finally released when the Tsarist government is overthrown in February 1917. He is welcomed home as a hero, but he soon finds that even his own son has different views than he does about the future of Russia.

Filmed on the streets of Lisbon, after the 25th of April, with a Super 8 camera, it documents the political propaganda posters, graffiti and murals of revolutionary ideology inscribed on the city's walls.

The long fight over the land, which demolished the wall between master and serf, continues to divide Peru to this day. But the 1969 agrarian reform marked a before and after in the country's story - a profound change that Peruvian cinema reflected and encapsulated, creating great imagination we continue to discover today. 50 years after the social experiments of the revolution, we ask ourselves whether Peru really messed up or not with Juan Velasco Alvarado.

In order for the revolution to live up to its promise, might love be the missing ingredient? Artist Dora García delves into the archives and finds in the searing writings of Alexandra Kollontaï, an early-20th-century revolutionary, a precious ally of queer and feminist movements in Latin America and elsewhere. A joyfully militant political film."

From a young age, Natsuki knew she was a girl despite her sex assigned at birth. Against the backdrop of conservative Japanese society, this poignant docudrama tells her remarkable story of gender transition. Reflecting on her high school years, Natsuki interviews the supportive friends and family who supported her choices – and also confronts the people those who oppressed her freedom. Tracing Natsumi’s story to the present, this compelling portrait of gender identity in contemporary Japan offers insights of a layered experience in a complex society.

As the largest island in the Caribbean, Cuba is host to spectacular wildlife found nowhere else on the planet: from the jumping crocodiles of the Zapata swamp to the world's tiniest hummingbird, from thousands of migrating crabs to giant, bat-eating boas that lie in wait for easy prey. Decades of a socialist, conservation-minded government, American embargoes and minimal development have left the island virtually unchanged for 50 years. As international relations ease, what will become of this wildlife sanctuary?

Today, we see a new style of feminism springing up everywhere - young, provocative and radical. To get their message across, these women have decided to rely on rock music! While the Pussy Riot shock Russia and fascinate the West, the concerts of Peaches or Grimes are sold out, while artists such as Kathleen Hanna make their comeback to remind us that it all began in 1990 in some backwater of the United States. The RIOT GRRRLS revolutionized rock and inspired entire generations of young artists around the world. This film will explore today s feminist scene while revisiting the little known history of this revolution that shook the early 90s.

A short film about 2011 Egyptian revolution, directed by Imad Maher

The artificial medial noise of the / pandemic wind floods the network. / The human wants to dominate everything. / Nature reveals itself. / The nature within the human is reveal / Like a war between our natural and/or / artificial existence. / Is the pandemic wind that shakes us / natural or artificial? / All representation is artificial.

Men and women are dancing feverishly for a long time. The dance of bodies turns into a filmic trance, fleeing turns into running away, with braided motifs that get revived with every race. The men who don’t dance talk, recite, tell their own stories for and with the filmmakers. And be it through dancing or talking, it is by sharing work space and time, by making a film together, as a community, and by lovingly giving in to sharing, that the film operates politically. It even makes a processional samba in the streets of Sao Paulo look like a show of inalienable collective power. Carried away by this power, the film itself then seems to run away, to overrun its own limits. Somewhere between fable and document, improvisation and composition, anger and joy, all frontiers are burning. (Cyril Neyrat - FID 2021)

French director Frederic Rossif presents this historical documentary that coincided with the 50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Stock footage from both World Wars are included with 30 minutes of new scenes filmed especially for the project. The historical timeline is traced from the time Czar Nicholas II is crowned. The emergence of Lenin, his death in 1924, and the later contributions of Trotsky and Stalin give the viewer a sense of death, betrayal, and ideological devotion to the communist agenda. Rossif effectively uses scenes from the landmark 1929 film The Man With A Movie Camera by celebrated director Dziga Vertov. Rossif researched the film archives from several countries in his meticulous gathering of materials for this timely historical feature.

It’s the spring of 1793 and the French Revolution is raging. King Louis XVI had been beheaded in Paris a few months earlier, and the whole of Europe is teetering on the brink of war. Austrian troops move across the country’s northern border, and among many other members of the French nobility who emigrated, Erneste des Tressailles also serves as an officer in the enemy ranks. Although he risks the death penalty for treason, he rides to Trionville Castle to marry his young bride Alaine. The revolutionary troops arrive quickly and storm the castle, but Alaine is determined to save her groom. (Stumfilm.dk)

In Lausanne, Switzerland, a group of young women in their twenties embark, while working or studying, on making ethical and dissident pornographic films.