Films

Directed by Philippe Falardeau
USA / 2014 / 110 min / Drama

Orphaned by the brutal Civil war in Sudan that began in 1983, a group of South Sudanese refugee children grow in the Kakuma camp in Kenya. Thirteen years later, the now young adults are given the opportunity to leave the camp and resettle in America.  Upon arrival at the airport, they meet an employment agency counselor who has been enlisted to help find them jobs. They strive to understand each other while they make peace with their histories.

Directed by Boris Lojkine
France / 2014 / 91 min / Drama
SACD Award at Cannes’ Semaine de la Critique 2014
Japan Premiere

Deep in the Sahara desert, as he tries to get to Europe, Leonard, a young man from Cameroon, rescues Hope, a Nigerian woman who has been raped by policemen. In a fiercely hostile world, where jungle laws of the mafia-controlled, nationality-divided ghetto rule, these two try to find their way together, and to love each other.  Just one step from Spain and their European dream, they encounter ruthless obstacles.

Directed by Juan Antonio Moreno Amador, Silvia Venegas Venegas
Spain, Afghanistan / 2015 / 74 min / Documentary
Japan Premiere

Sadaf Rahimi is the best female boxer in Afghanistan, but she must deal with her country’s traditions, fear and her own fate in order to be a free woman. Sadaf and her sister Shabnam joined the newly created women’s boxing team at the age of 13, when they returned to their country after being refugees in Iran. Her boxing and academic achievements will turn Sadaf into an example for many Afghan young women, but her path will not be without threats and difficulties.

Directed by Saori Fujii
Japan / 2015 / 57 min / Documentary
Japan Premiere

Many Syrians lost their families, houses and towns in the midst of ongoing destruction from the conflict that started in 2011. They were deprived of a place to call home. This continuing conflict transformed a fertile country into one where great numbers of displaced citizens have left. Despite this situation, many Syrians hope eventually to return home, to their beloved Syria. This film depicts the realities behind this conflict and the desires of Syrian refugees.

Directed by Masakazu Sugita
Japan / 2014 /85 min / Drama
64th Berlin International Film Festival Generation Kplus Special Mention

A major earthquake hits Japan. Haruna and her little brother Shota who lost their parents are taken in by their relatives who take good care of them with affection, and yet the children are far from happy. Haruna doesn’t fit at her new school, while Shota believes that the parents are still alive. The tension felt by the children spreads to the rest of the family. When things erupt one day, Haruna decides to act.

Directed by Micah Fink
USA, Canada, Jamaica, Netherlands, UK / 2013 / 65 min / Documentary
Japan Premiere

Simone, a young lesbian mother, survives being shot outside of her home. She must choose between living in hiding with her daughter in Jamaica or seek asylum abroad alone. Maurice, a gay-rights activist, is ousted shortly after filing a lawsuit to overturn Jamaica’s anti-sodomy law. He escapes to Canada, but decides to return to continue his activism. This documentary explores the impacts of homophobia through the eyes of two Jamaicans who are forced to choose between their homeland and their lives.

Directed by Joel Stangle
Colombia / 2014 / 56 min / Documentary
Japan Premiere

In the North of Colombia, a group of farmers worked the land together. Each Family gave their farm a name to represent their hopes and dreams. The name of this place was Tranquilandia. But after a decade of systematic violence against its citizens, all that is left now are empty farms and the spirits of those who were killed. A documentary that gives voice to the people who thought they were caught in the middle of an armed conflict until they realized they were the target.

Directed by Isa Qosja
Kosovo, Germany / 2014 / 94 min / Drama
Japan Premiere

A year after the war in Kosovo when people are rebuilding their lives, a female school teacher is driven by her inner conscience to give an interview to a journalist, telling her that she and three other women from the village were raped during the war. An insightful portrait of a Balkan village, of a patriarchal microcosm, of its mayor who desperately wants to control the village life, and of husbands who feel forced to behave strong, but act against their own emotional interest.

Directed by Hajooj Kuka
Sudan, South Africa / 2014 / 68 min / Documentary
Toronto International Film Festival 2014 People’s Choice Award
Japan Premiere

For the past few years, the inhabitants of the Blue Nile and Nuba Mountain regions have had to assemble in refugee camps to find shelter from air raids by the Sudanese government, which targets civilians indiscriminately using Russian-made Antonov cargo planes. After a raid, it is not unusual to hear laughter and music ring out from these communities, not just out of relief that lives have been spared, but also as a means of safeguarding the community’s collective memory.

Directed by Filippo Biagianti, Ruben Lagattolla
Italy / 2014 / 52 min / Documentary
Japan Premiere

The life of the media-activists is narrated through daily tragic episodes taking place in Aleppo. The group of young Media-activists emerges to be a real brigade of the Syrian Resistance against the Regime, they don’t use AK-47 but they use cameras and passion. The story is told from a participative observer POV (Point of View), edited in an authorial way not to emphasize through fictional film language what is already a tragedy, but to show it raw as it appears to be in that fatal reality.