A small village in the Hungarian countryside appears to have a dubious past: in 1929, a series of arsenic murders was exposed here, and 51 women were arrested on suspicion of poisoning their husbands and relatives. The arsenic they used had apparently been taken from flypaper. In total, there were 140 cases of murder, for which many women went to prison. Besides a reconstruction of the killings, this film is a portrait of the present inhabitants of Nagyrév, who all remember something different about the murders. They also muse about the current exodus from the village, are worried about a melon theft and complain that life in the village is boring: there is no cinema or aerobics club. The desolation and isolation of the village is captured quietly and carefully: a stooped man shuffles past, a house stands empty on the edge of the village. The director filmed at the kitchen table, on the ferry and on a bench in front of a house, where an elderly couple recalls how they got married within two months of meeting one another: "He needed someone to mend the fishing nets."

producer: Astrid Bussink
screenplay: Astrid Bussink
camera: Klára Trencsényi
editor: Brigitta Peszleg, Astrid Bussink
music: Jan Schaten

festival info:
First Appearance Award - International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2005 / Trieste Film festival, Italy, 2006 / Hungarian Filmweek, Budapest, Hungary, 2006 / Little Stamp Award -Zagrebdox, Zagreb, Croatia, 2006 / Cinéma du Réel, Paris, France, 2006 / Doclab Arhus Filmvarksted, Arhus, Denmark, 2006 / Best Documentary Short - ECU European Indep. Film Festival, Paris, France, 2006 / Full Frame Film Festival, North-Carolina, USA, 2006 / Women's Film Festival, Seoul, South Korea, 2006 / 53rd Belgrade Documentary & Short Film Festival, Belgrade, Serbia & Monte Negro, 2006 / Prix du Jury regards sur le Crime - Vision du Réel, International Film festival Nyon, Switzerland, 2006 / Mediawave 'Another Connection ' International Film Festival, Győr, Hungary, 2006 / Tekfestival Rome, Italy, 2006 / Raccontare il Vero 3°international Documentary Review, Parma, Italy, 2006 / GUTH GAFA, Donegal Documentary Film Festival, Ireland, 2006 / Spectrum Young Talent, Cologne, Germany, 2006 / Cyprus Documentary Festival, Plataniskia Cyprus, 2006 / Dokufest, Prizren, Kosovo, 2006 / 60th Edinburgh International Film Festival, Edinburgh, UK, 2006

production info:
co-production of ECA (Edinburgh) and SZFE (Budapest)
Edinburgh College of Art
Lauriston Place
Edinburgh
EH3 9DF
Tel: + 0131 221 6000

Színház- és Filmművészeti Egyetem
Vas u. 2/c
1088, Budapest, Hungary
Tel: + 361 318 8111

sales info:
Astrid Bussink
6 2f2 Lauriston Gardens EH39 HJ Edinburgh, UK
info@angelmakers.nl

filmography:
Upside Down, 2006

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Sairash was an exemplary wife for twenty years. After her wedding, she put her former life "on hold" and began to create a new one with her husband, building a house with the modest means available and finding joy in every new success on the road to their future together. When the new home was finally completed, her husband brought a new, younger wife into the household, deciding to form a family with both women and their children. Sairash couldn't stand the new arrangement and after a while she left home. In rebelling against the accepted order, did she become a bad wife, or an example and model for all women in a similar predicament? Weaving together scenes from Sairash's daily routine with frank interviews - both with Sairash herself and with those close to her - the filmmaker creates a picture of her transformed life. The documentary is also a commentary on the current situation in Kyrgyzstan where the female population exceeds the male, leading to frequent cases of polygamy. Sairash still wears the "elechek" - a traditional high headdress worn by elderly married women in Kyrgyzstan. The filmmaker sensitively contrasts her rebellion with the conservative majority view that families should stay together, no matter how high the cost.

screenplay: Nilya Rakhmadieva
camera: Sapar Kochumanov

festival info:
One World 8th International Human Rights Documentary Rights Festival, Prague, Czech Republic, 2006 / 3rd Golden Apricot IFF, Yerevan, Armenia, 2006

production and sales info:
Elena Vitenberg
Manager of Gender Montage
Institute for Social and Gender Policy
Mokhovaya str. 15
St. Petersburg, 191028, Russia
Tel: +7812 346 7068
vitenberg@lfond.spb.ru
www.genderpolicy.ru

Phoebe Schreiner
Program Officer
Network Women's Program
Open Society Institute
400 West 59th Street
New York, NY 10019
USA
Tel: +1 212 548 0162
Fax: + 1 212 548 4616
women@sorosny.org

filmography:
Avitaminosis, 1999 / Well Paid Job, 2000 / I Love My Family, 2001

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The boys in the title are actually annabes, or cross-dressing Japanese girls, who work as hosts at the New Marilyn club in Tokyo. They are women who live as men and have girlfriends, although they don't usually identify as lesbians. As the film follows them at home and on the job, all three talk frankly to the camera about their gender-bending lives, revealing their views about women, sex, transvestitism and lesbianism. Alternating with these illuminating interviews are fabulous sequences shot inside the club, patronized almost exclusively by heterosexual women who have become disappointed with real men. This is a remarkable documentary about the complexity of female sexuality.

producer: Alan Bookbinder
camera: Kim Longinotto
editor: John Mister
sound: Rosie Straker, Simmy Claire

festival info:
Sydney Lesbian and Gay Film Festival / Honolulu Lesbian and Gay Film Festival / Outstanding Documentary - San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Film Festival / New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival / London Film Festival / Silver Hugo Award - Chicago Film Festival, Silver Hugo / Gold Prize - Houston Film Festival

filmography:
Pride of Place, with Dorothea Gazidis, 1976 / Theatre Girls, with Claire Pollak, 1978 / Cross and Passion, 1981 / Underage, 1982 / Fireraiser, 1985 / Eat the Kimono, with Claire Hunt, 1989 / Hidden Faces, with Claire Hunt, 1990 / The Good Wife of Tokyo, with Claire Hunt, 1992 / Tragic but Brave, 1993 / Dream Girls, with Jano Williams, 1993 / Shinjuku Boys, with Jano Williams, 1995 / Rock Wives, 1996 / Mike Leigh, 1997 / Divorce Iranian Style, with Ziba Mir-Hosseini, 1998 / Steve and Dave, 1999 / Rob and Chris, 1999 / Gaea Girls, with Jano Williams, 2000 / Runaway, with Ziba Mir-Hosseini, 2001 / The Day I Will Never Forget, 2002 / Sisters in Law, with Florence Ayisi, 2005

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Shot in a village in Northern Albania, the film tells the story of a woman who decides to become a man of her own free will. Bedri is the masculine form of the name Bedrie. Before her whole family, she solemnly pledges to become a man. This peculiar "rite of passage" exists in the mountains of Albania. The entire local community fully accepts and respects Bedri as they would a man. Her brothers will never blush from now on, as she is not going to bring shame upon them. As a man she must have no interaction with women, never have children and remain a virgin till the end of her days. Yet her advice in arranging marriages is valued by the community. Those who do not know her take her for a man anyway since Bedri shaves and dresses like one. Bedri smokes, drinks, plays domino with men and football with village boys. He declares that he is happy with his own self.

producers: Piotr Śliwiński, Ireneusz Niewolski
screenplay: Jan Sosiński
camera: Andrzej Wolf
editor: Paweł Laskowski

festival info:
Krakow Film Festival, Poland, 2006 / Special Award from the Ministry of Culture - FilmFest Warsawa, Poland, 2006

production and sales info:
Studio Filmowe Kalejdoskop
for Redakcja Form Dokumentalnych Program 1
Telewizja Polska SA
ul. Chełmska 21, 00-724
Warszawa, Poland
Tel: +022 8511779
Fax + 022 8412135
sliwinski@kalejdoskop.art.pl

selected filmography:
A Different World 1993 / The Lord on the Moon, 1993 / Nobody Dies in a Film, 1993 / Eight Millimetres of Memory, 1996 / I Made Myself the Executioner, 1996 / Dad, Do You Remember? 1998 / I'm Going to Tell You About Marek, 1999 / The Last Pictures. The Notebook, 2000 / In Search of the Lost Years, 2001 / The Business Trip, 2003 / We Are In Europe, 2003

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Since 1982, Italian transsexuals have been able to have a sex change operation that is subsidised according to Section 164 of the law. Those eligible are also assisted in changing their sexual identity on paper. The condition is that they subject themselves to a complicated, lengthy and psychologically gruelling procedure. As a twelve-year-old boy, Nicola de Leo already knew he wanted to become a woman. Today, the now forty-year-old transsexual lives in Venice and has changed her name to Nicole. She has undergone hormone treatment and grown breasts, but she still lives inside the body of a middle-aged man, including a penis, a beard and a substantial Adam's apple. This is why Nicole is applying for a sex change through official channels. "I never thought it would be so hard. I thought making the decision was enough", she says. For five tense years, Nicole fights her emotional and physical struggle in the presence of director Alberto Vendemmiati's camera. Working as an actress, a seller of carnival masks and a prostitute, she finances her cosmetic treatment and looks forward to the subsidised sex change operation. Meanwhile, she turns for support to her elderly mother, who has a hard time accepting that her son will soon be a daughter.

producers: Gianluca Arcopinto, Andrea Fornari (Zaroff Film), Alberto Vendemmiati
screenplay: Alberto Vendemmiati
camera: Alberto Vendemmiati
editor: Alessio Doglione
music: Aldo Scalzi, Pivio Scalzi

festival info:
Joris Ivens Competition - IDFA, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2005 / Silverdocs AFI / DEiscovery Channel Documentary Film Competition, Washington DC, USA, 2006

production info:
Via Luca Della Robbia, 22
153 Rome, Italy
Tel/Fax: + 39 06 57300099
zaroff.film@libero.it

sales info:
Deckert Distribution GmbH
Peterssteinweg 13
Leipzig
04107 Germany
Tel: +49 341 215 6638
Fax: +49 341 215 6639
info@deckert-distribution.com
www.deckert-distribution.com

filmography:
Cadabra, 1996 / Cricifige, 1998 / Le Voci Fuori, 1998 / Jung - In the Land of Mujaheddin, 2000 / Afghanistan: Collateral Damages, 2002

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In the little town of Kumba, Cameroon, there have been no convictions in spousal abuse cases for 17 years. But two women determined to change their community are making progress that could change the world. This fascinating and often hilarious film follows the work of State Prosecutor Vera Ngassa and Court President Beatrice Ntuba as they help women fight often difficult cases of abuse, despite pressure from their family and community to remain silent. Six-year-old Manka is covered in scars and has run away from an abusive aunt, Amina is seeking a divorce to put an end to brutal beatings by her husband, the preteen Sonita has daringly accused her neighbor of rape. The documentary follows the "sisters in law" as they nourish grass-roots feminism in a Cameroon village. Winner of the Prix Art et Essai at the Cannes Film Festival and screened to acclaim at more than 90 festivals around the world, it is Kim Longinotto's latest documentary.

producer: Kim Longinotto
executive producer: Peter Dale
camera: Kim Longinotto
editor: Ollie Huddleston
sound: Mary Milton
sound: D'Gary

festival info:
Special Documentary Prize - Munich Documentary Film Festival / Audience Award - Commonwealth Film Festival / Jury Prize - Human Rights Nights Film Festival, Italy / Best International Film - The Tel-Aviv International Documentary Film Festival / 1st Maysles Award - Belfast Film Festival / Silver Award - Al-Jazeera TV Festival / Best Doc Nominee - British Independent Film Awards /Basil Wright Award - RAI Film Festival, Oxford / Social Justice Award - Santa Barbara Film Festival / Audience Award - Royal Anthropological Institute Film Festival / Audience Award - IDFA, Amsterdam, the Netherlands / Best Documentary - Hawaii International Film Festival / Special Mention Europa Cinemas - Cannes Film Festival / Prix Art et Essai - Cannes Film Festival

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Nahid Persson returns to Iran after living for 17 years in emigration in Sweden. Coming back as a documentary filmmaker, she originally intends to make a film about an elderly man, Habib, who sells prophecies on the streets. But when she visits his run-down house, she is shocked and intrigued to discover that he shares it with Minna and Fariba, two heroin addicts who prostitute themselves to make a living and support their little children while both of their husbands are in prison. The women are neighbours, good friends and support each other. The film sympathetically explores their everyday life and the way prostitution functions in a country where adultery is persecuted, sometimes resulting in capital punishment. For men, there is a "legal" way to buy sex and still comply with Muslim law: they marry the women in what is called "Sighe", a temporary marriage legal in Shia Islam. "Sighe" can last from two hours up to 99 years. In the film both Minna and Fariba undergo "Sighe" with customers and Fariba gets married Sighe-style to Habib for 6 months. The film follows the women for more than a year, providing a personal and intimate look into the two tragic lives.

producer: Jacob Hogel
camera: Nahid Persson
editor: Niels Pagh Andersen, Nahid Persson
sound: Biornstad FSFL
music: Ahmad Pejman, "Axiom of Choice"

festival info:
Best Documentary, Audience Award - Creteil, Festival International Films de Femmes, Paris, France, 2005 / The Golden Dragon - Krakow Documentary and Short Film Festival, Poland, 2005 / Audience Award, Prix Association des Femmes Journalistes - Vila Do Conde Festival International De Curtas Metragens, Portugal, 2005 / Best Documentary Short Film - Melbourne Film Festival, Australia, 2005 / Silver Docs Festival, Washington DC, USA, 2005 / Emmy Awards nominee, 2005

production info:
COSMO DOC
Ryesgade 106 A
DK - 2100 Kobenhavn O
Denmark
Tel: +45 35 38 72 00
Fax: +45 35 38 72 99
www.cosmo.dk

sales info:
Det Danske Filminstitut
Gothersgade 55
1123 Kobenhavn K
Tel: +45 3374 3400
Fax +45 3374 3401
dfi@dfi.dkm

filmography:
My Mother - The Persian Princess, 2000 / End of Exile, 2000 / Last Days of Life, 2002 / Me and My Cousin, 2002 / Fuck the Past, 2004

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A powerful documentary about a Tehran shelter for girls and young women who have fled their homes due to domestic discord. While the women who operate the home provide support for girls from abusive families, they also offer counseling and try to find out the truth about the situations that have brought the women to the shelter. The sisterly feelings of the girls towards each other, their spiritual strength, their courage to rebel, and their wit are shown with a great degree of compassion and empathy. Yet the primary goal of the counselors is to work towards family reunification. The girls who have exaggerated the severity of their problems are sent home - often with mixed feelings of relief and despair.

screenplay: Kim Longinotto, Ziba Mir-Hosseini
camera: Kim Longinotto

festival info:
Joris Ivans Award Nomination - IDFA, Amsterdam, The Netherlands / Jury Prize for Best Documentary - Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema / Children's Rights Award - Osnabruck Film Festival / Silver Dhow Award - Zanzibar International Film Festival / Chicago International Film Festival / Edinburgh International Film Festival / Margaret Mead Film Festival / Sheffield Documentary Film Festival / Hot Docs Canadian Documentary Film Festival / Munich International Documentary Film Festival / Thessaloniki International Film Festival / New Zealand Film Festival / DocAviv International Film Festival / Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival / International Festival on Human Rights One World / It's All True Sao Paolo International Documentary Festival / Newport Beach International Film Festival / Seoul Human Rights Film Festival / Seoul Women's Film Festival / Iranian Diaspora Film Festival

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Hilarious, tragic, stirring, this fly-on-the-wall look at several weeks in an Iranian divorce court provides a unique window into the intimate circumstances of Iranian women's lives. Following Jamileh, whose husband beats her; Ziba, a 16 year old trying to divorce her 38 year old husband; and Maryam, who is desperately fighting to gain custody of her daughters, this deadpan chronicle showcases the strength, ingenuity, and guile with which they confront biased laws, a Kafkaesque administrative system, and their husbands' and families' rage, to win their divorces. Longinotto and her Iranian co-director Ziba Mir-Hosseini spend several weeks following the complainants in and outside of court as they go to great lengths to convince the patient judge to free them. Dispelling images of Iran as a country of war, hostages, and "fatwas", and Iranian women as passive victims of a terrible system, this film is a subtle, fascinating look at women's lives in Iran.

screenplay: Ziba Mir-Hosseini
camera: Kim Longinotto
editor: Barrie Vince
sound: Christine Flece
production managers: Lizzie Lemon, Sima Mir-Hosseini

festival info:
Best Documentary - Viewpoint International Documentary Film Festival / Honorable Mention - Jerusalem Documentary Festival / IDFA / Sheffield Documentary Film Festival / Vancouver Film Festival / Marseilles Film Festival / Edinburgh Film Festival / Viennale International Film Festival / Best Film - Viewpoint International Documentary Film Festival / Silver Hugo Award - Chicago International Film Festival / Grand Prize for Best Documentary - San Francisco International Film Festival

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