Near Nazareth Festival (NNF) - Season 7

Director Phil Comeau
Canada
Runtime  26:00
Completion Date: November 17, 2019

A group of Acadians from Belle-Ile-en-Mer, France, travel to eastern Canada to visit their “cousins” with whom they share a common history. They are descendants of the deported Acadians by the British from their Nova Scotia homeland. They come to see their ancestors’ lost “Acadie” and meet other relatives at a World Acadian Congress. Face to face with their brutal history, will they be able to forgive? This film is about exile, the power of memory and finding your roots.

Director Eva Amann
Austria
Runtime  01:17:28
Completion Date: November 20, 2019

Frank Guthke, 91 and impressively spry for his age, talks about his experiences before, during and after the Second World War. His remarkable life story includes the time he met Hitler; walking through the bombed city of Dresden; hiding his sisters from drunken GIs; and making a deal with a Russian border guard. His whole life, Frank has held his personal freedom in the highest regard, which is why sacrificing himself for a war he never wanted seemed inconceivable to him. At no more than 16 years old, he had to make a life-or-death decision. With the mental picture of hanged deserters still in mind, he jumped out of a train and made it back to Germany on his own while only travelling at night. He survived several dangerous situations and managed to stay positive during the toughest of times, with nothing but his wits and a healthy dose of luck to help him along. His story offers an answer to the question of what one person can do to defy totalitarianism, and that’s to never bow to it.

Director  Alex Plat
Russian Federation
Runtime  43:54
Completion Date: November 1, 2019

A boy of 12 years old comes to the village and meets with the older generation - the "Children of War". They drew around a modest village table and told about their survival in the horrors of the Great Patriotic War. Their memories shock and turn into stories of modern children, identifying them with them. Seven children readers tell the story of the suffering and horrors that the real characters - the children of war - have experienced. We see and hear not only children of the past and present with their horrible stories from the past, but also documentary chronicles of the Great Patriotic War: the burning of villages and towns, bombings, shootings of civilians, the siege of Leningrad and the horrors of concentration camps - the documentary chronicle proves all this.

Director FRANCISCO MONTORO MORALES
Spain
Runtime  19:00
Completion Date: 2019 - April

In Iquitos, the neuralgic center of the peru amazonia, there is Belen, a deprecated and decadent neighborhood that floods 6 months a year due to flooding of the Amazon River. In this singular place, a Chilean photographer from a Valparaiso newspaper Raul Goycoelea and Claudio Gonzalez, social worker of the NGO Restinga, agree. The director of this documentary, Francisco Montoro, ends up completing this trident of characters that try to find answers to very internal and personal questions. So that they do not fall back into the same Trap, the fourth character, Iquitos, will help them.    

Director Julien Farrugia
France
Runtime  51:00
Completion Date: Nov 2019

Jean, handicaped in one leg and very fond of historical mysteries, goes on an extraordinary adventure. He sets off to Nice's hinterland mountains in order hoping to find an undiscovered da Vinci drawing, which secret place could be revealed by enigmatic frescos in 16th century chapels hidden in the mountains.

 

Director   Nitsan Tal
United States
Runtime  01:13:15
Completion Date:

When Israeli artist and TED Fellow, Raffael Lomas turned 50, he knew he wanted his new work to have meaning. So when he learned about a group of South Sudanese children who had been raised in Israel and were then deported to South Sudan, he jumped at the chance to go make art with them and “see what would happen.”

What happened was that over the course of several days during the summer vacation of 2014, Raffael and the students built a house made out of 8000 paper clips – 8000 points of connection - symbolizing the meaning of home. But he also learned the children’s complex stories and heard tales of their arduous journeys – escaping the horrors of war, fleeing militias, crossing borders under fire. The connections he forged with them would mark the beginning of a longer quest to make the “project count.”

Director   Jan Borowiec
Poland
Runtime  39:25
Completion Date: September 30, 2019

In 2010, during the renovation of a tenement house in Lublin, a team of builders found a cubby hole treasuring a collection of pre-WWII glass negatives. The discovery composed of over 2,700 images depicting Lublin inhabitants, mostly Jews.

Almost a third of the pre-war population of Lublin, i.e. 43 000 people, were Jews. Only few hundred survived the war. Most of them never returned to their homes. The Jews community of Lublin ceased to exist.

“Glass Negatives” is a story of a non-existent world – people, after who there is nothing left, apart from the photographs. It is also story of a remarkable discovery, a mysterious photographer and the attempt to find people who remember the pre-war city. It is a film about discovery aiming to prevent the sinking of Lublin’s Jews into oblivion.

Director   Rob Loos
United States
Runtime  01:09:00
Completion Date: October 17, 2018

Fifty years ago in Hollywood, California a spirited young pastor, a mainline conservative church, and a group of wide-eyed college kids and young people came together to create THE SALT COMPANY -- a band that started what we now know as Contemporary Christian Music and created a Coffee House that opened its doors to everyone (including runaways, hippies, and drop-outs). Together they helped launch The Jesus Movement and transform the lives of a generation.

Director Rebecca Basso
Italy
Runtime 01:23:34
Completion Date: October 29, 2019

Giuseppe Bassi, a vivacious 100 years old man, tells his story about war and being held prisoner in Russia during Second World War.
From 1942 to 1946 Giuseppe was a prisoner in several different camps: Tambow, Oranki and Suzdal. He got to know many people, heard lot of stories and came across a truly unique piece of reportage.

Director   Alejandro  Rius
Spain
Runtime   52 minutes
Completion Date: Mar 2019

The documentary tells us how Narciso Yepes, the most important ten guitar concertist in the world,lived, introducing us to his family, friends, teachers, companions and everyone who formed a part of his life. By the end of the production we will have discoveed whit this was really like; a simple and studious person who never tired of working on his guitar and investigating new techniques

Director  Jon Cortegoso
Spain
Runtime    73 minutes
Completion Date:  Oct 2019

“La última Guardia” covers the last stretch of the career of Javier Herrán, a firefighter stationed in Urioste (Bizkaia). As he approaches retirement, you will get an insight into the workings of a well-oiled group and, particularly, the life of one of the brigade’s most eccentric firefighters with rank of corporal, who does not want to face up to retirement

Director Andrii Andreiev
Ukraine
Runtime 5:49
Completion Date: October 20, 2019

‘The more poetry, the closer to the reality’ said Friedrich Schelling. When admiring beauty interweaves with your worldview, life becomes full of meaning, every moment brings satisfaction. The more one develops delicate sensitivity to the grace, the more love opens in his heart, the more happiness he has to share with the others. Understanding and ability to enjoy the beauty – these are the things that can save the Planet. Admiration and enjoyment of the nature are the starting point on the way to preserve it, and if one has possibilities and to act too.
‘Songs of Love’ is a short film – contemplation of the gracefulness, freedom, tenderness, dance, peace of the biggest animals – the whales, the cosmic act of life, perfection of every moment. This is an underwater ‘flight - levitation’, this is a live music of the Universe that permeates the oceans with the vibrations dozens kilometers around, this is love…

Director Paul Zinder
United Kingdom
Runtime 12:00
Completion Date: December 15, 2018

Jenny Silverston, the first female chairperson of a 176-year-old Orthodox Jewish Synagogue in Cheltenham, England, works with her close friend, Abigail Fisher, to save a religious community formerly dependent on men to survive.

Director Brian Imakura
United States
Runtime 12:22
Completion Date: October 3, 2019

21 dancers. 16mm film. 2 questions. What was the darkest moment of your life? What was the light that saved you?

 

Director Denise Sganzerla
Brazil
Runtime 01:30:00
Completion Date: October 1, 2019

This is a movie about survivors living in Brazil against the Main Kampf book, in this publication written articles total insane and unreal, and what Adolf Hitler made years after was totally contradictory. The movie esthetic related eight survivors holocaust, they live in Brazil, and related of the Adolf Hitler book and archive of Second War. The holocaust Survivors tell about how raise your life in Brazil. The documentary need be showed, are wonderful stories, not just about concentration camp, but people also hidden in different places in Europe.

Director Dawn Gifford Engle
United States
Runtime 01:34:13
Completion Date: August 31, 2019

Eighty five years ago, a little boy was born in a remote corner of Tibet. One day, miraculously, he was discovered to be the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama, and he was soon carried away to the capitol city of Lhasa to become the political and religious leader of the vast kingdom of Tibet. But the little boy had a secret, locked inside his heart. In "The Dalai Lama -- Scientist", the Dalai Lama tells the unknown story, in his own words, of his lifelong journey into the world of science and technology, and how the world has changed as a result. With extensive, rare, and never before seen footage, this film tells the very human story of the Dalai Lama that no one knows.

Director Max Geilke, Mario Forth
Germany
Runtime 01:31:00
Completion Date: March 1, 2019

''A journey in time. Once a cosmopolitan city and religious and cultural melting pot, Thessaloniki experienced its decline in the 20th century. A shock that defines the city to this day.''

 

Director Mario T Lathan
United States
Runtime 01:14:00
Completion Date: February 1, 2019

This is the Bash. For Haitian Jazz sensation, Jowee Omicil, love serves as the basis for his thematic rhythms called the “Bash” sound. Only this spiritual narrative is more than a theme. Manifested through performance and family, this documentary portrait explores the realization of patience. The triumph of remembrance. How does love sound?

Director Marianna Yarovskaya
United States
Runtime 53:00
Completion Date: December 1, 2018

The film Women of the Gulag tells the compelling and tragic stories of the women – last survivors of the Gulag, the brutal
system of repression and terror that devastated the Soviet population during the regime of Stalin. The Gulag was first captured by
Solzhenitsyn in his opus, Gulag Archipelago. Never before the stories of women and women’s experience in these camp was told in
an international documentary film

Director Chen Hung-Cheng
Taiwan
Runtime 38:27
Completion Date: April 30, 2019

By believing in and reading the Avatamsaka Sutra with faith, this journey begins. In 2014, Yuan Dao Chan Monastery began promoting the Avatamsaka Sutra to Buddha’s disciples. The objective is to chant one chapter a day and complete a set in a quarter of a year so that this Sutra can bring about wonderful changes to the follower’s life.

Director Morand Morand
France
Runtime 55:00
Completion Date: Dec 2018

fanny and sandra are going to complete an internship in a medical dispensary located in a shanty-suburb of cotonou. these two nursing students from the saint-Étienne red cross training school have chosen..

 

Director Alexander Komisarchuk
Belarus
Runtime 30:00
Completion Date: August 24, 2019

On the 15th of May, Diego Maradona, the legend of Argentinian football, signed a contract with a Belarusian football club "Dinamo-Brest". He took up a position of an honorary chairman. That date became a beginning of an ambitions project - building of a motorcycle for Maradona. The documentary movie reveals insights into the great player's character and biography, as well as shows unique work of a famous customizers' team - "SHIFT CUSTOM".

Director Kyle Rasmussen, Sean Korbitz
United States
Runtime 01:00:00
Completion Date: November 10, 2018

When an Indian woman becomes a widow, she often loses more than just her husband. She faces abandonment by her family, rejection from larger society, and pressure to trade her old life for an ascetic existence. Donning a simple white sari, and alone for the first time in her life, she must make a new way for herself in a world that sees her as an outcast; a bad omen; an untouchable.
Beyond Karma chronicles the stories of some of the most vulnerable women in the world and the myriad ways they persevere with resilience, resourcefulness, and hope.

Director ARTHUR BALDER
United States
Runtime 01:02:18
Completion Date: October 19, 2018

On our Instagram or Facebook pages, we show only the best part of ourselves, the "beautiful" part of our lives. We hide in this fake. We are so immersed in the process of creating our ideal virtual personality that we forget about real life. We forget the simple truth that beauty is inside.
The film subtilely focuses on a social issue that has global reach: how we perceive and judge ourselves and the others in a world dominated by social media, which demands perfect beauty and instant gratification.

Director Debbie Wright
United States
Runtime 02:12:14
Completion Date: July 27, 2018

From Liberty to Captivity examines how one of America’s original 13 states, Pennsylvania, went from a place that represented the fight for freedom historically and now has become a state where modern-day slavery is flourishing - threatening the principle of “liberty and justice for all.” This award-winning film zooms in on Pennsylvania’s lucrative sex trafficking industry, revealing the reality and complexities of sex trafficking crimes and this social justice issue, sharing the personal and inspiring stories of victim survivors and others on the front lines of this war, and presenting the very real hope for victory.

Director Jean Noel REY, Edith GURVIEZ
France
Runtime 46:50
Completion Date: April 1, 2019

Getting the best out of life as we age ("le bien vieillir") is a significant issue in Western societies where almost 1 person in 4 is now living in retirement and so inevitably must engage with the challenge of constructing "a second life".
So, how creative can this second life of retirement be ?
This documentary investigates the imaginative choices of six individuals and their spouses who all live in the shadow of the Alps in South-East France.
Whether it entails relinquishing your assets for life on the road, living with remote communities in Africa, taking a plunge into the Creative Arts, inspiring communities to delve into the richness of their collective past or radically embracing sustainability, there is no limit to possibility.
This film follows its resourceful characters down many diverging paths with humour, humanity and affection. A feel-good movie on the theme of retirement and the liberating opportunities it brings.

Director Ying Xie
China
Runtime 01:38:00
Completion Date: April 1, 2019

Loti Marquez, who was nearly ninety years old, was a European Jew who survived World War II. The family’s life in Vienna is stable and peaceful, but it does not want the Nazi’s claws to come closer. Western countries have closed their doors, and when they have nowhere to go, Lottie’s father learned that the Chinese Consulate in Vienna was issuing visas. In just fifteen minutes, Lottie’s father obtained a visa to Shanghai, China.
It was the then Consul General of the Republic of China in Austria, He Fengshan.
Shanghai, thousands of miles away, gradually became the Eastern Noah's Ark, which was persecuted by the Nazis by the Nazis. Tens of thousands of Jews spent a hard time in Shanghai. After the war, they said goodbye to the Eastern Noah's Ark, which sheltered them. In the past few decades, the former Jewish friends still remembered the old feelings and repeatedly revisited the Eastern Ark that once protected their lives.
The visa of He Fengshan and the inclusiveness of Shanghai have saved lives and shined with the brilliance of humanity.

Director Ashton Gleckman
United States
Runtime 01:47:52
Completion Date:  September 20, 2019

'We Shall Not Die Now' chronicles the Shoah, when between 1939 and 1945, over six million Jews and eleven million others were systematically murdered by the Nazi regime. Told by the survivors and liberators who witnessed it first hand, the film explores not only the horrific human tragedy and what we can learn from it, but the resilience of those that rebuilt their lives in spite of the unimaginable.

Director Anjali Bhushan
India
Runtime 45:00
Completion Date:  March 8, 2019

Both in films and history books, a lot is spoken and known about the
World War II, however outside of Poland little is known about what
happened to the Poles who survived Soviet Siberian labour camps and found their way into INDIA. These Poles have different stories to tell but have one common link – KIRA Banasinska.
WHO IS KIRA BANASINSKA?
The wife of Eugene Banasinski, the first Polish Consul General of Poland in Bombay, 18 years her senior, admired by many men whose affections she gave into even with in her marriage, Kira was perceived as a social butterfly and artistic soul. World War II changed all that. Kira was instrumental in seeing that thousands and thousands of Poles found safe passage and home in India.

Director Elena Demidova
Russian Federation
Runtime 01:33:00
Completion Date:  August 10, 2018

The film is a study of the phenomenon of the Buryat Lama Dashi Giorgio Etigelov, who according to Buddhists is in a special state, is not life and not death in our understanding of the word. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from different places and countries come to him. What does he mean for these people? What do the Buddhist lamas themselves think of him and how does his appearance change the current situation in Buddhism?

Director António José de Lemos Ferreira
Portugal
Runtime 23:52
Completion Date:  May 22, 2018

He lived the past returning to Macao. This reencounter surprised him with a different reality. He grew up with a Chinese family in the Catholic neighbourhood of St. Lázaro. Brought unseen images from Macao, saved for sixty years.
 

Director Arthur Dreyfus
France
Runtime 01:32:00
Completion Date:  June 4, 2019

“Noël and his mother” depicts the deep relationship and roots that bound a mother and her child, following an original technique, designed to reveal the unspoken word. Across a game of mise en abime between constructed dialogue, spontaneous talk, and a look at this dialogue, it is a complete off-screen speech that is unleashed. So that only faces express themselves, beyond language --- only secrets, and off-bounds areas. In other words, to film the bare emotion of the heart, among a family, among all families.

Director Jonah Stern
United States
Runtime 01:00:02
Completion Date:  January 31, 2019

The Wind Lion tells the story of a small Taiwanese archipelago called Jinmen, located just a mile off the coast of Mainland China. The film follows the experiences of six American teachers as they seek to build linguistic and cultural ties by teaching English to elementary school children. Through the islands’ unique place in Chinese history, we explore how Jinmen has changed in the past, is adapting to the present, and will continue to evolve in the future.

Director Giovanni Soletta
Italy
Runtime 52:22
Completion Date:  February 28, 2019

A documentary about the artist/farmer Bruno Petretto and his artistic place, Molineddu, where since the eighties visual artists from all over Sardinia, Italy, exhibit their artworks, sometimes leaving them there, in the arms of nature.

Director Jeff Colhoun
Côte d'Ivoire
Runtime 13:59
Completion Date: June 25, 2019

Thousands of people in the world’s poorest countries suffer in silence every day, unable to afford or access routine medical treatment. Lacking clean water, sanitation, housing, clothing and food, these forgotten individuals remain invisible to the eyes of the first world.
Every year, Operation International sends teams of highly skilled doctors and medical volunteers from different backgrounds, cultures, and religions to deliver groundbreaking healthcare to patients in third world countries. While many of these treatments would be considered commonplace in the United States, in a country like Ivory Coast, Africa--where basic forms of medical care are often unavailable--even a minor surgery can make a dramatic impact in a patient’s life.

Director Päivi Kapiainen-Heiskanen
Finland
Runtime 01:04:00
Completion Date: February 11, 2019

International health care companies have arrived in Finland.
They buy nursing homes from municipalities and entrepreneurs and build new ones. Price competition has entered this sector.
Traditionally entrepreneurs in the nursing home sector are women. For many of them, the sale is a reward for a lifetime of hard work. Liisa Heikkinen started her nursing home company over 20 years ago in Eastern Finland. She is now fighting the current trend.
Toyota ja Windbreaker doc film lets her, her staff and clients tell their story.

Director Güner Yasemin Balci
Germany
Runtime 01:29:00
Completion Date: May 22, 2019

On 16th June, 2017, Seyran Ateş opened the Ibn-Rushd-Goethe-Mosque in Berlin together with numerous colleagues. And what is of special importance: Men and women pray here side by side, female prayer leaders are just as welcome as homosexual imams. This is a provocation for much of the Muslim world. The Egyptian Fatwa Authority declares the prayers in the mosque "not valid". Turkish media continues to fuel public opinion against the mosque in social media and Seyran Ateş, the head of the mosque, receives hundreds of death threats. Shortly after the opening, the mosque had to be guarded around the clock by the LKA.
But Seyran Ateş did not give up. The filmmaker Güner Balci accompanied Seyran Ateş 1½ years with the camera throughout the building of the mosque, with its fight for reforms in Islam. She looks back into the childhood and youth of the activist and shows how her vital issues, "equality of Muslim women" and "sexuality in Islam", were shaped by her resistance against her conservative parents.

Director  Leonard Sommer
Germany
Runtime 25:00
Completion Date: April 28, 2019

In 1887 an earthquake severley damaged Bussana Vecchia, the Italian village near San Remo. As a result the old "borgo" was abandoned and all of its buildings declared dangerous.
About seventy years later, two Italian artists discovered its uniqueness and potential and decided to found the International Artist Community of Bussana Vecchia. As there were no property titles, we the artists restored the ruins to houses – from rubble and with no capital.
Since than Bussana Vecchia is called the "Borgo Degli Artisti".
For more than half a century, it has demonstrated that, despite not belonging to any formal institution, unwanted ruins can be transformed into a livable place – tailor-made to residents’ needs and providing them with a means of generating income.
Unfortunately, since 2015, Italian authorities are scrutinizing our community, demanding to make the place safer for visiting tourists. The administration from Genova has sent word to all of us, that they do not accept the status of Bussana Vecchia anymore. No wonder, that we the "Bussanesi" are frightened about the future of the Community of Artists.

Director  Tomáš Elšík
Czech Republic
Runtime 01:18:00
Completion Date:

The architects' plans for Central Bus Station to swallow visitors has turned into an endless maze of corridors. Once a gift to the citizens of Tel Aviv now serves to the immigrants. Yonathan has been a guide there for 17 years and is able to show the other side of the station's significance to those who walk with him. Yonathan knows that the purpose of going down to the building is to find not only himself, but also a society that harbours its values, protects its original traditions and wants to defend its home.