Tens of millions of Chinese farm laborers work day and night on the various processes making up the cotton industry. They grow and harvest the cotton balls, spin them into yarn, weave fabrics and turn them into jeans. The production of cotton articles involves entire farming families. We accompany a horde of baggage-laden factory workers making the long journey in overflowing train carriages, singing happily about their tough lives. Before dawn, the uniformed cotton pickers are transported by trailer to the plantations. This film gives a face to the otherwise anonymous Chinese workers. Among themselves they express criticism of their working conditions, the low pay and the physical strain. Small groups of factory workers go about their daily routines: eating, sleeping and working. Great friendships develop in the dormitories, and there are conversations about the future and the possibility of protest. Should they stop working and return to work the fields of their home village? Despite it all, the thought of a regular job and the hope of promotion help to keep up the spirits of the young workers.
MERCI PATRON! > Best documentary 2017 in France
A satirical documentary film that pits a pair of unemployed garment workers against the billionaire head of the luxury giant LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton has emerged as a sleeper hit in France, where it has become a rallying cry against a government proposal to overhaul the labor code.
RE:LEGALIZED
An american journey on the road of the most useful and most prohibited plant in the world. Why is it that a plant that has been on the Earth for 38 million years, known and used for the last 5.000 years, has been prohibited for the last 80 years? Why, in the U.S., are an increasing number of states today legalizing and regulating its medical and recreational use? An amazing therapeutic journey crossing the borders of re-legalization: travelling through the valleys and mountains of organic growers vs. tobacco corporations, enlightened scientists and vested interests of the pharmaceutical companies; traversing the diverse experiences of those spending years in prison thanks to marijuana related offences and others helping to build this huge new industry…dreaming of a world saved by cannabis.
REGARDING SUSAN SONTAG
An intimate and nuanced investigation into the life of one of the most influential and provocative thinkers of the 20th century. Passionate and gracefully outspoken throughout her career, Susan Sontag became one of the most important literary, political and feminist icons of her generation. The documentary explores Sontag’s life through evocative experimental images, archival materials, accounts from friends, family, colleagues, and lovers, as well as her own words. REGARDING SUSAN SONTAG gives viewers the chance to watch Sontag while she examines the world.
ROIS ET REINE directed by Arnaud Desplechin | buffet & screening by Schermaglie
Nora Cotterelle, a woman in her 30s is caring for her ill father, Louis Jenssens.
While Nora tries to present a facade that all is well with her life, she is twice divorced and has a son, Elias, whose father is dead. Elias has behavior problems caused by autism.
Nora’s present relationship is not going well, and she is soon to marry a businessman, while Elias is becoming increasingly withdrawn.
A parallel storyline follows her former lover and second husband, Ismaël Vuillard, a musician, with whom she had lived for seven years. He is given to strange behaviour, and as a result he has been committed to a mental hospital, from which he is planning to escape…
DAVID LYNCH THE ART LIFE
David Lynch takes us on an intimate journey through the formative years of his life. From his idyllic upbringing in small town America to the dark streets of Philadelphia, we follow Lynch as he traces the events that have helped to shape one of cinema’s most enigmatic directors. David Lynch the Art Life infuses Lynch’s own art, music and early films, shining a light into the dark corners of his unique world, giving audiences a better understanding of the man and the artist. As Lynch states “I think every time you do something, like a painting or whatever, you go with ideas and sometimes the past can conjure those ideas and color them, even if they’re new ideas, the past colors them.”
I’M NOT YOUR NEGRO. Nomination Oscar 2017. Premio del Pubblico Berlino 2017
I Am Not Your Negro is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter. It is a film that questions black representation in Hollywood and beyond. And, ultimately, by confronting the deeper connections between the lives and assassination of these three leaders, Baldwin and Peck have produced a work that challenges the very definition of what America stands for.
DER GOLEM >> Silent film + Live Soundtrack by MU
Live Soundtrack by MU duo (Federica Vecchio, Cello – Adriano Lanzi, Acoustic Guitar, Effects).
In medieval Prague, Rabbi Loew observes the stars and concludes that trouble is brewing for his people. When the emperor issues a decree threatening the expulsion of Jews from the city, the rabbi, a master of magic, activates the Golem, a monstrous clay figure, to help save his congregation. The rabbi’s daughter, Miriam is courted by two men, Famulus (Ernst Deutsch), the rabbi’s assistant, and Knight Florian, a messenger for the emperor. Famulus re-activates the Golem to vanquish his rival, and the monster goes berserk. Stylized sets and moody cinematography elevated Der Golem above the standard features of its time, its central figure has been the focus of a number of films produced in various countries, and the name has become a generic descriptor for any lumbering creature which can’t be easily controlled.
ON THE BRIDE’S SIDE directed by G. Del Grande, A.Augugliaro e K. Soliman Al Nassiry
A Palestinian poet and an Italian journalist meet five Palestinians and Syrians in Milan who entered Europe via the Italian island of Lampedusa after fleeing the war in Syria. They decide to help them complete their journey to Sweden – and hopefully avoid getting themselves arrested as traffickers – by faking a wedding. With a Palestinian friend dressed up as the bride and a dozen or so Italian and Syrian friends as wedding guests, they cross halfway over Europe on a four-day journey of three thousand kilometres. This emotionally charged journey not only brings out the stories and hopes and dreams of the five Palestinians and Syrians and their rather special traffickers, but also reveals an unknown side of Europe – a transnational, supportive and irreverent Europe that ridicules the laws and restrictions of the Fortress in a kind of masquerade which is no other than the direct filming of something that really took place on the road from Milan to Stockholm from the 14th to the 18th of November 2013.
Rethinking the Mosque, Opening the City // IO STO CON LA SPOSA – Exhibit Opening & Screening
Una moschea per Roma? consists of three series of public meetings to be undertaken in Rome during May 2017, ending one week before the start of Ramadan 2017. The meetings are open to everyone—Muslims and non-Muslims, institutional actors, various civic organisations as well as private citizens. Using creative approaches as stimuli, the project forms a platform for conflict management, applying social sciences with participatory arts to improve cross-cultural dialogue, co-design pathways for religious pluralism and impact policy-making around the potential building of Islamic spaces in Rome.
The documentation produced for and during Una moschea per Roma? will be exposed, from 19 May on, at Cinema Detour, Via Urbana 107, 00184 Rome, as part of the On the Road Festival programme. The opening evening, 19 May 21:00, will see the screening of the documentary ‘Io sto con la sposa’, directed by Gabriele Del Grande, Antonio Augugliaro and Khaled Soliman Al Nassiry will be shown. Free Entrance to the exhibition. Membership only admission. Donations Welcome in support of Gabriele Del Grande’s most recent project “Un Partigiano mi disse”. In collaboration with ZALAB.