International Education Month: Film and Videos

Jamaica - Hailed as the ‘Negro Moses’, Jamaican-born Marcus Mosiah Garvey, in his short life (1887 - 1940), would go on to become the world’s foremost civil rights activist and, in some eyes, the greatest mass leader of the twentieth century. This ground-breaking film chronicles his improbable journey.

Israel - Palestine - Almost half the players on the Israeli National Soccer Team are Muslim, including the captain. The team’s diverse group of players causes controversy, especially during an important European tournament, most of it provoked by racist fans and the media. The players have their loyalty questioned by all sides while trying to guide Israel’s national team through the year’s biggest international challenge.

India - Filmed across India, the central theme of Pawel Wojtasik’s (End of Life) stunning new documentary is work. With a patient, unobtrusive approach, it consists of transcendent portraits of a broad spectrum of laborers, from a surgeon to a priest to a masseur, forming a composite vision of society, where each has a place in the tangled web of human endeavor.

South Africa - A Growing Thing is a feature length documentary about women living in a township near Johannesburg, South Africa and the women's empowerment project where they work. 25 years after the first free elections in South Africa, a dedicated black mother of six in a township near Johannesburg is determined to become a community leader and change her place in the world. A Growing Thing provides a glimpse of post-apartheid life from a woman's perspective.

Peru - Identité looks back on the tumultuous history of Peru. The film skillfully blends intergenerational stories and interviews with various members of Peruvian society, including historians, artists, professional soccer players, and street people.

Syria, Greece - Idomeni is a place suspended in time, and the film is shaped by scenes from the parallel lives of adults and children in the camp. The children do not go to school but live in their own world and take care of each other, having little contact with their surrounding. The film catches their bubble and shows they are tomorrow’s Europe.

Brazil, Israel - Cleo fulfilled his dream: to leave the big city with his wife and fifteen children, to establish a family commune on a farm in Brazil. Exploring their family-roots leads the children to discover their surprising heritage, which undermines the existence of the communal paradise.

Cuba - Based on correspondence with his sister in exile, Letters to Eloisa recounts the life of Cuban literary great José Lezama Lima, author of a homoerotic novel, Paradiso, and the story of his silencing by the Cuban revolutionary government.

Algeria, France - Lina's grandparents have decided to separate. Together, they had come from Algeria to Thiers, in the center of France, more than 60 years ago, and side by side they had crossed this chaotic life of immigrants. For Lina, their separation is the occasion to question their long journey of exile, as well as their identity.

India - In the suburbs of Mumbai, India, a young couple tries to steal some private time in a very public place, until they're paid a visit by the moral police.

Canada, China - My Farmland explores how Chinese national and Chinese immigrants' investments are affecting traditional Canada’s agricultural sector by following three families: two in tiny farming communities, the other in the wine-making region of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. The film tells a very human story of how communities react to an influx of people from a different culture who hope for a better life by working the land.

Japan - A documentary about the power of inspiration as seen through a music teacher, Ms. Abe, and her award-winning junior high school brass band, who live around the coast of Fukushima, Japan - an area that was strongly affected by the disasters of 2011.

Syria, Turley, Canada, Denmark - Having fled from Syria two doctors and their kids get separated. The kids bravely live on their own in Turkey, while their parents make it to Canada and Denmark. Now they’re stuck in a Kafkaesque system that reduces their family life to Skype calls. Will they manage to reunite?

India - What is the future of education in a networked world? Indian professor Sugata Mitra sets up an unmanned internet kiosk in a remote Bengali village to pioneer the “School in the Cloud”. The film follows the children as they encounter the internet for the first time. Will they be able to use it to transform their futures, or will it destroy the stability of their way of life?

China - The documentary starts on the day of 23 January 2020, when Wuhan province was locked down due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. A war against time was about to begin. With reference to the building of Beijing Xiaotangshan Hospital during SARS, Huoshenshan Hospital was built in just ten days.

Bolivia, Brazil, Germany, Great Britain, Iran, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Malaysia, Russia - Filmed over a year in twelve different locations, this film profiles the year when everything changed. Stories of hope, despair, and a feeling that everyone has had to face: the sense of our own mortality. Twelve intimate portraits from twelve places in a fragile world.

Brazil - “We transgender are the revolution!” Indianara Siqueira, trans activist and politician, admonishes her political party for ousting her days before the 2018 Brazilian national elections. In the same election cycle extreme-Right candidate Jair Bolsonaro is a forerunner for president of the republic. Indianara is the mother of a homeless shelter and community center for trans sex workers called Nem House in the center of Rio de Janeiro. Nem House is a squat and facing the threat of eviction Indianara occupies a colonial palace near Nem House to bargain with the city to save the house. As Brazilian democracy crumbles around her she fights to save her community from the uncertain streets.