Review: "The Other Profile" by Armel Hostiou (2023)

Olivia Popp Monday, 22 January 2024.
A Frenchman in the Congo may raise eyebrows even today, but Armel Hostiou’s The Other Profile does something very different in this documentary revolving around identity theft and the quest to find the culprit, with unusual results. In what appears to be a film stemming from the director’s sheer curiosity with the situation, he takes on his first documentary project with laudable results, despite...

The Unconventional Family Image, Matilda, and the Fairy Garden

Nguyen Thao Phuong Wednesday, 17 January 2024.
We are often taught from a young age that “Blood is thicker than water”. Except that later in life, we grow more and more tolerant towards the fact that not all families are the same, and not all families are willing to reconcile differences and conflicts. Sometimes families, despite the blood relations, can be abusive and reject you for who you are.

We Will Not Fade Away: An Authentic Denunciation of Human Rights Violations?

Elena Hesterkamp Wednesday, 17 January 2024.
My ne zgasnemo (We Will Not Fade Away) is the title of filmmaker Alisa Kovalenko’s newest documentary first screened at the Berlinale film festival in February 2023, one year after the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. The film takes place in the Donbass, more precisely in Zolote-4 and the village of Stanytsia, near the frontline where Ukrainian military and Pro-Russian...

Denied motherhood

Daniel Sepúlveda Monday, 15 January 2024.
A solid contribution to the global documentary heritage is what Pascale Bourgaux with Hawar, Our Banished Children brought to the table in 2023. The horrors of the already-known story of the sexual enslavement of Yazidi women captured by Daesh jihadists, bring with them this time the necessary background perspective to understand the dilemma of the liberated women returning to their community...

How violation of human rights leads to violence in general

Polina Vardanian Monday, 15 January 2024.
Motherland is above everything – this is the idea, which goes through the whole documentary film – although the harsh picture we are shown completely mirrors the reality, too.

Consequences of men's dominance over women's bodies in times of war

Kamila Sousa Monday, 15 January 2024.
Throughout history, it has been clear that women's bodies belong to anyone but themselves.

Finding Home

Solongo Soninbayar Wednesday, 20 December 2023.
The media is an institution that plays a serious role in the perpetuation of prejudice and discrimination against gender-variant people. [1] Documentary films serve as powerful mediums for storytelling, shedding light on various aspects of our world. One such intriguing documentary is Fairy Garden, Gergő Somogyvári’s documentary film that unveils the touching story of Fanni, a 19-year-old...

Beautiful symphony about a difficult topic

Ingrid Pérez Thursday, 14 December 2023.
According to the article Labor Slavery, The 5 Countries Where This Situation Reigns published on the site El Comercio, labor exploitation occurs mainly in developing countries where labor rights are highly violated. [1] India occupies the first place in the list, that also contains China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan. The fact that India is one of the countries with the highest rates of...

The versatile contribution of the protagonist

Pinczés Réka Thursday, 14 December 2023.
Taking a look at Goran Dević’s filmography, we can identify several works about collectives, local communities or specific social groups. What’s to Be Done? also depicts such a community, namely the leaders and the employees of the company Gredelj. Dević started shooting this documentary as a research material for a fiction feature, after he read the news about the suicide of the vice...

The never returning guest workers

Ana Marija Vukovic Thursday, 14 December 2023.
“In Germany they were called ‘Gastarbeiter’, i.e. guest workers. They were supposed to work in the country for a few years, to save money for their families, and then return home. Workers underwent rigorous health inspections (too demeaning for tourists), and they put up with this in order to earn money to pay for their wedding, to be able to buy a tractor, or to send wages back to their hometown...