Tag Archives: conflict

Broken Harmony: China’s Dissidents

Broken Harmony: China’s Dissidents tells the story of Hua Ze, an ordinary Chinese citizen for whom a discovery of corruption led her into a hidden world of dissidents, citizen journalism, police harassment and kidnappings.

Once a mild mannered TV director, Hua Ze discovered that an old friend reporting on alleged corruption after the Sichuan earthquake had disappeared, along with any mention of him online. Following a trail of leads over the great internet fire wall of China, she discovers not just the fate of her friend, but the truth behind Sichuan’s fatal building code violations, a jaw-dropping array of human rights abuses across China and comes to the realization that the entire internet in China is a state controlled fiction.

Hua’s awakening takes her into a new world of dissidents, journalists and human rights lawyers. As she begins her own reporting, pressure from the government is swift, and her world is turned upside down. She is forced out of her job and placed under surveillance. One by one, her new friends are arrested or detained. Phones are tapped and secretive threats and warnings are made. But Hua cannot turn a blind eye to the corruption and she pays the price.

When ordinary Chinese citizens go to extraordinary lengths to fight human rights abuses, the risks are enormous, even life-threatening. Broken Harmony reveals Hua’s courageous acts and willingness to lose everything to fight for justice and the rule of law.

Port of Destiny: Peace

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won international praise and the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for ending a five-decade civil war that left some 260,000 people dead and 8 million displaced. His persistence transformed a country that was once the murder capital of the world into a global destination for investment and tourism.

Port of Destiny recounts the drama of Colombia’s path to peace. As Defense Minister, Santos waged war on the terrorist guerrilla movement FARC, hunting down its leaders and orchestrating high-wire hostage rescues. As President, he brokered peace—but paid a steep political price.

Featuring interviews with former United States President Bill Clinton and former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair, the film draws on unprecedented access to Santos, his family, and Colombian officials to tell the story of a man who risked his career and his legacy to bring peace to his people.

Mr. Fish: Cartooning from the Deep End

We find Mr. Fish, who once had success creating compelling, outrageous editorial cartoons, as his profession is dying out.

Editors who previously backed his controversial work are disappearing as fast as the newspapers which once employed him. Can an outspoken artist raise a family and maintain his unique defiant voice?

This intimate documentary follows the artist as he struggles to stay true to his creativity in a world where biting satiric humour has an ever-diminishing commercial value. Mr Fish: Cartooning from the Deep End examines the compromises a radical artist makes (or refuses to make).

 

“A stubbornly amiable film about a compulsively provocative talent, “Mr. Fish” ponders the outer limits of editorial cartooning in an age where there’s arguably more fodder for such commentary than ever… 

to further offset the queasiness that Mr. Fish’s images often generate, Bryant lends his well-crafted feature a bright, playful, even antic tenor, painting his subject as a lovable eccentric rather than a tortured artist.”
Variety

“The film hit my heart and brain with such velocity that it literally made me sit on the edge of my seat”
Ain’t It Cool News

Fatal Flaws: Legalising Assisted Death

Should we be giving doctors the right to end the lives of others by euthanasia or assisted suicide?

Fatal Flaws: Legalising Assisted Death is a thought-provoking journey through Europe and North America to find answers to this question.

Some 20 years after these laws were introduced, even
some of the most loyal supporters of assisted dying
are questioning where these laws are taking us.

The grandfather of euthanasia in the Netherlands, Dr. Boudewijn Chabot speaks of a ‘worrisome culture shift’ and that euthanasia is ‘getting out of hand’ – especially as it relates to patients with psychiatric issues.

The cost of ongoing treatment is putting pressure on an already fraught decision making process, and the many are questioning the motives of those tasked with making the decisions.

Meanwhile, the suicidal can simply ‘shop around’ until they find the decision they are looking for, or more worryingly – others can do the same for those they are tasked with caring for.

With powerful testimonies and expert opinion from both sides of the issue, Fatal Flaws: Legalising Assisted Death uncovers how these highly disputed laws affect society over time.

Escape From Room 18

John Daly, an ex-neo-Nazi skinhead, fled to Israel after his own gang attempted to murder him for being Jewish. Years later he receives an e-mail from someone in his long forgotten past.

Kevin Connell, a former friend and fellow ex-neo-Nazi is on a mission to change his own life and make amends for his past. He invites John to meet him in Eastern Europe to discover first hand the effects of what they both practiced and preached.

Suffering from PTSD and a brain tumor John is reluctant at first. Is this another attempt on his life? Or is this actually a man trying to better himself and make amends for the pain he caused so many people so many years ago?

At the Gates of Hell (series)

At the Gates of Hell takes us into the most deadly parts of the world where escaping abuse, exploitation, extortion and even death is a daily battle. This series takes us deep into hidden worlds, covering: child exploitation by gangs in Colombia, femicide in Mexico, business in the shadow of the Mafia in Napoli, life as a homosexual in Russia, environmentalists under fire in the Amazon, the abandoned communities of Detroit and beyond.

Episode 1 – Broken Children – Colombia

Childhood is not a happy time in Colombia, it can mean living in constant threat of coerced into gangs or caught in the cross-fire. In the forgotten barrios of Bogotá and Medellín, children find themselves hired as killers or forced into prostitution before they have left their teens. We give voice to this lost generation.

Episode 2 – Searching for Camorra – Napoli, Italy

Napoli has for hundreds of years been in the hands of a handful of criminal families. To run a business here is to pay ever increasing extortion demands or face destruction, arson or murder. We visit the communities – and the gang members – to understand this violent eco-system.

Episode 3 – Women Without a Name – Mexico

Between Jan 2012 and June 2016 –  9,581 women were violently murdered in Mexico, but just 1,887 were categorised as Femicides. Mexican authorities are unwilling to face the rising tide of violence against woman, and domestic violence, trafficking and prostitution remain hidden from public view and public discourse. We meet with the victims familiers, survivors and perpetrators and analyze, together with anthropologists, why there is so much machismo and misogyny in the Mexican culture.

Episode 4 – Trapped in Homophobia – Russia

After years of slow but steady progress, the rights of homosexuals in Russia took a giant step backwards with the passing of the Anti-Propaganda law – effectively forcing the gay population of Russia to live in the shadows and in shame. Lacking the basic right of living openly, as well as facing legal discrimination in work and study – Russia’s LGBT are also now facing a growing wave of violence. We meet those who are fighting for their rights, those responsible for the swell of homophobia and the many ordinary gay citizens for whom the future is so bleak that choose to stay in the closet or leave.

Episode 5 – (De)construction – Detroit, USA

Detroit was the most promising city in the USA, the birthplace of Fordism and mass credit and a bedrock of reinforced concrete and fair salaries. Racial riots, the gutting of the car industry and the crisis drained the city, from a high of nearly 2 million inhabitants to a waking nightmare for the 700K remaining. We meet with those left behind – many of them low income African-American, condemned to live in delinquency, poverty and abandonment.

Episode 6 – Mara’s War Tax – Honduras

Every year, dozens of public transport and taxi drivers are murdered in Honduras – the worlds most dangerous country – turning the entire sector into struggle for survival. The ‘war tax’ is a toll that gangs demand from drivers to work in their territory. Whoever refuses to pay it, will pay it with his life or that of a close relative´s. Who would work in this terrifying business and at what cost?

Episode 7 – On the Right Side of the Wall – Lima, Peru

There is a 10km wall in Lima that separates the richest neighbourhood in the city from the poorest. For some it is known as the ‘wall of shame’, for others its essential to security. What are the root causes of this massive monument to inequality, how is it that a low income person on one side of the wall is paying twice what their rich neighbour is, on the other side of the wall, for a glass of water?

Episode 8 – Threatened – Amazon, Brazil

In parts of the Amazon, protecting your ancestral land from illegal loggers, and oil and gold prospectors, can be a death sentence. Shady businesses from far away, not content with destroying the environment and stealing the resources of indigenous communities are now engaged in a violence and intimidation. We meet with the environmental heroes, who are threatened daily, and those who will do anything to get their hands on these resources – including a hit man who has murdered over 20 activists.

 

In the Executioners Shadow

In the Executioner’s Shadow casts a penetrating look at the consequences of the death penalty through three powerful stories –  a former state executioner who comes within days of executing an innocent person; a Boston Marathon bombing victim who struggles to decide what justice really means; and the parents of a murder victim who choose to fight for the life of their daughter’s killer.

As the battle over capital punishment heats up, this provocative film challenges viewers to question their deepest beliefs about the meaning of justice.

End of Truth

“They are gone.” These are the words that propelled photojournalist Nicole Tung into a daunting situation which nothing could have prepared her for. Masked men wielding Kalashnikovs had abducted her friends John Cantlie and James Foley while they were en route from Syria back into Turkey. Nicole had been nervously waiting for their arrival at the border. Instantly, their fate rested upon her ability to find out who captured her friends and how to get them back alive.

The abductions of John Cantlie and James Foley were the beginning of a hostage taking frenzy which impacted the foreign policy of many countries.  Because of media blackouts surrounding the kidnappings, many others unwittingly ventured forth into hostile ISIS territory. Fixers were targeted, causing people who thought they were safe to be captured. These unsuspecting journalists and aid workers were thrown into a dark and desperate situation that ended horribly for those whose countries didn’t pay ransom. These crimes revealed what can happen when truths are obscured – causing negotiations and rescue missions to go horribly wrong.

End of Truth is an emotionally powerful investigation into the political and criminal enterprise of kidnappings as ISIS rose to power in war torn Syria. By intercutting exclusive footage with intimate interviews of negotiators, investigators, fixers and even a used car salesman who are caught up in the confusion, we examine the leads that led to lies revealing the terrible consequence of misinformation when lives are at stake.

The Coming War on China

The Coming War on China, from award winning journalist John Pilger, reveals what the news doesn’t – that the world’s greatest military power, the United States, and the world’s second economic power, China, both nuclear-armed, may well be on the road to war. 

Nuclear war is not only imaginable, but planned. The greatest build-up of NATO military forces since the Second World War is under way on the western borders of Russia. On the other side of the world, the rise of China is viewed in Washington as a threat to American dominance. 

To counter this, President Obama announced a ‘pivot to Asia’, which meant that almost two-thirds of all US naval forces would be transferred to Asia and the Pacific, their weapons aimed at China. A policy which has been taken up by his successor Donald Trump, who during his election campaign said “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country and that’s what they’re doing”.

Filmed on five possible front-lines across Asia and the Pacific over two years, the story is told in chapters that connect a secret and ‘forgotten’ past to the rapacious actions of great power today and to a resistance, of which little is known in the West.

Bad Hombres

Bad Hombres explores the most heavily used migration route on Earth. Journalist Stef Biemans traveled between Guatemala and the US to see what the so-called ‘bad hombres’ hope to find in the USA.
Who are the people who inspired the building of a wall on the Mexican border?

“Biemans stays calm at all times and defers to his subjects. The result is rich and integral television, sometimes moving and always captivating”

De Volkskrant

Also available as a five part series:

Episode One:

Episode Two:

Episode Three:

Episode Four:

Episode Five:

91%: A Film About Guns in America

America’s 325 million residents own an estimated 347 million firearms. Not surprisingly, gun violence has become one of the most urgent public health issues facing Americans today.

In 91%, a cross-section of U.S. gun violence victims tell their heartbreaking stories of loss, pain, and a heroic search for hope in a nation stalled in a senseless gun control debate. Throughout these otherwise unrelated shootings, we find a common thread – the gunmen had all-too- easy access to the virtually untraceable, high-powered weaponry used in their attacks.

In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, a 2013 poll revealed that 91% of Americans support comprehensive background checks – a factor that could prevent thousands of similar gun violence tragedies nationwide. Yet, divisive political rhetoric and congressional gridlock continues to perpetuate a flawed system that hurts communities across the country.

Moving beyond the confusing gun control politics and avoiding any discussion about the often-unpredictable motivations of rampage killers, 91% shows that Americans almost unanimously support both 2nd amendment rights and common sense regulation. The film finds a shared language between citizens on both sides of the issue, encouraging them to move common sense policy forward by speaking up in a conversation typically dominated by firearm lobbyists and manufacturers.

By highlighting the impact of unregulated gun sales on schools, families, and communities across the country, 91% addresses the real problems and possible solutions to gun violence in America. It’s something we all agree about, we just don’t know it yet.

Taboo: Season 4 – Machismo

Episode 1 – And God created the Man…

At the heart of Latin cultures is a disease called Machismo, that gives men power over women. In extreme circumstances it can lead to murder, but even amongst the attitudes of men, who are completely unaware, we reveal attitudes that demonstrate there is a long way to go before we achieve equality.

Episode 2 – Once Upon a Time

How is it to be a young girl in Latin societies today? We delve in to the world of children and young adults – are they embracing the stereotypes of generations gone by, or forging a new path? The answer is both.

Episode 3 – Survivors

In this third episode we hear the stories of the older generation, women who have suffered – for the most part in silence – at the hands of men, and with the complicity of the culture and the state.

Episode 4 – Till death separates us

And now we hear from the men. Introspective men reflecting on what masculinity means to them, others trying to create a more equal society and those with regrets. Men with violent pasts – both physical and psychological – exploring how they became what they are.