Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower (2017)

Sudan, Remember Us (2024)

In a Sudan torn apart by years of war, this documentary immerses us in the daily fight of young Sudanese. Their stories, both harrowing and inspiring, remind us of the ability to find hope even in the darkest of circumstances. This documentary is a call to attention to a forgotten crisis, and a tribute to the power of creativity as a tool of survival and resistance.

Synonymous With (2021)

A student's increasingly intimate line of questioning causes his interview with a local horror host to take a vulnerable turn.

Demirkırat: Crisis (1991)

During the multi-party period in Turkey, no party could achieve the success that the Democrat Party achieved in the 1954 elections. Since those days, no party has been able to repeat the 56 percent of the DP's votes in that election. Now, 93 out of every 100 deputies in the parliament were from the DP. The DP power had reached a heavy and overwhelming majority... Menderes was at the peak of his power and prestige. But as in everything else, the highest point reached in politics was also the point where the descent would begin.

Sunday Beauty Queen (2016)

Beneath Hong Kong's glittering facade, Filipina domestic helpers work in relative anonymity and for near-slave wages. In a beauty pageant like no other, five helpers give themselves makeovers for a day and gleefully reclaim their dignity.

Road Not Taken (2016)

After the failed Umbrella Revolution in 2014, lives go back to normal, but the scenes of the great protest are like yesterday for Billy and Popsy, students in the University of Hong Kong who took part in the movement. One of them now becomes a student leader, while the other chooses a low-profile life as a private tutor. Amid the rapid social changes, when the Communist Beijing government is extending their influence to Hong Kong to take away the freedom and democracy, how would the youths see their future? Do they still see hopes, when both peaceful protests and radical actions seem to be futile?

Lessons in Dissent (2014)

A vivid portrait of a generation of Hong Kongers committed to creating a new more democratic Hong Kong. Schoolboy Joshua Wong dedicates himself to stopping the introduction of National Education. Whilst former classmate Ma Jai fights against political oppression on the streets and in the courts. Catapulting the viewer on to the streets of Hong Kong and into the heart of the action. The viewer is confronted with Hong Kong's oppressive heat, stifling humidity and air thick with dissent. Filmed over 18 months this is a kaleidoscopic, visceral experience of their epic struggle.

My Life Inside (2007)

Rosa is a Mexican woman who, at the age of 17, migrated illegally to Austin, Texas. Some years later, she was jailed under suspicion of murder and then taken to trial. This film demonstrates how the judicial process, the verdict, the separation from her family, and the helplessness of being imprisoned in a foreign country make Rosa’s story an example of the hard life of Mexican migrants in the United States.

Maineland (2017)

Chinese teenagers from the wealthy elite, with big American dreams, settle into a boarding school in small-town Maine. As their fuzzy visions of the American dream slowly gain more clarity, their relationship to home takes on a poignant new aspect.

Belarus: An Ordinary Dictatorship (2018)

It’s the last dictatorship of Europe, caught in a Soviet time-warp, where the secret police is still called the KGB and the president rules by fear. Disappearances, political assassinations, waves of repression and mass arrests are all regular occurances. But while half of Belarus moves closer to Russia, the other half is trying to resist…

The Take (2004)

In suburban Buenos Aires, thirty unemployed ceramics workers walk into their idle factory, roll out sleeping mats and refuse to leave. All they want is to re-start the silent machines. But this simple act - the take - has the power to turn the globalization debate on its head. Armed only with slingshots and an abiding faith in shop-floor democracy, the workers face off against the bosses, bankers and a whole system that sees their beloved factories as nothing more than scrap metal for sale.

12 Mart: "Demir-El" (1994)

By the end of 1963, the word coup was no longer spoken in Turkey. Talat Aydemir is history, the last tremors of the May 27 earthquake have passed and the sliding faults of the regime have begun to settle into place. In this transition period, which lasted more than four years, the person who managed to get the ship to the port without running aground was İsmet İnönü. He ruled for four troubled years in a country torn between armed uprisings, Cyprus crises, coalition governments and regime debates. But meanwhile, he was also worn out. In the local elections held at the end of 1963, while the CHP's votes remained at 37 percent, the AP found 45 percent. But on the very day of the final election results, a few gunshots heard from across the Atlantic turned everything upside down...

Upside Down Home (2014)

In an unfair country women work day and night far from home while their children learn to survive between loneliness and emptiness. They grow to become teenagers, locked down in one of many low income neighborhoods made up of identical small houses, outlined by overcrowding and scarcity. Their mothers, mostly workers in transnational factories, go in and out in buses that take them to a work place where they carry out twelve hour shifts two hours away from home, while their children muddle through their upbringing in tiny houses of 40 square meters. In spite of everything, they look for a way to move ahead and chase their illusions. This is a story full of youthful aspirations set in a context of difficulties and shortages.

12 March: Memorandum (1994)

When March of 1971 knocked on the door, a military intervention was imminent in the country. Bombs were exploding in a strange way from right to left, and the urban guerrilla was resorting to unconventional acts such as bank robbery and kidnapping. The generals had decided to put a stop to this trend. Dynamite was placed under Prime Minister Demirel. The question now was who would ignite the fuse of the dynamite. President Sunay was waiting to watch the approaching explosion silently from Çankaya. Tuğmaç, Chief of General Staff, tried to delay the explosion as much as possible, preferring Demirel to self-destruct. The two generals were watching each other to see who would ignite the fuse first. These two generals were Faruk Gürler and Muhsin Batur. The fire was in their hands. They were going to detonate the dynamite...

12 March: Rematch (1994)

Demirkırat stumbled on March 12, 1971. Actually, you know, they shoot limping horses. But this time it didn't. Turkish democracy continued to run despite its wounds. Because March 12 was not a "seizure" but a "warning". The generals were saying, "If what we want is not done, we will seize it." The country was entering a new era under this Sword of Damocles. A president who was helpless in the face of events, a prime minister who had to leave his seat, a newly fallen parliament, four generals neither inside nor outside the power... Now, a solution would be tried to be found out of this complex equation. But how and with whom? No one knew the answer to these questions in Turkey on the morning of March 13.

12 March: Contumacy (1994)

The slogan "Great Türkiye" began to be heard for the first time in the mid-60s. The Turkish economy had become unstable and stagnant at the hands of military interventions and the provisional government. After 1965, the system began to settle. The economy's also recovered. With the 2nd Development Plan, the wheels of a liberal economy were turned. On the 1 hand, private sector incentives, big projects such as Keban Dam and Bosphorus Bridge. Electricity was going to the villages, Turkey was getting its share from the growth in the world, the country was "doubling up" in the words of the prime minister. Inflation was five percent. Demirel, who rushed from one groundbreaking ceremony to the next, had nothing to say. Of course, this vitality was also reflected in social life. Unions, associations, universities were fidgety. The world and Türkiye were going to 1968 at full speed. The year that gave its name to a generation in the history of the world and Turkey; 1968 had come...

Ode to Book People (2020)

Booklovers, booksellers, storytellers and writers can easily squeeze into various demos of important issues. This documentary brings this group of people in the limelight, discussing the value of art space in bookshops. The book-loving director Kong King Chu visited independent bookshops in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia for three to four years, tried to understand how a bookshop can become a dynamic, inspiring and heartwarming space, even these booksellers carry different attitude towards life, books and community, as well as management beliefs. These booksellers do not care about the commercial value emphasized by the capitalist society and they are content in their own way by sharing their enthusiasm about books with the others in spite of all difficulties. Thus, they keep trying new methods to sharpen their touch on social issues and become an important starting point for the general public to reflect upon conflicts in our society.

Nobody (2017)

Half blind and half deaf, ostraziced Cuban writer Rafael Alcides tries to finish his unpublished novels to discover that after several decades, the home made ink from the typewriter he used to write them has faded. The Cuban revolution as a love story and eventual deception is seen through the eyes of a man who is living an inner exile.

Rockin' Down The Curtain: The 60ies. Beginning (2015)

Choosing the fate of a rock musician was similar to being a dissident. From the 60s, the Soviet Union tried to discourage and restrict the expansion of rock music by any means. They called it the “rotten fruit of degraded capitalism, demoralizing the minds of Soviet youth”. Despite that, rock music broke the wall – made a hole in the Iron Curtain – and gained the hearts and minds of tens of thousands of young people.Rock musicians were on the frontline of the rebellion against the Soviet regime. Despite censorship, they managed to deliver, in a hidden, roundabout way through lyrics and music, the spirit of nonconformity and freedom of choice to their audience. A film about Latvian and Soviet rock pioneers, their lives and destinies.

Hong Kong: Retrocession Generation (2017)

In 2017, twenty years after the British handed over Hong Kong to China in 1997, young people, more politicized than any previous generation and proud of their land, do not feel Chinese and actively fight against the oligarchs who want to subdue them to China's authoritarian power.

Arrogance of Power (NaN)

This documentary shows the fascist might of the Marcos regime and how militarisation and human rights violations were institutionalised in Philippine political life. The film exposes the human rights violations during the Marcos regime, unmasking the dictator's claims that there were no political detainees under martial law. Arrogance of Power (1983, TRT 38 mins.) is a documentary by AsiaVisions (previously named Creative Audio-Visual Specialists or CAVS) made originally in Super 8 migrated to U-matic and digitized for access.