1. Shipbuilder
This film recreates the true story of Tom Sukanen, an eccentric Finnish immigrant who homesteaded in Saskatchewan in the 1920s and 1930s. Sukanen spent ten years building and moving overland a huge iron ship that was to carry him back to his native Finland. The ship never reached water.
2. Non ho l'età (Non ho l'età)
Carmela, don Gregorio, Gabriella and Lorella have never met but they have a lot in common. In the mid 60's, at the peak of the great migratory wave, alone or together with their families, they arrived in Switzerland, where they lived for a more or less lengthy period. Four different stories that speak of hopes, dreams, and solidarity. But they also tell of closure, xenophobia, clandestinity and exploitation.
3. Land der Bitterkeit und des Stolzes (Land der Bitterkeit und des Stolzes)
(Land der Bitterkeit und des Stolzes)
4. Hold the Ketchup
This short documentary is about newcomers to Canada and what they eat. Funny, mouth-watering and visually delectable, it takes us into the specialty food shops where the ingredients are bought, and into the homes where the food is prepared and served in the traditional way.
5. Enemy Alien
A poetic retelling of the experiences of Joseph Murakami, a fourteen-year-old boy from Darwin, who is summarily rounded up and interned by his government on the basis of his ethnicity, leaving wounds unhealed to this day.
6. Timuti (Timuti)
In Inukjuak, an Inuit community in the Eastern Arctic, a baby boy has come into the world and they call him Timuti, a name that recurs across generations of his people, evoking other Timutis, alive and dead, who will nourish his spirit and shape his destiny.
7. A Thousand Pines
In this tale of labor and family that shines a light on the precarity of temporary work visas, Raymundo Morales leads a crew of workers who have to make the challenging decision to leave their families in rural Mexico to plant commercial pine forests in the United States.
8. The Great Indian Wars 1840-1890
Documentation of the encroachment of European settlers upon Native American lands and the violent reaction of the Indians in their struggle to survive.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
9. Unknown Territory (Neuland)
Young migrants from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Serbia and Venezuela attend a Swiss integration class where they learn a new language and prepare for employment.
It has an average vote of 8.5 on TMDB.
10. The Rumba Kings
In the fifties, when the future Democratic Republic of Congo was still a Belgian colony, an entire generation of musicians fused traditional African tunes with Afro-Cuban music to create the electrifying Congolese rumba, a style that conquered the entire continent thanks to an infectious rhythm, captivating guitar sounds and smooth vocals.
It has an average vote of 9 on TMDB.
11. Potlatch...a strict law bids us dance
Presents the history of the conflict between the Canadian government and the Kwakiutl Indians of the Northwest Pacific over the ritual of the Potlatch. Archival photographs and films, wax roll sound recordings, police reports, the original potlatch files, and correspondence of agents form the basis of the reconstruction of period events, while the film centres on a Potlatch given today by the Cranmer family of Alert Bay.
12. Les cèdres du Liban (Les cèdres du Liban)
(Les cèdres du Liban)
13. The Barber And The Bomb (Der Kuaför aus der Keupstraße)
Wednesday afternoon was deliberately chosen. There were a lot of customers in front of and in the brothers Özcan and Hasan Yildirim’s barbershop on 9 June 2004, when 700 three-inch carpenters’ nails turned into projectiles with a 250 metre range. 22 people were injured. The attack was infamous; the course of the investigations was equally scandalous: the victims were suspected. CCTV material was not analysed and Federal Minister of the Interior Otto Schily decisively ruled out a right wing background. It was only in 2001 that this crime was solved in the course of the revelations concerning the right wing extremist terrorist “National Socialist Underground” group. The trial continues until the present day.
It has an average vote of 6.2 on TMDB.
14. Aan ons den arbeid
Documentary that shows the changing attitude towards immigrant labor in The Netherlands. The documentary follows three immigrants that arrived in Holland 30 years ago to work in a bakery.
It has an average vote of 8.5 on TMDB.
15. Visions of Europe
Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.
It has an average vote of 4.9 on TMDB.
16. A Portrait of Us (우리의 착한 이야기)
A short documentary that follows Korean grandparents as they share their modern-day reckoning of their immigration story and grandparenthood.
17. The Happy Island
The Happy Island looks at the work of the London Missionary Society on Gemo Island in Port Moresby harbour, Papua New Guinea, which from 1937-1974 treated people who suffered from infectious diseases, mainly leprosy and tuberculosis. The film offers insight into the attitudes and practices of Christian missionaries of that time. Despite the colonial paternalism that underpins the Missionary Society’s model of care, the film tells the story of a happy, active community, as it follows the lives of the patients, their families and the dedicated staff, all of whom live, work and socialise on the island together.
18. Birth on the border (Birth on the border)
One million people legally cross the U.S.-Mexico border every day in both directions. Among them are women from Ciudad Juárez who cross to give birth in El Paso, Texas. Even with visas that allow them to cross, their journeys are uncertain. Gaby and Luisa, two women from Ciudad Juárez, cross legally into El Paso, Texas, in order to give birth. Two Chicana midwives in El Paso, Lina and Sandra, support the women who cross. After living through the extreme violence that engulfed Ciudad Juárez from 2008-2012 and with the looming threat of obstetrical violence in Mexican hospitals, Gaby and Luisa choose to cross, seeking a safer future for their children and the opportunity for natural childbirth with midwives. They risk losing their visas, getting turned back, and harassment at the hands of U.S. Border Patrol. Against the backdrop of oppressive U.S. border policy, these women's stories of risk and resilience reveal the complexities of life on the U.S.-Mexico border.
19. Grandmother Told Grandmother
The little-known story of Ukrainian children torn from their homes in the crush between the Nazi and Soviet fronts in World War II. Spending their childhood as refugees in Europe, these inspiring individuals later immigrated to the United States, creating new homes and communities through their grit, faith and deep belief in the importance of preserving culture.
20. My Body (Il mio corpo)
Oscar, not quite a child anymore, scavenges for scrap metal for his father. He spends his life in improvised landfills among what remains of leftovers. Worlds apart, yet close-by, there is Stanley. He tidies the church in exchange for a monetised hospitality, picks fruits, herds sheep: anything that keep his foreign body busy. Oscar, the young Sicilian, and Stanley the Nigerian don’t seem to have much in common. Except for the feeling of being thrown into the world, to suffer the same refusal, the same overwhelming wave of choices imposed on them by others.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.