In heated, often hostile debates about homosexuality, trans and sex work, a young Armenian family tries to assert some kind of queer normality for themselves and others.
Carabina, a gay artist, transvestite, and ex-sex worker, is married to Hasmik, a heterosexual lawyer. They have just become parents and are facing a dilemma: Should they raise their child in Armenia, where 93% of the population is against homosexuality?
A Taiwanese boss and Burmese laborers seek ways of getting rich by shrimp farming. However a life gone on the process. It's all about trust, gender power, and culture conflicts.
With 20 years of experience in shrimp farming in Taiwan, Du came to Myanmar alone. Even though he saw only endless wilderness before him, he believed that “when the going gets tough, the tough get going,” nothing is impossible on this earth. He did not expect that what followed were white powders and guns.
A Burmese-Chinese girl, Sue, who also dreamt of shrimp farming, decided to settle down in the shrimp farm her father had started to develop 20 years ago, after the marriage to her Burmese husband, Jojo. She was determined to carry out the unfulfilled ambition of her father. Struggling to confront the false accusation, Du encountered Sue by chance. Together, they decided to farm and rear shrimps in the wilderness and build their “Diamond Marine World.”
It took five years to shoot and produce this film, recording the turns of humanity and the conflicts falling one after the other like the rain in Myanmar.
A construction site in the Central African Republic, two career dreams: The double portrait of a native day labourer and a Chinese construction manager becomes a parable of globalisation.
Luan, a Chinese immigrant, is in Bangui, Central African Republic, facing his greatest professional challenge to date: he must oversee the construction of a bank headquarters that is expected to be inaugurated soon by the President of the nation himself. At the opposite end of the same labour chain, Thomas, a local, must dive into the river to get the sand that Luan needs for his building. Both share the same goal: to progress in their careers and give their families a better life. Meanwhile, the erratic and difficult lives of their families manifest themselves at a distance in various ways. Luan receives phone calls from his wife who, living thousands of kilometres away, is feeling abandoned and attempts to commit suicide; while Thomas' wife and girlfriend have both abandoned him, leaving him in charge of all his children. Eat Bitter fluidly and honestly articulates the daily life of both men, revealing the traces of the presence of the large Chinese community in the region, as well as the scars of a country devastated by the experience of a long civil war and poverty for which no one seems to have any answers.
The rescue of 104 castaways in the Mediterranean, person by person, step by step, in a real time documentary. Help against the clock – and the organised ignorance of the authorities.
How a sea rescue happens is beyond imagination. The documentary One Hundred and Four brings this dramatic situation closer through the rescuers' perspective.
Shortly after the distress call, several cameras accompany different situations simultaneously. Different angles offer the possibility to set a unique focus on the actions taking place in parallel. The uncut real-time documentary begins during the search for the dinghy ahead of the refugee boat and ends with the successful rescue. The situation comes to a head with the appearance of the Libyan Coast Guard and the political situation leaves the crew and the rescued people in distress for several days, as no Mediterranean country allows them to come to shore. Only after several days and an approaching thunderstorm, is a European port reached.
Golden Dove Feature-Length Film, Film Prize Leipziger Ring, Goethe-Institut Documentary Film Prize, ver.di Prize for Solidarity, Humanity and Fairness, German Competition Documentary Film, DOK Leipzig, Germany (2023)
I grew up in Yangon. In February 2021, my dreams came to an end. My mother said: “Son, wake up. The military has taken over the country”. The days got darker. The window in my narrow room and the piece of sky I watched seemed to be the only freedom I had left. I wanted to say something about this new undercurrent in my life. I wrote things down, recorded my voice, and searched for images that might reflect my feelings and those of other young people. And now there is a film which conveys what it's like to lose the ground beneath your feet.
DOK Industry is realised with the support of Creative Europe MEDIA Programme of the European Union, the Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (MDM) and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media upon a Decision of the German Bundestag.