Harvest and Seed

Full Metal Village

April 2007 •German

The film describes the microcosmos of the small village Wacken and shows the clash of the cultures, before and during the biggest heavy metal festival in Europe.

Prairie Women

January 1987 •English

This film illustrates the struggles of Canadian prairies women to achieve a more just and humane society within the farm movement and at large. During the early 1900s, women on the prairies looked for ways to overcome their isolation. Out of the resulting farm women's organizations grew a group of women possessing remarkable intellectual abilities, social and cultural awareness, and advanced worldviews.

Der lange Weg ans Licht

February 2008 •German

Edeltraut Hertel - a midwife caught between two worlds. She has been working as a midwife in a small village near Chemnitz for almost 20 years, supporting expectant mothers before, during and after the birth of their offspring. However, working as a midwife brings with it social problems such as a decline in birth rates and migration from the provinces. Competition for babies between birthing centers has become fierce, particularly in financial terms. Obstetrics in Tanzania, Africa, Edeltraud's second place of work, is completely different. Here, the midwife not only delivers babies, she also trains successors, carries out educational and development work and struggles with the country's cultural and social problems.

Chicken Elections

January 2005 •Serbian

Present day: a small village somewhere in rural Serbia. Reports on the upcoming parliamentary elections drone from the radio while a local traffic policeman tries to teach his old grandmother how to use a mobile phone. Glimpses of this old lady, who lives a lonely life on a remote farm, become the red thread running through the film with its snapshot-like portraits of everyday life in the tiny community. There’s the grocer’s shop the men visit to talk about money and politics. Or the postman who delivers on his moped the ballot papers for the forthcoming elections. The policeman who stops cars as he fancies. The school with a handful of children in the overlarge classroom. The pub in which something approaching merriment occasionally arises. And the recurrent visits to the old peasant woman: Her matter-of-fact inventory of aches and pains delivered to the local doctor, her worries about increasing thievery confided in the village priest.

Look & See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry

March 2016 •English

A cinematic portrait of farmer and writer Wendell Berry. Through his eyes, we see both the changing landscapes of rural America in the era of industrial agriculture and the redemptive beauty in taking the unworn path.

The Noise of Time

June 2024 •Spanish

In the town of Xoco, the spirit of an old villager awakens in search of its lost home. Along its journey, the ghost discovers that the town still celebrates its most important festivities, but also learns that the construction of a new commercial complex called Mítikah will threaten the existence of both the traditions and the town itself.

Prime Farmland

August 2020 •English

This documentary film follows farmers and activists fighting together to stop the Indiana Enterprise Center, a mega-sized industrial park planned west of South Bend, Indiana

Still

June 2014 •German

The documentary tells the story of Uschi, a farmer living free and recluded in the bavarian alps. Shot in epic black and white pictures, Still follows Uschi's life over a ten year period. From an untroubled summer of making cheese through pregnancy and the uncertain future of the parental farm, Matti Bauer portrays Uschi's struggle to keep alive the dream of a way of life that has become rather untypical in this day and age.

Eurodonbas

October 2022 •Ukrainian

Throughout time, Eastern Ukraine (such as Donbas) has been referred to as a 'Russian world', but this is indeed not the case. The history of Donbas was re-written during the Soviet era. Although the Soviet Union edited out and withheld all references to the European background of this region from history books in schools and universities. There were, in fact, numerous French, Belgian, German, British, Polish, Swiss, Dutch, and even American settlements and more than 100 wide-scale enterprises in the region. Therefore, this film reveals the pro-European industrialization of Ukrainian Donbas at the turn of the 19th century. It aims to emphasize the European roots of Ukraine long before the official integration process of Ukraine into the EU in 2022.

Everyday Life in a Syrian Village

January 1974 •Arabic

The first documentary to present an unabashed critique of the impact of the Syrian government’s agricultural and land reforms, Everyday Life in a Syrian Village delivers a powerful jab at the state’s conceit of redressing social and economic inequities.

Maura

September 2023 •Spanish

84-year-old Maura is the guardian of a very particular tradition in danger of extinction. She is a singer of amorfinos, verses full of humor that will disappear forever with her departure.

When My Knife Strikes You

January 1968 •

Shot in various villages throughout Yugoslavia, this is a disturbing document of a time when people were stabbing each other with knives without any real reason. Murderers, people who witness these murders and the families of victims all talk about the senseless violence and the human condition.

Le fantôme de Mirabel

March 2011 •French

Black Earth

January 1961 •French

Pseudo-ethnological documents about two villages which, without roads and electricity, "stopped existing".

The District Nurse

December 1942 •English

The diary of a typical non-stop working day of a wartime district nurse.

Horse Wrangler

November 2018 •Spanish

Nando, a young horse wrangler in a rural Mexican village, has taken his own life following a disagreement with his father. Caballerango shows the boy’s family members and townspeople as they reckon with the new realities borne out of this inexplicable tragedy. Each account of Nando’s story reveals a different aspect of this rural town, which is deeply affected by modernization. The confrontation between the centuries-old ways of life and the modern-day world seems to be creating serious identity crises among the younger generation. The story is told in a patient, observational style with methodical shots of the landscape, ranches, and of the two white horses, whom Nando and his father tended to. Those horses, the last to see Nando alive, connect us to an ethereal sensation of almost otherworldly mystical beings.

Binary

August 2015 •Spanish

Binary is a documentary composed of two stages: the nature and the city. It is a journey that represents the paradox of communication.

Goralská obec Čierne

May 2023 •Slovak

Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness

April 1927 •English

Elephants disrupt the lives of a family deep in the jungles of Northern Siam, and an entire village.

Davos

June 2021 •English

Beneath its reassuring façade, Davos is each year at the heart of the Western and capitalistic world. Every chief of State and everyone who is someone in the money world meets with their peers in the Swiss village. What is really at stake in Davos ? Julia Niemann and Daniel Hoesl create a fascinating observational documentary in which judgement is never handed out and where the dialectics of conflicts matter more than easy and reassuring answers. The film asks the viewer some uncomfortable questions by focusing on challenges that the new global economy poses to the world.