Past Films

Wearing a hidden camera, Grace takes us into an underground world, where she spent six months paying a ‘debt’ to a cartel of madams and exposes a larger well-established network responsible for trafficking women from East and West Africa to India.

What is it like to be a smart 10-year-old aboriginal boy in a remote part of Australia where 100 percent of youth in detention centers are your people?

In the Executioner's Shadow casts a penetrating look at the consequences of the death penalty through three powerful stories.

This eye-opening documentary follows three women in their gruelling quest to find a husband, weighing the cost of family and society’s approval against their own chances of happiness.

When the Taliban forces filmmakers and married couple Hassan Fazili and Fatima Hussaini to flee Afghanistan with their two daughters, they begin filming their time on the road, which includes running across borders, sleeping on roadsides, interacting with smugglers, and staying at multiple refugee camps along the way. 

 In solidarity against the brutal Chilean coup six months earlier, Scottish factory workers know where they stand.

Winner of the Caméra d'Or (Cannes Film Festival, 2019) this beautifully rendered drama weaves a tale taking us from the dark past to a personal search for the truth.

Nonviolent mass movements are the primary challenges to governments today. Yet the success rates declined dramatically over the past decades. What makes or breaks a mass movement?

To millions of people in Mexico, the incorruptible journalist and news anchor Carmen Aristegui is regarded as the trusted alternative voice to official government spin, fighting daily against deliberate disinformation spread through news sources, government corruption, and the related drugs trade. </span></p>

Be inspired to get into the streets this election season as you follow an all-volunteer led organization go door to door to curb gerrymandering: The act of drawing district lines to lock in partisan advantage. Slay the Dragon chronicles the civic grit turning the tide in the battle for US democracy.  

Centered on the indomitable character of Imelda Marcos, The Kingmaker examines, with intimate access, the Marcos family’s improbable return to power in the Philippines. 

This searing documentary, directed by acclaimed writer and Oscar® nominated director David France (How to Survive a Plague, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson), shadows a group of brave activists risking their lives to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ campaign in the Russian Republic of Chechnya.

 After China banned her film, an exiled filmmaker, with husband and child in tow, stalks a tour bus through Taiwan for the only chance to see her mother, who is visiting from mainland China. 

A father strives to understand why his son would leave America behind to attempt to join a terrorist organization abroad. 

Jewish Israeli lawyer Lea Tsemel and her Palestinian colleagues have been working for decades representing their clients in an increasingly conservative Israel. To many, Lea is a traitor who defends the indefensible. For others, she's more than an attorney – she’s a true ally. 

What lengths would you go to in order to ride a bicycle? Afghan Cycles follows a new generation of young Afghan women cyclists.

A lyrical documentary that takes us on a journey of childhood adventures and magical realism as we accompany a creative, sensitive and bold young boy using his imagination and sharp wits to battle forces beyond his control, and escape the stark reality of displacement.

Following the revolutionary rise of the “citizen investigative journalist” collective known as Bellingcat, dedicated to redefining breaking news by exploring the promise of open source investigation. 

Dead Donkeys Fear No Hyenas investigates foreign land-investments in Ethiopia and exposes their impact on people’s lives.

Artificial intelligence and big data have an extensive impact on our lives, playing a role when we apply for schools or jobs, when we shop and when we skim our social media feeds. Moreover, in some countries police and intelligence agencies use algorithms to determine which neighborhoods to focus on or to identify whether we’re security risks.

a House of Commons-style debate on Europe in the world of 2019.

People with albinism in parts of Africa continue to live under the threat of horrific violence or death due to myths that the organs and limbs of people with albinism bring prosperity.

Murders, death threats and ‘fake news’: Across the globe media freedom is increasingly under pressure.

In Está Todo Bien, Caracas-born Tuki Jencquel asks a pharmacist, trauma surgeon, activist and two patients to confront the same questions millions of Venezuelans are facing: protest or acquiesce, emigrate or remain, lose all hope or hang onto faith?

Everything Must Fall features student leaders and their opposition as they unpack how a moment evolved into a mass movement. 

In response to a wave of discriminatory anti-LGBTQ laws in the southern US and the divisive 2016 elections, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Choir embarks on a daring tour of the American Deep South.

Bangkok-based Patima Tungpuchayakul has committed her life to rescuing and returning home men from Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and other Southeast Asian nations who have been sold to Thai fishing companies by human traffickers. 

I am Not Alone captures the energy and hopefulness of grassroots protest and direct action.

Director Beryl Magoko is embarking on a personal journey to courageously face her past, to accept and love herself and her own body as she considers reconstructive surgery for the female genital mutilation she underwent as a young girl. 

 When a controversial ruling on religious headgear ends star athlete Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir's chances at playing professionally, she re-examines her faith and identity as a Muslim American.

Channeling real-life stories that Bangladeshi filmmaker Rubaiyat Hossain encountered as a women's rights activist, this empowering, layered drama shines a light on an oppressive industry, and demands our attention.

When the Taliban forces filmmakers and married couple Hassan Fazili and Fatima Hussaini to flee Afghanistan with their two daughters, they begin filming their time on the road, which includes running across borders, sleeping on roadsides, interacting with smugglers, and staying at multiple refugee camps along the way. 

Minding the Gap tells the coming-of-age story of three young men, bonded by their love of skateboarding and desire to escape volatile family life.

This beautifully crafted, poetic documentary joins brave young people as they seek to re-appropriate their bodies and explore their identities, revealing both the limits of binary visions of sex and gender, and the irreversible physical and psychological impact of non-consensual surgeries on intersex infants.

In 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte announced a “war on drugs” in the Philippines, launching a wave of violence and murder targeting thousands of suspected drug dealers and users.

One Child Nation explores China's One Child Policy, which made it illegal in most circumstances for couples to have more than one child.

The fascinating story of Ben Ferencz—the last surviving Nuremberg prosecutor and lifelong advocate of “law not war.” After witnessing Nazi concentration camps shortly after liberation, Ferencz became lead prosecutor in the Einsatzgruppen case at Nuremberg, which has been called the biggest murder trial in history.

In small-town Steubenville, Ohio, a sexual assault at a high school football party became national news, leading to the sentencing of two key offenders and leaving the American town changed forever.

In the Fikirtepe district of Istanbul, Kamil and his wife Remziye are at risk of losing their home. Urban transformation is pushing out local families and Syrian refugees are left to take shelter in the deserted buildings.

After spending more than a decade in prison for an attack on an Israeli settler, Ziad struggles to readjust to life in Ramallah, lost in a world he barely recognizes. 

Creatively weaving the personal and political, The Feeling of Being Watched is Assia’s story, as she grapples with the enduring impact government surveillance has had on her country, community, and her own sense of identity.

At age eight, Dolkar and her father fled their home, escaping Chinese armed forces in an arduous journey across the Himalayas. Now 26, she lives in a Tibetan refugee colony in India, where an encounter with a man from her past propells Dolkar on an obsessive search for the truth.

Filmed over five years through November 2017, The Trial of Ratko Mladić follows the case closely, as Mladić is tried in the International Criminal Court in The Hague for genocide and crimes against humanity. 

Facing a rapidly progressing form of multiple sclerosis and experiencing a swift decline in his motor skills, Jason soon learns that the harsh restrictions of the US Medicaid system would prevent him from accessing the services he needs to live life as fully as possible, and from being the dad he wants to be for his young son. 

Every year in France, 92,000 people are placed under psychiatric care without their consent. By law, the hospital has 12 days to bring each patient before a judge. 

Buddhist monk and award-winning activist Venerable Luon Sovath is harassed, censored, and evicted by his own religious leaders when he becomes a key figure in the land-rights protests that led up to the “Cambodian Spring”.

When Khatera, a 23-year-old Afghan woman, forces her father to stand trial after a lifetime of sexual abuse, she risks her family, freedom, and personal safety.

Within a constant political turmoil, Amal searches for her place, identity and sexuality in a patriarchal society.

Khonsaly Hay returns to his lush, serene village in Cambodia after over 40 years living in France and comes face-to-face with his former Khmer Rouge persecutors.

What if your country was swallowed by the sea?

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Rebecca Cammisa explores the atomic secrets of St. Louis, Missouri.

This timely, coming of age story follows Ava, a teenage girl whose life is dictated by the constraints of her conservative, patriarchal community in Tehran.

In this master class featuring a variety of imagery from the Rohingya crisis in Burma, we will explore the use of photography and satellite imagery.

During this session, we explore the challenges as well as opportunities involved in environmental activism.

During three years of unparalleled violence in Baltimore, Maryland, award-winning filmmaker Marilyn Ness takes viewers beyond the headlines and into the lives of community members, police, and government officials.

Afghan-American filmmaker Sedika Mojadidi joins two awe-inspiring women on the front lines.

An Iraqi translator for the US military is wrongfully accused of being a double agent, and over the course of his interrogation by the military, his culturally forbidden sexuality comes to light. 

Filmmaker Mo Naqvi will vote for the first time during Pakistan's elections. But Mo has a tough choice.

Jaha's Promise is a touching story about a young girl's struggle to take control of her own body.

For the past eight years Muhi, a young boy from Gaza, has been trapped in an Israeli hospital.

When an uprising breaks out in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in 1987, a young woman in Gaza must make a choice between love, family, and freedom.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad is a 25-year-old lifeline to the Yezidi community. 

Roman (Popi) and Ruth (Nani) Blank have been married for 65 years, but at age 95, Roman reveals a secret that tests their seemingly invincible union, in Brandon and Skyler Gross' touching portrait of their grandparents.

Silas celebrates the power of individuals to fight back against the power of money and politics.

This is a story of two South African mothers and best friends, Primrose Sonti and Thumeka Magwangqana, who together take on Lonmin PLC, the third largest platinum-extractor in the world.

In a deeply personal journey, Strike A Rock follows Primrose and Thumeka--two South African activists, grandmothers, and best friends--as they take on the platinum mining company, Lonmin Plc.

Since the failed coup in July 2016, the Turkish government has intensified its crackdown on its political opponents and critical voices in society.

This explosive documentary takes a behind the scenes look at one of America’s most pressing human rights struggles, and asks the audience: what would you do, if this violence found its way to your doorstep? 

Who controls what you see on the internet?

“We have days of silence. But they are so deadly - even worse than explosions. It’s the lull before the storm.”

The Force presents a deep look inside the long-troubled Oakland Police Department as it struggles to confront federal demands for reform, civil unrest, and layers of inefficiency and corruption.

Worldwide more than one billion people have a disability and they are one of the most invisible and marginalized populations in the world.

Business and human rights are closely connected in many ways. 

In the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon lies refugee camp Majdal Anjar, where a small community of the country’s approximately 1.2 million Syrian refugees live.

A locked door inside a Belgrade apartment has kept one family separated from their past for over 70 years.

Saudi poetess Hissa Hilal made headlines around the world as the first woman to reach the finals of the Arab world’s biggest televised poetry competition, “Million’s Poet.”

Lake Volta in Ghana is the largest man-made lake in the world; it is also notorious as a locale for forced child labor.

A 1977 amnesty law in Spain known as "the pact of forgetting" prohibits legal action related to the oppression, torture, and murder of an estimated 100,000 people during Franco’s 40-year dictatorship.

In August 2015, Ukrainian film director and Maidan activist Oleg Sentsov was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Siberia for terrorism.

"We have years of activism under our belts. Now we just fight harder, we fight smarter, and we fight as one."

The Workers Cup follows one group of men from among the 1.6 million migrant workers preparing for the world’s largest sporting event.

A whistleblower, a patriotic military commander, a mineral dealer, and a displaced tailor share a glimpse of life amid Africa’s longest continuing conflict.

It is our time now to step forward and say, "OK, it’s not about what gender I am, it’s about if I can get the job done. And we for years have shown that, so why not acknowledge us?"

In this tiny, remote Cuban fishing village, Mariela, a mother of four young children, longs for a better life. 

<p>Sixteen-year-old Nisha lives a double life.</p>

Told by the activists and leaders who live and breathe this movement for justice, Whose Streets? is an unflinching look at the Ferguson uprising in the US.

What can photographs do, and what do we want them to do, in visualizing human rights issues?