Selfie
Director Agostino Ferrente gave underprivileged teenagers a phone to film their own lives in whatever way they liked. The result brings us movingly close to the grim reality of life in Naples.
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Life in Europe 2021
It is almost impossible to define Europe as an entity, or to briefly describe the common identity of the continent's more than 750 million inhabitants. Europeans are citizens of different countries and regions, with different histories and forms of government, different social, religious and ethnic backgrounds, from different generations, with different trauma and fears. However, Europe is the unifying factor that brings them together, and which has overcome several crises over the past decade and thereby strengthened its right to exist. In a continent made up of extremes and in which citizens occupy a central place, solidarity has proved essential.
In honor of Europe Day on may 9, IDFA presents four recent documentary films about Europe and the Europeans. In The Foundation Pit, voices of protest from Russians from all over the country against their government swell in a collage of YouTube videos of desperate citizens. Selfie takes us into the lives of two boys who grow up in a rough slum of Naples and who make a filmed self-portrait with their mobile phones. An unprocessed past still dominates the lives of several victims and relatives who are followed in The Silence of Others in their attempts to bring the perpetrators of the Franco regime to justice. Against these painful memories of the dictatorship in Spain is today's Slovakia, where nationalist sentiments flare up: In When the War Comes we see an extremist right-wing party in the making.
All films hereunder can be streamed online from May 9 until May 29.
Available to watch online
Available to watch online
When the War Comes
An unsettling portrait of a right-wing paramilitary group of Slovakians, who train in the forest every weekend, preparing for the coming war.
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The Silence of Others
Crimes committed by the Franco regime have gone unpunished for years, but a group of victims and family members are determined to change that.
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The Foundation Pit
This hard-hitting, found-footage film shows Russian citizens voicing their concerns and rage about Putin’s rule. Combined in this way, the clips constitute a powerful protest against a government that appears to have forgotten about its citizens.
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