Tag Archives: youth

Israelism

Two young American Jews – Simone Zimmerman and Eitan – are raised to defend the state of Israel at all costs. Eitan joins the Israeli military. Simone supports Israel on ‘the other battlefield:’ America’s college campuses. When they witness Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinian people with their own eyes, they are horrified and heartbroken.

They join the movement of young American Jews battling the old guard over Israel’s centrality in American Judaism, and demanding freedom for the Palestinian people. Their stories reveal a generational divide in the American Jewish community as more young Jews question the narratives their synagogues and Hebrew school teachers fed them as children.

When a City Rises

When a city rises up against a superpower, everyone must decide how far they will go for freedom.

Hong Kong 2019 – The world has seen the iconic images of protestors covered in black, tossing back tear gas, waving black flags and protesting against the authoritarian superpower that is China in order to fight for a democratic future. It is easy to be caught up in the action, in the glorification of bravery and sacrifice. But away from the limelight, who are these hidden people concealed underneath their masks? What are the protestors really fighting for? What is at stake for them?

Narrated by Eve, a student, When a City Rises follows a teenage couple in love, a student leader, and a father, as they navigate the protest movement, each taking different kinds of action to strike back against the superpower overshadowing their lives. Using direct action, guerrilla tactics, technology, social media, memes and graffiti, they try to challenge the status quo. Each one plays a different role in this huge social movement. Eve, offers background legal support from her ‘control’ room. She is entirely behind the more radical action until her campus is besieged by police and in response protesters turn her university into a brick and firebomb factory. Tan, a father, first took to the streets when the government proposed the extradition bill. He is quickly radicalised and grows impatient with the political impasse, contemplating more dangerous action, even though he has the most to lose. 18-year-old MJ dreams of being a footballer and likes shopping with his girlfriend. Born in a different time, he would be splitting his hours between school and the pitch. Instead, every weekend he is at a protest, putting his relationship in peril.

When a City Rises captures three characters and a year of their personal struggles throughout the movement. Each must confront their own fears and find out exactly how much they are willing to risk for change. Relationships break and form amidst tear gas and rubber bullets, and across the border, China’s People Liberation Army awaits.  With a global pandemic driving protests inside and the new even more repressive National Security Law introduced, the stakes have never been higher.

Young & Afraid

In 2017 Petter (24) decides to end his life, but at the very last moment, is stopped by the police. His best friend and fellow film student Sverre is determined to help and suggests they make a film to keep Petter busy and focused on getting better. Equipped with a camera, they search the streets of Oslo to find out how other troubled souls deal with their lives.

With a naïve and spontaneous approach, they end up in dramatic and unpredictable situations. They meet Monica, whose past has led her to self-injurious behaviour. Oliver and Cornelia, both escaping their demons with alcohol and drugs, and Emma, who is transsexual, lesbian, and proud of who she is. They also meet Miriam, who becomes Petter’s girlfriend.

By getting to know their destructive patterns, Petter becomes aware of his own. By facing their problems, he sets off on a bumpy therapeutic journey, that eventually brings light into his darkness.

Young & Afraid is an authentic and raw documentary about choosing to live.

Drag Kids

Drag Kids is an intimate journey into the lives of four child drag queens from around the world. Stephan, Jason, Bracken and Nemis have never met, but they’re united by a shared passion for drag, and they’re about to come together for
 the first time – to perform Lady Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’ at the world-famous Montreal Pride Festival.

As they prepare for the big show, each faces their own unique challenges, as well as challenges they have in common – deep feelings of isolation and the struggle of trying to claim a place of your own on the fringes of a fringe culture.

A Stone in Our Heart

A Mother and Daughter – Lillian and Jette –  are climbing up a mountain in Switzerland. A mountain that brings back a lot of memories.

They hike from cabin to cabin while they dig into a past which Lillian has spent many years trying to suppress: Jette was sexually abused by her stepfather throughout her childhood and youth. A part of the abuse took place in the same cabins that Jette and Lillian are now revisiting.

Jette has invited her mother to go on this trip because she needs to talk about what happened, and especially about Lillian’s role in it all. Jette loves her mother, but at the same time she can’t stand being close to her. Over the years Jette has begun to question whether her mother knew about the abuse or not. Naturally Jette feels a deep frustration. But she has a strong hope that if Lillian admits she knew about the abuse, Jette can find an opportunity to forgive her mother and reestablish a healthy relationship.

The mountain trip puts the two women’s relationship to the test. When Jette gets the conversation started, she doesn’t get the answer that she expected: Lillian denies that she saw or knew anything.

This is the starting point of a physically and emotionally life-changing journey, which forces the two women to face their own inner demons and to embrace the pain and the guilt, but also to have faith. The conversations intensify as the two women move up the mountain.

At one point it seems like this trip might be the last thing they will ever do together.

Code of Silence

Code of Silence follows the parallel journeys of a fervently Orthodox Jewish father and his now-secular son, after the son Manny breaks the code of silence in Melbourne’s Orthodox community and goes public with his story of being sexually abused as a school student.

Manny Waks claims he was abused by an Orthodox Jewish security guard, who also taught boys karate, at the Yeshivah Centre in Melbourne. Now Manny is demanding his abuser be brought to justice, and the rabbis and Chabad leaders who tried to cover it up, are brought to account.

His father Zephaniah joins forces with his son, but soon finds he has been virtually excommunicated for breaking an ancient Jewish law forbidding Jews from informing secular authorities about other Jews.

We see how father and son split this tightly-knit, powerful Jewish community as we open the door into their insular world of study and duty, charity and faith, power and piety.

Will Manny get justice in court? Will the rabbis be held to account? And, what price will the father and son pay for blowing the whistle?

 

Code of Silence from Sideways Film on Vimeo.

Breaking the Silence

Breaking the Silence follows the journey of Manny Waks who was, until recently, the only survivor of child sexual abuse within Melbourne’s Orthodox Jewish community to speak publicly.

This is the dramatic follow up to the Walkley Award winning Code of Silence. 

Breaking the Silence begins with Manny Waks as he gives evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, during which two ultra-Orthodox Jewish institutions are accused of covering-up and protecting perpetrators in the 1980s and 90s. 

Over two explosive weeks inside Melbourne’s County Court, viewers will witness, for the first time, those rabbis and officials accused of the cover-ups take the stand and be grilled. For the first time, it is also revealed that Manny was not the only member of the family who was abused; Manny’s father Zephaniah Waks reveals two other sons were abused by a Yeshivah Centre teacher, David Kramer in the 1990’s. He had tried to have the abuse handled by community leaders but was subject to an ancient code of silence that forbids Jews from speaking about the allegations involving other Jews, to the police.

The result was that Zephaniah and his wife were virtually excommunicated and feeling isolated, they decided to relocate to Israel. Now his other son Yanky agrees to speak on camera for the first time.

After the hearings, Manny travels to the United States to confront one of the two men who he claims abused him. The film’s climax follows Manny to Los Angeles, where he meets a convicted pedophile who was given a suspended sentence for abusing AVB in Sydney in the 1980s. It’s a powerful moment between victim and abuser that delivers an unexpected conclusion.

Will Manny’s confrontation with the man he claims abused him give him peace of mind? And will his meeting with the convicted pedophile give him a crucial sense of resolution?

Breaking the Silence from Sideways Film on Vimeo.

Why I’m Not On Facebook

One man’s soul searching decision on whether or not he should join Facebook sets him off on an epic journey of self-discovery as he weighs the pros and cons of becoming a member of the world’s largest social network.

From long lost high school friends who use it to stay in touch with classmates, to the pick-up artist who trolls the site to score with women, to the criminal who tracks your every movement to know when to rob your house, the best and worst of Facebook is on display. We meet couples bought together using the site, and those driven apart, people who are addicted to its charms and even the Winklevoss twins, the co-creators of Facebook.

Blending interviews with news clips, TV shows and other archival footage, Brant Pindivic documents his search for the meaning of Facebook with a storytelling style that is both personal and endearing, throwing up surprises through out his journey.

The deeper he explores the social network’s vice like grip on those who use it the more he realizes the answers to its popularity lie within.   Whether you’re a fan of Facebook or not, this is one film that is funny, fascinating and a must for anyone wondering what everyone is talking about.

Diary of a School Under Siege

During the student demonstrations in Chile, a group of High-School students break in to one of the most emblematic schools of the capital city, the Darío Salas high school, and occupy it for six months.

The camera is locked in with them as this group of idealistic young protesters take on the authorities in a battle to draw attention to their governments brutally destructive new education policies.

Barricaded inside, the situation intensifies as their struggles to maintain unity and political influence vie with the problems faced by teenagers the world over, all the while under the constant threat of police raids.

Hunger strikes and tear gas attacks clash with attempts to organise lessons and cleaning rotas. Press conferences and raids punctuate days of political debate over their direction, while girls fall pregnant, the school falls into disrepair and arguments emerge over the future of their protest.

By the end of this transformative period, our inspiring protagonists have changed forever. Diary of a School Under Siege is a bittersweet coming-of-age story, set against and reflecting a global movement that echoes throughout every corner of the planet.

Fatherland

Fatherland is a controversial coming-of-age documentary set in the remote South African bush. It follows a group of Afrikaner boys over 9 days at a military camp in the spirit of their fathers before them.

“You’ve got these millions and millions of blacks around you. Smothering you and killing you.”

However, what starts out as basic training, fitness and camaraderie soon intensifies as the true nature of the camp is revealed and the boys are forced to question their place in the ‘New South Africa’.

“One must look at the negro not as one’s equal but as a child. A black man has the intelligence level of a 14 year old white boy.”

These camps are designed to recreate a sense of Nationalism amongst the next generation of Afrikaaners, though as their training progresses darker ideological elements emerge revealing the stark realities of their training and indoctrination.

“We have the men. We just need to plant the will in you because you’ve been brain washed by old Mandela. Be proud of your race”

The film follows three particular boys and Col. Franz Jooste -an ex-SADF soldier that fought for his country pre 1994 – and focuses on the conflicting views developed by the boys. Under the strict leadership of their camp leader, they struggle to find their identity within their own communities and within their ‘rainbow’ nation at large.  The children are forced to participate in a physically and mentally grueling process that tests their values, believes and identities on every level.

“The truth is that there will definitely be a war in this country. So I’m preparing myself for a war that’s coming.”

Are All Men Pedophiles?

We live in a society that condemns pedophiles, though biological instinct and world cultures throughout history suggest that an attraction to adolescents is as natural as it is unavoidable. The fashion industry on the one hand sexualises ever younger girls while those who act on these instincts are reviled. The apparent hypocrisy at the heart of society forces the question: What do we mean then when we talk about Pedophilia?

This films broad canvas takes in how our evolution and biological make-up have through-out history created cultures where what would today be called Pedophilia has passed without note, and with the complicity of all religions.  It also looks at how media definitions differ to scientific ones, whether Pedophilia could be considered a sexuality, how the definition differs between modern societies as well as presenting the testimony of both victims and perpetrators.

In conclusion, we are faced with both the contradiction of a society which fetishizes youth and the question: Are All Men Pedophiles?

Afghan Memento

In 1988, Olivier Brodard -a twenty one year old idealist- made a six-month humanitarian trip to Afghanistan under Soviet occupation with $50,000 in his backpack destined for the local populations.

Entering illegally via Pakistan Olivier, along with his friend Paul Castella, made the arduous journey on foot, camel and tank to the Pansir Valley. They met commander Massoud and shared the daily life of the afghan people witnessing first hand the front line of the Afghan battle against the Soviet Union.

When Olivier reluctantly returned home to Switzerland, he had a terrible car accident. After weeks in a deep coma, he woke up with severe amnesia and the new challenge of rebuilding his life.

With the help of his detailed diaries and photographs taken at the time, Olivier attempts to explore his memories and recover a part of his own identity that had been lost.

Afghan Memento tells the story of a fearless journey made by two men in their prime, but more than that, it is an elegant rendering of where our experiences, memories and identity intersect.