These Silences are all the Words

Displaced Perssons

August 2013 •Swedish

Per Persson left Sweden 40 years ago. In Pakistan he fell in love and became the father of two daughters. Trouble starts when the girls grow up and the family decides to emigrate to Sweden. When they end up living in a caravan outside Hässleholm, all their expectations are dashed.

The Librarians

September 2025 •English

Librarians unite to combat book banning, defending intellectual freedom on democracy's frontlines amid unprecedented censorship in Texas, Florida, and beyond.

All the World's Memory

November 1956 •French

Toute la mémoire du monde is a documentary about the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. It presents the building, with its processes of cataloguing and preserving all sorts of printed material, as both a monument of cultural memory and as a monstrous, alien being.

A Walk Through Prospero's Library

January 1992 •English

A short made for TV with director Peter Greenaway discussing the dazzling 3.5 minute opening sequence from his film, 'Prospero's Books'. As Prospero (John Gielgud) walks through his library, Greenaway comments on the historical, mythological, biblical & fictional characters occupying the library.

The People's Palace: A Portrait of the New York Public Library

January 1991 •English

With a mission of collecting, preserving and making accessible the materials of human culture, the New York Public Library plays a vital role in the cultural life of the Big Apple. This film provides a multifaceted portrait of the institution. Viewers will learn about the library's history, collections and research centers as well as the individuals charged with upholding its mission while always keeping an eye to the future.

American Animals

June 2018 •English

Lexington, Kentucky, 2004. Four young men attempt to execute one of the most audacious art heists in the history of the United States.

Drone

April 2014 •English

DRONE is a documentary about the covert CIA drone war. Through voices on both sides of this new technology, DRONE reveals crucial information about the drone war in Pakistan and offers unique insights into the nature of drone warfare.

The Pigeons of Lahore

March 2024 •Urdu

The parallel stories of four Pakistani immigrants in Greece become the trigger for the director to explore the story of his father, a worker in the Perama Shipyard. The background unfolds a most deadly shipwreck, Libyan immigrants found in limbo, as well as a (possibly racist) crime, which was committed during the shooting of this film.

Mazar Sharif

September 2015 •Persian

An Iranian diplomat who miraculously survived Taliban's raid on the Iranian consulate in Mazar E Sharif (Afghanistan) narrates his 19 days of hide and escape to reach Iran's borders meanwhile on the other side, the Iranian troops are preparing for retaliation.

In Zainab's Heaven

December 2023 •Persian

A Hazara film director follows a gravestone maker, a water girl and a man who buried his limb, as their daily lives unfold in a graveyard.

The Case For Books

January 1966 •English

This film about Library services in Australia shows some of the work of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library, the National Library with its varied resources and examples of State, University, special and public services suggesting their value in meeting needs for information at all levels. The library movement has become a vital part of Australian life. How libraries have fitted into society all over Australia, from the bustle of Sydney's Kings Cross to the remote outback.

The Love of Books: A Sarajevo Story

April 2011 •English

Documentary which tells the story of a group of men and women who risked their lives to rescue a library - and preserve a nation's history - in the midst of the Bosnian war. Amid bullets and bombs and under fire from shells and snipers, this handful of passionate book-lovers safeguarded more than 10,000 unique, hand-written Islamic books and manuscripts - the most important texts held by Sarajevo's last surviving library.

Embassy of the Free Mind

December 2024 •English

UNESCO Memory of the World: Explore the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica’s new home with 25,000+ rare books on alchemy, hermetica & mysticism at the Embassy of the Free Mind museum, set in Amsterdam’s historic canal mansion, the House with the Heads.

A Message from the East

July 2009 •English

The story of Muhammad Iqbal, a turn of the century poet/philosopher from South Asia. Through Iqbal's work we open a dialog between the East and West, refute the notion of a class of civilizations and discover our shared humanity.

Saving Face

March 2012 •English

Every year hundreds of people - mostly women - are attacked with acid in Pakistan. Follow several of these survivors, their fight for justice, and a Pakistani plastic surgeon who has returned to his homeland to help them restore their faces and their lives.

Information for/from Outsiders: Chronicles from Kashmir

February 2019 •English

Chronicles from Kashmir seeks to create a sense of “balance”: between differently positioned voices that emerge when speaking about Kashmir; between differently placed narratives on the “victim”/“perpetrator” spectrum. While there is an inevitable streak of political commentary that runs throughout the work – a political current that cannot be escaped when talking about Kashmir – Chronicles from Kashmir does not espouse any one political ideology. We see ourselves as being artists and educators, using aesthetics and pedagogy to engage audiences with diverse perspectives from/about the Valley.

A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness

October 2015 •Panjabi

A woman in Pakistan sentenced to death for falling in love becomes a rare survivor of the country's harsh judicial system.

I Am a Mobile Librarian

January 1960 •English

See how Sally Jenkins and her driver, Thomas, run Hertfordshire's mobile library service with military precision.

A Word for Human

March 2019 •English

The library is a stronghold of humanism, but today libraries are more than places for borrowing books. At the Royal Library in the heart of Copenhagen, researchers and intermediaries work side by side with the library's visitors who come to read and study, but also to participate in talks, concerts, lectures and exhibitions that fill the halls all year round. This documentary looks behind the scenes in a year where Marina Abramovic and Olafur Eliasson contribute to the program, and where colonial history and climate change take center stage.

Das Rätsel der Gefälschten Mumie

October 2014 •German