A documentary film about men, women, and children fleeing northward from the existential threats in their home countries of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. They embark on a perilous journey with an uncertain outcome. Shortly after crossing the southern Mexican border, they find shelter with people who want to help them survive the ordeal of the at least 1,700-kilometer journey to the US.

2025

Why does the Mexican government consider the feminist movement a bigger threat than most drug cartels? The short documentary 'SANGRE VIOLENTA / SANGRE VIOLETA' interweaves three narratives, illuminating the motivations behind their activism in Mexico. These stories include a radical feminist collective, an inspiring survivor of an acid attack, and a grieving father who tragically lost his seven-year-old daughter to femicide.
2024

Examines the implications of Christian Nationalism, how it distorts not only our constitutional republic, but Christianity itself, and asks the question: What happens when a faith built on love, sacrifice, and forgiveness grows political tentacles, conflating power, money, and belief into hyper-nationalism?
2024

Documentarian Steve Bollman joins together scientific discovery, real-life stories and faith to investigate love.
2023

The oldest Quebecois Benedictine convent open its gates to a documentary filmmaker for the first time. Observed up close, life behind its walls is busier than one would expect. About twenty cloistered nuns, most of them over 70, share their daily life with diligence and humor. A contemplative portrait of a community of sisterhood and solidarity emerges, punctuated by prayer, work and games evenings.
2022

2021

Varanasi is the Indian city where Hindus go to die. Stretching along the Ganges, Varanasi holds great spiritual significance because Hindu scriptutres say that anyone who dies there will attain moksha—liberation from the cycle of rebirth. Berlin-based director Dan Braga Ulvestad captures life and death in India’s heartland in this moving documentary filled with exquisite cinematic moments. By the River starts its narrative journey with the city’s “death hotels,” dedicated apartments where people wait to die, sometimes for decades, so they can be cremated on the banks of the Ganges.
2021

The plot of the film unfolds in the ancient monastery of Dokhiar on the west coast of Mount Athos, on the Aegean peninsula. This peninsula is given to the exclusive use of the monks of Eastern Christianity. Images of nature are woven into a virtually uninterrupted series of work and prayer, lining up in the rhythmic interrelation of man and nature. The central figure of the film was the monastery’s elder, Hegumen Gregory, whose long-term experience of spiritual nourishment rewarded him with a deep understanding of the human soul and her desire to return to the state characteristic of Adam’s human nature before the fall.
2020

The film follows Yudale, a religious youth from the settlements, as he experiences a crisis of faith. As he receives a camera from Michal, a Tel Aviv director who teaches him how to film, Yehuda documents his life on the line between the settlement Tko’a and Tel Aviv: his final conversations with his dying father—Rabbi Menachem Fruman– their joint study, and saying goodbye to him. When his father dies, Yehuda chooses to take off his kippah. During the year of mourning, he continues to document his life outside the religious world: exploring Tel Aviv, talking to Michal, and his new perspective on his family and their way of life. Elisheva, a newly observant Jew orphaned from her mother, comes into his life as a soul mate exactly at the moment when he loses hope of finding his way.
2019

Inspired by an exclusive interview and performance footage of Chavela Vargas shot in 1991 and guided by her unique voice, the film weaves an arresting portrait of a woman who dared to dress, speak, sing, and dream her unique life into being.
2017
2017

MAXIMÓN - Devil or Saint is a documentary about the controversial Maya deity, also known as San Simon or the drinking and smoking saint of Guatemala. He is a mixture of ancient Maya beliefs and Christianity. The movie concentrates on the people who surround Maximón with their strong personalities, opinions and faith. The documentary gives us a rare view into the rituals and fiestas honoring Maximón. The cult of Maximón is flourishing because he performs miracles. He is also feared and despised because he is used to cast curses that can result in death. Ultimately, Maximón transcends the duality of good and evil, reflecting the Maya cosmovision in which everything in the universe co-exists.
2014

Terrence McNally’s Corpus Christi is a play retelling the Jesus story, with Jesus as a gay man living in the 1950s in Corpus Christi, Texas. This documentary follows the troupe, playwright, and audience around the world on a five-year journey of Terrence McNally’s passion play, where voices of protest and support collide on one of the central issues facing the LGBT community: religion.
2013

They call it religion. It's been branded a cult. The lethal handling of serpents. In the name of God. Immolation, speaking in tongues, ecstasy, self injury and the dangerous snakes. The bible belt of the very South. Backyard churches. In West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. Appalachia.
2013

Switzerland still carries out special flights, where passengers, dressed in diapers and helmets, are chained to their seats for 40 hours at worst. They are accompanied by police officers and immigration officials. The passengers are flown to their native countries, where they haven't set foot in in up to twenty years, and where their lives might be in danger. Children, wives and work are left behind in Switzerland. Near Geneva, in Frambois prison, live 25 illegal immigrants waiting for deportation. They are offered an opportunity to say goodbye to their families and return to their native countries on a regular flight, escorted by plain-clothes police officers. If they refuse this offer, the special flight is arranged fast and unexpectedly. The stories behind the locked cells are truly heartbreaking.
2011
2007

April 1994 in the Lacandona Jungle, Chiapas, México. The Zapatista women talk about the living conditions of Mexican indigenous populations and the life of peasant women. They explain the reasons for their struggle and their uprising.
1995

The Rezai's are keeping pigeons on their terrace in Berlin. After having their doubts in the beginning, the five sons are also taking care of the birds. The relationship to the animals reflects their feelings on family and loyalty, and also reminds them of their own childhood and the migration from Afghanistan.

This 1942 travelogue film, directed by Aldo Ermini and sponsored by the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, showcases Mexican culture during World War II, focusing on various cultural activities and popular entertainers of the time. The film features notable figures like Puerto Rican actress and singer Mapy Cortés, Mexican comedian Cantinflas, and a re-enactment of Aztec traditions.
1942
The story of Nisar Ahmed Khan, told through his children and the people he served, a spiritual guide whose followers still visit his tomb on his birth and death anniversaries. And alongside how his family spends a few days at the village keeping his traditions alive.