In January 2004, shortly after officially becoming an American citizen, the Iraqi-born filmmaker Usama Alshaibi travels to Baghdad to visit the family he hasn't seen in over two decades. He makes the trip with his wife, Kristie, in tow.
A daring world record scuba dive to the sunken USS Cooper is witnessed by a man who nearly perished on that same ship over sixty years ago. The destroyer was found to be at a depth of 633 feet (193 meters) -- deeper than the world record technical dive of 581 feet (177 meters).
The film tells the story of two Rwandan women who come face-to-face with the neighbors who slaughtered their families during the 1994 genocide, and their personal journeys toward forgiveness. Featuring in-depth interviews with both survivors and murderers, As We Forgive provides an intimate, first-hand view of the encounters between genocide perpetrators and their victims’ families.
To a large extent, the film consists of interviews with genocide survivors, many of whom were children in 1994. In all, over thirty survivors, perpetrators, and experts were interviewed for the film. In these interviews, the survivors discuss what it means to be a Rwandan and to live next door to people who killed their families. The survivors describe how they deal with their country's request that they forgive one another and move on, so that Rwanda can rebuild and unify itself. Perpetrators' views illuminate the madness that seized the culture in 1994; exploring the experience of apologizing to victims, and examining what it is like to be looked at as a murderer in Rwandan society.
Frederick Douglass and the White Negro is a documentary telling the story of ex-slave, abolitionist, writer and politician Frederick Douglass and his escape to Ireland from America in the 1840s. The film follows Douglass' life from slavery as a young man through to his time in Ireland where he befriended Daniel O'Connell, toured the country spreading the message of abolition and was treated as a human being for the first time by white people. His arrival in Ireland coincided with the Great Famine and he witnessed white people in what he considered to be a worse state than his fellow African Americans back in the US. The film follows Douglass back to America where he buys his freedom with funds raised in Ireland and Britain. Fellow passengers on his return journey include the Irish escaping the famine who arrive in their millions and would go on to play a major role in the New York Draft Riot of 1863 which Douglass could only despair over. The film examines (with contributions from the author of How The Irish Became White Noel Ignatiev amongst others) the turbulent relationship between African Americans and Irish Americans during the American Civil War, what drew them together and what drove them apart and how this would shape the America of the twentieth century and beyond.
Returned: Child Soldiers of Nepal's Maoist Army tells the personal story of Nepali boys and girls as they attempt to rebuild their lives after fighting in the Nepalese Civil War. Through the voices of former child soldiers, the film examines why these children joined the Maoists and explores the prevention of future recruitment.
The documentary follows the story of Mark Manning, the only westerner to live among the residents of Fallujah, Iraq, following the November 2004 battle that destroyed the city.
A search, a journey, a life’s dream fulfilled. Seventy-seven-year-old Holocaust survivor Alice Zuckerman never gave up hope she would find her family, lost after the Second World War. When scribbled notes on torn paper reveal clues to her past, Alice and her family reunite. Alice takes us on a moving journey through old Eastern Europe, a world that seemingly disappeared through Nazism and communism. Yet the world of Alice’s childhood remains vital in the hearts of the people she meets along the way.