Karachi, Pakistan. Iqbal, a migrant sex worker, cannot come to terms with his illness. He convinces his uncle to take a day trip to the beach, desperate for respite. The Arabian sea beckons.
Official Selection Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2020 - International Competition
Exploring how punk influenced politics in late-1970s Britain, when a group of artists united to take on the National Front, armed only with a fanzine and a love of music. Developed from Rubika Shah's short film WHITE RIOT: LONDON (Sundance 2017, Berlin 2017).
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Documentary Competition - World premiere
Winner Grierson Award for Best Documentary, BFI London Film Festival 2019
Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2020 - Generation 14plus - International premiere
“Filmfarsi was the cinema of a nation with a split personality”, says filmmaker Ehsan Khoshbakht in this film-critical history of Iran under the Shah. Khoshbakht’s found-footage essay film salvages low budget thrillers and melodramas suppressed following the 1979 Islamic revolution. These films defined Iranian cinema in the 1960s and '70s, when the industry shared an equal percentage of the market with the USA. Little more than VHS rips remain.
Khoshbakht here uncovers that which was thought destroyed. A cinema of titillation, action and big emotions, which also presented a troubling mirror for the country, as Iran struggled to reconcile its religious traditions with the turbulence of modernity, and the influences of the West.
The often cheap, sleazy and derivative films offer an insight into Iran’s psyche. Among the scratched reels, some keystones of Iran’s extraordinary film culture emerge, too: Gheysar, whose title design was done by a young Abbas Kiarostami; the work of director Samuel Khachikian, a progenitor of Iranian noir; and The Deer, a film which more than any other symbolises the historic violent turns in Iran’s recent past. Filmfarsi presaged a revolution, and it became one of its first victims. — Yusef Sayed
No Body is an autobiographical poetic short animation film
This is an experimental charcoal animation , story is giving a thought of City and me through 3 emotional chapter of excitement/ frustration/ hope.
What price do the farmers of Punjab pay for the rice on our plate?
The north Indian state of Punjab was said to have produced enough food to feed the entire country during the Green Revolution. However, the overuse of chemicals introduced to enhance production poisoned the water with carcinogens and created an infertile soil addicted to chemicals. Just as the land is dependent, so are more and more farmers becoming addicted to drugs, which help them to work longer hours in the fields. The expense of the chemicals and drugs forces farmers to take loans from 'Arthis', the rich middlemen who increase their interest rates without warning. Over 50,000 farmers have committed suicide in the last ten years, by drinking the toxic chemicals that are murdering Punjabi soil.
The story of Diva – a fading superstar preparing for a comeback performance at the 2065 'eSports Olympics' – and Geo, an AI with artistic yearnings. Set in a smoke-and-mirrors realm of fantastical architecture, sentient drones and snow-deluged jungles, AIDOL revolves around the long and complex struggle between humanity and Artificial Intelligence.
Fame – in all its allure and emptiness – is set against the bigger contradictions of a post-AI world, a world where originality is sometimes no more than an algorithmic trick and where machines have the capacity for love and suffering. Contemporary anxieties and fixations – the rise of AI, the formulaic dictates of celebrity, the hegemony of technological giants – are refracted through a quixotic prism. AIDOL is accompanied by a score composed and orchestrated by the artist.
An immigrant Iranian news anchor works for a Persian TV channel in UK. His nude pictures are going viral on social media and he is trying to remove them.
A journey of relationships between women.
When society refuses to hear them, the Birangona, heroines of the 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh, hold closely to tell their stories to each other and the next generation to understand their identity. To never forget how as women they have refused to be diminished as they have tried to heal and overcome the ravages of conflict, violence and prejudice. To create the future with the power of unconditional love.
Female sumo wrestling champion Hiyori confronts obstacles both inside and outside the ring in an attempt to change Japan's national sport forever.
Official Selection Tribeca Film Festival 2019 - International premiere
Nestled between a beautiful lake and the Himalayas, Ashmina, 13, lives with her family at the outskirts of Pokhara Nepal, paragliding capital of the world. The remote and traditional town is also a busy tourist destination where the locals are profoundly affected by the swarms of tourists who visit it daily. Forced to skip school, Ashmina helps her family make ends meet by working at the landing field, packing the parachutes of foreign pilots in return of small change.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2018 - World premiere
