Village Diary

2013-04-10 | zh

Silence

A portrait of a family living in a village in Masuria.

1998-05-26 | pl

El campo para el hombre

"El campo para el hombre" was a politically militant documentary about the small holdings of land in the north of Spain and the large estates in the south of the country. This film portrays the exploitation and misery of the Spanish peasants, but also their class-consciousness and their will to fight for their rights and freedom. The film was shot in the late years of Franco's dictatorship, so it was made in secrecy (the directors were connected to the Spanish Communist Party).

1975-01-01 | es

That Kid

A group of educators led by Fernand Deligny are working to create contact with autistic children in a hamlet of the Cevennes.

1976-01-21 | fr

Koyaanisqatsi

Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.

1983-04-27 | en

Prime Farmland

This documentary film follows farmers and activists fighting together to stop the Indiana Enterprise Center, a mega-sized industrial park planned west of South Bend, Indiana

2020-08-01 | en

China Gate

"China Gate" tells the story of young Chinese fight to change their fate through studying. Right before dawn, students in Huining have already started their self-studying session; hard working youngsters have filled up the space of school ground. This is one of the most poverty-stricken Counties in Western China; here people's only hope is in education, as the way to change their social status. Therefore all their effort point towards the College Entrance Examination, the process is like going through a gate, those who pass can study at urban Universities, and have the chance to build a better life. During the same winter season in Beijing, a graduate student faces a big decision. Should he keep trying to survive in the big city or get back to his countryside home? The exhausted faces at the Beijing underground seem to be revealing the truth about their distance in between. The student comes to see the flag ceremony at Tiananmen Square, where the pulsing symbol of the nation lies.

2011-07-13 | zh

Der lange Weg ans Licht

Edeltraut Hertel - a midwife caught between two worlds. She has been working as a midwife in a small village near Chemnitz for almost 20 years, supporting expectant mothers before, during and after the birth of their offspring. However, working as a midwife brings with it social problems such as a decline in birth rates and migration from the provinces. Competition for babies between birthing centers has become fierce, particularly in financial terms. Obstetrics in Tanzania, Africa, Edeltraud's second place of work, is completely different. Here, the midwife not only delivers babies, she also trains successors, carries out educational and development work and struggles with the country's cultural and social problems.

2008-02-28 | de

Veteran's Letters to Home

2016-01-01 | zh

Shattered

A microcosm of China past and present flows through Xu Tong’s intimate docu “Shattered,” in which the maverick indie filmmaker continues to refine his techniques and concerns shown in his previous “Wheat Harvest” and “Fortune Teller.”

2011-10-01 | zh

Siberian Love

After 20 years of living in Berlin, the director Olga Delane goes back to her roots in a small Siberian village, where she is confronted with traditional views of relationships, life and love. The man is the master in the home; the woman’s task is to beget children and take care of the household (and everything else, too). Siberian Love provides unrivaled insights into the (love) life of a Siberian village and seeks the truth around the universal value of traditional relationships.

2017-11-16 | ru

Umbrella

Workers, peasants, soldiers, students and merchants were five groups of Chinese society in the 1950s, after the so-called elimination of the exploited class. Borrowing this concept, the umbrella is taken as the clue to rediscover changes in various social classes after the economic reform, and to analyze the social problems in China. Workers making umbrellas, merchants selling umbrellas, students looking for jobs in the rain. Umbrella is used as a metaphor that can be seen everywhere. As the raindrop, what we see is sometimes clear, sometimes untraceable.

2007-09-02 | zh

Springtime in Wushan

Zhang Ming went back to his hometown Wushan to record the last images before it being changed forever by the upcoming Three Gorges Dam.

2003-10-01 | zh

Shadow Theater

By showing the performances of the Ayrudzi troupe in Armenia, the film acquaints the audience with one of the most interesting phenomena of national culture – shadow theatre.

2016-01-01 | hy

Satiated Village

It is the director's second documentary of "my village" series since she got involved with the "Folk Memory Project". She returned to her hometown to shoot footage, recording the realities she encountered in her search for memories. Her biggest question is: after experiencing the disaster of the tragic famine fifty years ago, the villagers now are not short of food, and are living a better life than before, but is the spirit of this village still starving?

2011-01-01 | zh

Children's Village

Zou Xueping continues to interview old people in her village, this time with the help of local children. They start collecting names and money to erect a memorial for the victims of the famine.

2012-01-01 | zh

America's Hate Preachers

Director Hannah Livingston spends 6 months tracking two of America's most radical Christian hate groups - a notorious pastor from Arizona and a network of extremist preachers.

2016-11-21 | en

The Two Shovels

After "Old Tang Tou", Xu Tong continued to film the family of Old Tang Tou's son, Tang Laosan, in Northeast China. Tang Laosan was sent to prison for a murder case, and Tang Laosan's son, Xiaobao, unexpectedly encountered such a change in the year of his high school entrance exams, which made the fates of father and son both unpredictable.

2017-01-01 | zh

The Gleaners

A coming-of-age story about a filmmaker and his family as they struggle to adapt to both a changing world and a traditional one. Can the filmmaker's family accept that he is more interested choosing to document a famine that happened 50 years ago than choosing a wife? Will the family continue to farm their land and grow rice as they always have or sell it to developers? How can they adapt to life in modern China when the country itself is in the midst of identity crisis? The film explores these topics and more in a refreshingly original style that bridges the gap between documentary and narrative feature while providing a delightfully intimate portal into family life in modern China.

2013-01-02 | zh

Heidi in China

In 1946, Heidi is entrusted to a Swiss family by her father. He will never come back for her. Today, François Yang questions his mother about her past. What follows is a journey to China, a quest to reconstruct memory. Through contact with her brothers and sister, Heidi measures the extent of the drama experienced by her family that remained in China, persecuted by the Communist Party.

2020-04-21 | en