Anastasia Trofimova gains unprecedented access to follow a Russian Army battalion in Ukraine. Without any official clearance or permits, she earns the trust of foot soldiers and over seven months embeds herself with the battalion as it makes its way across the frontlines.
What she discovers is far from the narratives propagated by the East or West: a war cutting through family and historical ties, soldiers disillusioned and often struggling to understand what they are fighting for.
We travel down to Sinaloa, Mexico – El Chapo’s home turf & the heartland of arguably one of the most powerful cartels in the country, if not the world. There, we follow a pair of local, low-ranking members eager to prove themselves as soldiers and sicarios (hit men) for the Sinaloa cartel.
Though they’re currently stuck making drug runs, tailing military trucks, & overseeing other petty assignments throughout the city of Culiacán, they’ll soon be headed to the mountains of Badiraguato to attend the cartel’s underground training camp, where veterans turn hungry young men into willing & able killers.
With never-before-seen, exclusive access to the intricate inner workings of the cartel’s recruitment and training systems, we’ll get a sense of how Mexico’s most powerful organized crime operations prepare their soldiers to wage war & enforce their dominion over their territory.
We’ll also get inside the heads of the civilians willing to permanently give up everything for a shot at rising through the ranks – ultimately learning both how & why so many young men are sucked into a life of crime & bloodshed
´You have the watches, we have the time´, a Taliban commander infamously warned an American in 2002 Afghanistan. It was ominously accurate. Months earlier, America had swiftly ousted a flailing Taliban government, pledging to rebuild the embattled country. Fifty nations joined the ‘Operation Enduring Freedom´ war machine and for two decades, foreign armies poured into Afghanistan along with eye-watering amounts of foreign aid funding. Yet now the Taliban is back in charge of the entire country. So what went wrong?
The Watch Or The Time explores America and its allies’ ill-fated offensive in Afghanistan told by the foreigners and Afghans who lived it. The film tracks the arc of America’s longest war in modern history with these personal experiences, looking at the pitfalls of military intervention, humanitarian aid and the culture clash through the legacy of the West’s efforts in Afghanistan.
Did the thousands of expat-nation-builders foresee a Taliban victory? After so many other previous invasions, did the Afghans see the writing on the wall? And what is the price of the so-called peace in Afghanistan today?
You’ll meet a German armoured car salesman, an American sports trainer and women’s rights activist, a Canadian NATO psychological operations specialist, an Australian war photographer, an Afghan female graffiti artist from the Taliban heartland; Kandahar, Kabul University’s debate club vice-president, a local media producer dubbed Afghanistan’s Number 1 fixer, and a senior Taliban commander.
You’ll see ex-pats grapple with what they’ve left behind, Afghans struggle to make sense of the dramatic shift in their fates, while others celebrate the Taliban’s win.
As America and its allies try to wash their hands of responsibility in Afghanistan, The Watch Or The Time puts it front and centre again. This film presents the perspectives and ultimately asks, was it worth it? You decide.
The Los Zetas Cartel changed the game in the Mexican War on Drugs. From the mid-2000s, they introduced an unprecedented level of violence – paramilitary-style executions, beheadings, bodies hung from bridges.
But this was not simply psychopathic violence. These were special forces soldiers from the Mexican military – who had received specialized training from the US Army – who had defected, and used their training to become the most feared drugs cartel in Central America.
Following the horrors of World War II, there was a strong desire for a better world in which peace would be maintained and human rights respected – the U.N was born. Now, more than 60 years later, the image of the UN has become severely tarnished.
International peace and security is in a perilous state, and scores of stories are flying around demonstrating that the UN and its Security Council could have done more harm than good.
Documentary filmmaker Ami Horowitz takes us on a brutal tour of a number of places where the UN has intervened. Through interviews with those involved — some of whom wish to remain anonymous — and archive footage, we uncover facts about abuses and scandals surrounding UN missions and personnel.
The ‘forgotten’ shooting in Côte d’Ivoire, during which UN soldiers opened fire on unarmed demonstrators, the “Oil for Food” program in Iraq, which resulted in the wrong people reaping the benefits and the harrowing case of the UN soldiers who stood by, powerless, during the genocide in Rwanda. These are just some of the stories uncovered in what the Los Angeles Times has called ‘a scathing take down of the United Nations’.
Disturbing, powerful and emotionally devastating, Tears of Gaza is less a conventional documentary than a brutal record – presented with minimal gloss – of the bombing of Gaza by the Israeli military. Almost purely observational, this powerful film by director Vibeke Løkkeberg focuses on the impact of the attacks on the civilian population.
Photographed by several Palestinian cameramen both during and after the offensive, the film shuttles between the actual bombings and the horrific aftermath on the streets and in the hospitals. Løkkeberg contrasts these graphic scenes with footage of bachelor parties, weddings and visits to the beach – social activities that epitomize daily life in Gaza during more peaceful times.
Tears of Gaza makes no overriding speeches or analyses. The situation leading up to the incursion is never mentioned. Indeed, as one reviewer noted, this film ‘doesn’t take sides as much as obliterates politics’ and demands that we examine the costs of war on a civilian populace. The result is horrifying, gut-wrenching and unforgettable.
“Few antiwar films register with the disturbing immediacy and visceral terror of Tears of Gaza.”
John Andersen, Variety
“Perhaps the ultimate anti-war film. A compelling film about war.”
Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter
“NYT CRITICS PICK: A brutally uncompromising blast of outrage.. Using extraordinary footage (Tears of Gaza) spotlights the extreme deprivation of life under a blockade and the physical and psychological wounds of war.. a tapestry of human misery impossible to shake off”
Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times
“Tears of Gaza documents air-delivered incendiary weapons and unimaginable violence.. identification with these people is not difficult”
Chris Packham, The Village Voice
Infiltrados takes an in-depth look at FARC, one of the world’s oldest and deadliest terrorist organisations, examining the Colombian National Police and the involvement of its intelligence division in the recent lethal strikes against the FARC.
Featuring first hand accounts from spies who infiltrated FARC, living for many years among them before relaying intelligence back to the Colombian military, these brave people undertook what were to be the most dangerous missions ever conceived of.
Those who were discovered were tortured and murdered as a warning to other under cover agents, and the threat of exposure lingered throughout their missions. Added to this is the threat of ambush from their own employers- the Colombian military- as well as the difficulty in returning with intelligence as deserters are executed. The chances of survival are slim.
For the first time the terrifying experiences of these people who left their lives in the cities of Colombia to live for years in the jungle as FARC members, are captured on film, and their stories recreated through animations to protect their identities.
Warlords, soldiers, and child laborers all toil over a mineral you’ve never even heard of. Coltan is a conflict mineral in nearly every cell phone, laptop, and electronic device. It’s also tied to the deaths of over 5 million people in Congo since 1990.