Peace & Conflict Resolution

2024 Gotham Award nominee for Best Documentary. After the February 2022 invasion, Ukrainian Security Services released intercepted phone calls from Russian soldiers to their families — sharing their innermost fears, contempt for Ukrainians, and hopes for a swift victory. Juxtaposing exceprts from these conversations with images of life in Ukraine, Intercepted evokes a vivid, haunting tableaux of war, and the psychological disconnect between oppressors and the lives they’ve destroyed.

MOURNING IN LOD

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict told through three people whose fates become inextricably linked in a vicious cycle of violence. The outpouring of love, anger, forgiveness and sorrow that follows in their wake offers a glimpse of morning light to offset a collective state of mourning with no end in sight. The film provides a first-hand account of the way our individual actions reverberate, amplify and shape the course of each other’s lives.

A PICTURE TO REMEMBER

A Picture to Remember is an essayistic account of a family's long journey through the war. It chronicles the search for a way to handle terrible and recurring losses experienced by three generations of Ukrainian women-those of the director, her mother, and that of her grandmother. The Kyiv-based filmmaker uses old family films in her attempt to bridge the distance between her and her grandmother in Donetsk.

WE WILL NOT FADE AWAY

Written and directed by Ukranian filmmaker Alisa Kovalenko, We Will Not Fade Away is a tender and emotional multi-portrait of five Ukrainian teenagers, trapped in the war zone in Donbas, who dream of freedom and discovering the world outside. Andriy, Lisa, Ruslan, Lera and Illia grew up in small coal mining towns, right on the front line. They fight against the boredom and the multiple frustrations of finding out who you are.

WHEN SPRING CAME TO BUCHA

In early 2022, after Russian troops withdrew from the Kyiv region, the small town of Bucha, completely destroyed, became a symbol of the war and Russian war crimes. How do people live there now – after experiencing such trauma? This powerful documentary allows the survivors to share their stories – stories about destroyed lives, but also about humanity and hope – as the war in Ukraine continues to rage on.

THIS RAIN WILL NEVER STOP

This Rain Will Never Stop takes the audience on a powerful, visually arresting journey through humanity’s endless cycle of war and peace. The film follows 20-year-old Andriy Suleyman as he tries to secure a sustainable future while navigating the human toll of armed conflict. From the Syrian civil war to strife in Ukraine, Andriy’s existence is framed by the seemingly eternal flow of peace and violence.

BELLUM - THE DAEMON OF WAR

Opening with Robert Oppenheimer’s immortal quoting of Hindu scripture following the first nuclear test bombings, this fascinating documentary explores the intersection of modern warfare and the development of AI, focusing on three seemingly disparate locations and lives; a scientist in Sweden, a private military contractor in the Nevada desert, and a world renowned war photographer in Afghanistan.

OUTSIDE

Ukrainian filmmaker Olha Zhurba’s debut feature tells the story of Roma, who at the age of 13 became the poster child of the Maidan revolution. A street kid who ran around the front lines of Kyiv throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, Roma’s face defined an uprising. But behind the camouflage uniform, sunglasses and fearlessness hid a lonely boy from an orphanage. When Roma turns 18, his only option is returning to the streets and the company of his loyal older brother, who has resorted to crime to survive.

THE RETURN: LIFE AFTER ISIS

This moving documentary offers an intimate yet candid portrait of a group of Western women who devoted their young lives to ISIS, but who now want to be given the chance to rebuild their lives back at home, including Shamima Begum (UK) and Hoda Muthana (US), who made worldwide headlines when they left their countries as teenagers to join ISIS. These women now tell their stories for the very first time in this "stirring and vitally humane" (Variety) film.

FRAGMENT 53

Candid, haunted and often shocking interviews with warlords from Liberia’s First Civil War form the core of this transfixing inquiry into Africa’s modern history and the nature and essence of war itself.

UNSEEN: THE LIVES OF LOOKING

A revelatory documentary exploring the physical act of looking; from the work of an eye surgeon to a NASA explorer to a human rights lawyer.