Video Blues

Up the Yangtze

September 2007 •Chinese

At the edge of the Yangtze River, not far from the Three Gorges Dam, young men and women take up employment on a cruise ship, where they confront rising waters and a radically changing China.

Drinking a Monster in the parking lot of the clinic where I was born that is now a funeral home

November 2024 •English

A woman returns to the site of her birth, which is now a funeral home. She drinks a white monster energy drink.

Nazaten

February 2025 •Dutch

Frans Bromet goes in search of his family history and discovers that Hermanus Bromet was a well-known slave trader in Suriname. Should he feel guilty for what his ancestor did? How do you deal with a burdened family past?

Dear Albania

October 2015 •English

Eliza Dushku takes on her homeland of Albania.

Phantoms of the Sierra Madre

September 2024 •English

A Danish writer travels to Mexico with the purpose of locating a mysterious Apache tribe that fervently seeks to remain in obscurity.

Elle va crier

February 2025 •French

Audrey, a woman in her mid-fifties, has never been able to make peace with her tumultuous family history. A clumsy mother, an emotionally distant father and sexual assaults that have gone unreported. She now decides to confront her demons. Supported by her son, the director of the documentary, she revisits a striking scene from her past: the moment when she told her parents that her grandfather had raped her. Together, through a year-long production process, they transform this awkward exchange into a moment of communion, thanks to actors, a set and Audrey's desire to do herself justice.

Faces from Home

February 2024 •Portuguese

In an empty house, we see the memories of a home, from those who once lived and filled it with joy and love.

A Landscaped Area Too Quiet for Me

October 2022 •Spanish

Memory prevents rest and a woman about to die takes advantage of cinema to tell her story (inseparable from that of Franco’s Spain) and to say goodbye. A terrace as a border and a song that crosses time. At home, nothing is always—and everything is still—in the present and defunct now. A home movie of ghosts, a generous gesture of intimacy and solidarity that not witnesses two people at the end of their long lives, but also reveals the weight of history and of the 20th century, which is always present today.

The Smuggler and Her Charges

November 2016 •French

A captivating and personal detective story that uncovers the truth behind the childhood of Michaël Prazan's father, who escaped from Nazi-occupied France in 1942 thanks to the efforts of a female smuggler with mysterious motivations.

The Trouble with Merle

August 2002 •English

The director explores the birth origins of actress Merle Oberon, traveling to Tasmania and India in search of the truth, but her quest ultimately results in probably more questions than it answers.

Ashes

October 2022 •Spanish

A cellar. A forgotten amphora. The ashes of a woman. Her granddaughter, daughter-in-law and son characterise her, entwining their memories and experiences. They reflect about filial love, gender and isolation through her overbearing nature.

Qatar, une dynastie à la conquête du monde

November 2022 •French

For three decades now, Qatar, this small desert kingdom, has not stopped being talked about; because of its financial power and the secrecy that surrounds it, the royal family that runs it fascinates as much as it frightens.

The day he decided to leave

August 2015 •Portuguese

My grandfather Tuiu decides for the second time to leave his house and start a life elsewhere, he lives with the street hardships, and the fact of leaving is linked to the depredation of that place.

The Man with the Lantern

January 2018 •Italian

To discover the truth behind the mysterious objects her uncle brought back from the Far East during her childhood, filmmaker Francesca Lixi embarks on a journey to those places through archival footage.

Villa Madjo

November 2023 •French

De Aracaju a Harvard

Invalid date •Portuguese

Meeting David Wilson

June 2008 •English

African American filmmaker David A. Wilson decided to look into his family's history during the slave era. The result is this documentary, which provides a unique perspective on the long shadow cast by slavery in America. Wilson travels to North Carolina to visit the plantation where his ancestors once toiled and to meet its current owner -- a white man named David Wilson, whose slave-owning ancestors originally occupied the property.

The Family Forest

Invalid date •English

Epigenetics and psychogenealogy ​through a VERY personal experience.

Charlene White: Empire's Child

October 2021 •English

Charlene White embarks on a deeply personal journey to uncover the roots of her connection to the British Empire in a bid to find out if we can ever truly emerge from its shadow. Charlene travels across Britain and Jamaica on a genealogical journey to investigate her own heritage and the relationship between the Empire and her family. By piecing together broken familial records and going back in time to the very start of the British Empire, she makes some surprising discoveries about how the British Empire has shaped her family’s lives and asks what it is to be Black and British.

Conversations Between Shifts

October 2021 •English

A portrait of Chicagoland ICU nurse Jeanette Alvarez-Basem captured through the perspective of her son Ben Basem. Between her night shifts and Illinois Nurses Association union meetings, Jeanette navigates what it means to be a nurse and a human during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.