Tag Archives: justice

The Quiet Epidemic

After years of living with mysterious symptoms, a young girl from Brooklyn and a Duke University scientist are diagnosed with a disease said to not exist: Chronic Lyme disease. The Quiet Epidemic follows their search for answers, which lands them in the middle of a vicious medical debate.

What begins as a patient story evolves into an investigation into the history of Lyme disease dating back to its discovery in 1975. A paper trail of scientific research and buried documents reveals why ticks—and the diseases they carry—have been allowed to quietly spread around the globe.

Television Event

At the height of the cold war, broadcaster ABC set about making a made-for-TV movie about the effects of a nuclear bomb on the ordinary American people, little knowing the obstacles and opposition they would face during its production, and the eduring impact it would have once broadcast – both in the US and in Russia.

With irreverent humor and sobering apocalyptic vision, Television Event reveals how a commercial broadcaster seized a moment of unprecedented television viewership, made an emotional connection with an audience of over 100 million and forced an urgent conversation with the US President on how to collectively confront and resolve the most pressing issue of the time – nuclear proliferation.

They narrowly succeeded in producing the most watched, most controversial made-for-TV movie ever, THE DAY AFTER (1983), that may also have played a part in averting nuclear war.

Blue ID

On October 4, 2012, a beaming Rüzgar Erkoçlar received his first testosterone injection, a joyous occasion in his gender affirmation.

Formerly a well-known actor throughout Turkey, Rüzgar hoped he could lead a private life as a transman. With a new job at a bakery and a supportive family and friends, things looked positive at first – until he was outed on Twitter and suddenly Rüzgar’s journey is thrust onto the front pages. A media frenzy ensues, and the question of trans-rights grips Turkey, with Rüzgar the reluctant figurehead.

It is against this backdrop that we join Rüzgar, and witness the many obstacles he is to overcome in order to live an authentic life and get his Blue ID.

When a City Rises

When a city rises up against a superpower, everyone must decide how far they will go for freedom.

Hong Kong 2019 – The world has seen the iconic images of protestors covered in black, tossing back tear gas, waving black flags and protesting against the authoritarian superpower that is China in order to fight for a democratic future. It is easy to be caught up in the action, in the glorification of bravery and sacrifice. But away from the limelight, who are these hidden people concealed underneath their masks? What are the protestors really fighting for? What is at stake for them?

Narrated by Eve, a student, When a City Rises follows a teenage couple in love, a student leader, and a father, as they navigate the protest movement, each taking different kinds of action to strike back against the superpower overshadowing their lives. Using direct action, guerrilla tactics, technology, social media, memes and graffiti, they try to challenge the status quo. Each one plays a different role in this huge social movement. Eve, offers background legal support from her ‘control’ room. She is entirely behind the more radical action until her campus is besieged by police and in response protesters turn her university into a brick and firebomb factory. Tan, a father, first took to the streets when the government proposed the extradition bill. He is quickly radicalised and grows impatient with the political impasse, contemplating more dangerous action, even though he has the most to lose. 18-year-old MJ dreams of being a footballer and likes shopping with his girlfriend. Born in a different time, he would be splitting his hours between school and the pitch. Instead, every weekend he is at a protest, putting his relationship in peril.

When a City Rises captures three characters and a year of their personal struggles throughout the movement. Each must confront their own fears and find out exactly how much they are willing to risk for change. Relationships break and form amidst tear gas and rubber bullets, and across the border, China’s People Liberation Army awaits.  With a global pandemic driving protests inside and the new even more repressive National Security Law introduced, the stakes have never been higher.

Port of Destiny: Peace

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won international praise and the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for ending a five-decade civil war that left some 260,000 people dead and 8 million displaced. His persistence transformed a country that was once the murder capital of the world into a global destination for investment and tourism.

Port of Destiny recounts the drama of Colombia’s path to peace. As Defense Minister, Santos waged war on the terrorist guerrilla movement FARC, hunting down its leaders and orchestrating high-wire hostage rescues. As President, he brokered peace—but paid a steep political price.

Featuring interviews with former United States President Bill Clinton and former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair, the film draws on unprecedented access to Santos, his family, and Colombian officials to tell the story of a man who risked his career and his legacy to bring peace to his people.

The Guardians

Over the next few decades, the Baby Boomer generation will reach senior citizen status and bequeath more than 30 trillion dollars. An unprecedented shift of wealth will pass from one generation to the next. With this shift comes the temptation and opportunity for appalling greed and cold-hearted abuse by those very people charged with protecting society’s most vulnerable citizens.

Elderly people are disappearing in Las Vegas. Deemed incompetent, they are removed from their homes, drugged, and dumped in nursing homes against their will. Their autonomy is stolen, dignity destroyed, and life savings gradually pillaged — all without their consent. This multi-million-dollar scam is perpetrated by “The Guardians” – the very people sworn to protect the vulnerable among us. Abetted by a network of crooked judges, lawyers, and healthcare practitioners, these guardians execute an unscrupulous scheme, perfected over 30 years, that profits from the largest transfer of wealth in history.

Nothing and no one has stood in their way. Until now.

Mr. Fish: Cartooning from the Deep End

We find Mr. Fish, who once had success creating compelling, outrageous editorial cartoons, as his profession is dying out.

Editors who previously backed his controversial work are disappearing as fast as the newspapers which once employed him. Can an outspoken artist raise a family and maintain his unique defiant voice?

This intimate documentary follows the artist as he struggles to stay true to his creativity in a world where biting satiric humour has an ever-diminishing commercial value. Mr Fish: Cartooning from the Deep End examines the compromises a radical artist makes (or refuses to make).

 

“A stubbornly amiable film about a compulsively provocative talent, “Mr. Fish” ponders the outer limits of editorial cartooning in an age where there’s arguably more fodder for such commentary than ever… 

to further offset the queasiness that Mr. Fish’s images often generate, Bryant lends his well-crafted feature a bright, playful, even antic tenor, painting his subject as a lovable eccentric rather than a tortured artist.”
Variety

“The film hit my heart and brain with such velocity that it literally made me sit on the edge of my seat”
Ain’t It Cool News

The Price of Fairness

Why do we accept huge levels of inequality and social injustice? This is one of the central questions that The Price of Fairness sets out to answer, beginning with a surprising set of social experiments in Norway, which suggest that our willingness to support systems of inequality is far greater than we are often prepared to admit.

In Atlanta, we take a different look at fairness, from the perspective of a group of capuchin monkeys. Behavioural scientist Sarah Bronson’s work with the monkeys questions the idea that we have an evolutionary tendency towards selfish behaviour. Could it be that the outrage we feel towards systems of inequality have roots in our human need for cooperation? 

We visit Costa Rica and Iceland to see how whole economies have been engineered to function with greater ‘fairness’, and the US where systematic racial injustices have tested many of their citizens hopes for a fairer justice system.

From the caste-biased villages of India to the race-sensitive streets of Ferguson, Missouri, this documentary explores our understanding of fairness and what it takes to change an unfair system.

Touching on issues of economic, political, racial and gender inequality, this film offers a thought-provoking and timely look at what fairness really means to us. 

In the Name of Honour

In the Name of Honour exposes frightening cases of ‘honour’ killings – the killing of a relative, especially a girl or woman, who is perceived to have brought dishonour on the family – from India, Jordan and Palestinian Territories. Hindu, Muslim and Christian families all share the tragic experiences that wrecked their lives.  

In this part verité / part investigative documentary, director Pawel Gula proves there is no honour in killing. The film juxtaposes horrific news footage with insights from the families of victims whose lives have been irreparably damaged and the killers who are still debating the consequences of their actions. Broader commentary from officials and activists fighting this horrific tradition combine to create a comprehensive picture of this brutal, hidden practice.

In the Name of Honour from Sideways Film on Vimeo.

Out Run

As leader of the world’s only LGBT political party, Bemz Benedito dreams of being the first transgender woman in the Philippine Congress. But in a predominantly Catholic nation, rallying for LGBT representation in the halls of Congress is not an easy feat.

Bemz and her eclectic team of queer political warriors must rethink traditional campaign strategies to amass support from unlikely places. Taking their equality campaign to small-town hair salons and regional beauty pageants, the activists mobilise working-class trans hairdressers and beauty queens to join the fight against their main political opponent, a homophobic evangelical preacher, and prove to the Filipino electorate that it’s time to take the rights of LGBT people seriously. But as outsiders trying to get inside the system, will they have to compromise their political ideals in order to win?

Culminating on election day, Out Run provides a unique look into the challenges LGBT people face as they transition into the mainstream and fight for dignity, legitimacy, and acceptance across the globe.

Out Run from Sideways Film on Vimeo.

Who Took Johnny

If you’ve ever gotten separated from your child for just a few moments and remember the depth of panic that sets in, then you can begin to understand what Noreen Gosch has felt over the last 30 years since her son Johnny disappeared delivering newspapers on the morning of September 5, 1982.

More than any other missing child case, Johnny’s story has spawned countless theories and has instilled intrigue in the millions who remember the kid on the side of a milk carton. Along the way there have been mysterious sightings, strange clues, bizarre revelations and ambiguous photographs. A confrontation with a person who claims to have helped abduct Johnny paves the way to a crime scene and the possible involvement of a child abduction and prostitution ring. And then a knock on the door in the middle of the night raises as many questions as perhaps it answers..

Who Took Johnny is an examination into the infamous thirty-year-old cold case behind the disappearance of Iowa paperboy Johnny Gosch, the first missing child to appear on a milk carton. The film focuses on the heartbreaking story of Johnny’s mother, Noreen Gosch, her relentless quest to find the truth about what happened that tragic September morning when Johnny never returned from his paper route and her life since in helping others to mobilise the authorities when their children go missing.

Who Took Johnny captures the endless intrigue and conspiracy theories surrounding the eye-witness accounts, compelling evidence and emotional discoveries which span three decades of the most spellbinding missing person’s case in U.S. history.

“Timely, shocking and relentlessly compelling, documentary Who Took Johnny recounts the strange story surrounding the disappearance of paperboy Johnny Gosch, one of the original milk carton kids..Viewers with a taste for true-crime drama and plausible conspiracy theories are likely to come away wanting more, making the film a good candidate for a spin-off series. Others may cherish the ambiguity here, the way Capturing the Friedmans it allows room for debate.. despite the potentially lurid nature of the material, the film is never exploitative and a sense of compassion and respect, one untarnished by sentimentality, for victims and their families shines through throughout.”
Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter

“An amazing, lunatic documentary that will leave you creeped-out, excited and surprised”
John Waters, director of Hairspray and Crybaby

 

Burning From the Inside

German and Greek nationalists have paradoxically joined forces, and grown in numbers promoting a fascist agenda while on both sides, antifascists have risen to challenge them amidst a backdrop of global recession, finger-pointing and scapegoating. 

Burning from the Inside charts the rise of the Greek Nazis ‘Golden Dawn’ – the ‘monstrous’ child of the crisis – the changes they brought to Greek society after their entry to parliament, their collaboration with German Neo-Nazis in the formation of ‘Black International’, and their fall two years later with the murder of the anti-fascist Pavlos Fissas.

Through the trajectory of the party, we question the political and social structures of Greek leadership that fomented the rise of fascism and corruption, as well as the dis-function of Capitalism and Democracy in the country that gave birth to it. We also look at the role of Germany as the ‘queen of Europe’ and the extent to which she is responsible for developments in southern European countries.

While the rise of far right may seem unthinkable, dramatic scenes of racially motivated blood shed on the streets of Athens, police brutality linked to membership of far-right organisations and institutional racism in Greece tell a different story. Meanwhile, in Germany a more subtle, insidious message reaches the public with headlines blaming ‘lazy Greeks’ and other minorities within the country. Burning from the Inside is a visceral indictment of a deadly minority on the fringes of Europe that we ignore at our peril.