The Patent Wars

Someone Like Me

2021

After 11 strangers unite to help a gay youth escape life-threatening violence in Uganda, the unexpected pandemic and conflicting opinions over his best interests test the limits of their commitment and jeopardize his fresh start in Canada.

Alexis Tremblay: Habitant

1943

This short documentary illustrates rural French Canadian life in the early 1940s. The film follows Alexis Tremblay and his family through the busy autumn days as they bring in the harvest and help with bread baking and soap making. Winter sees the children revelling in outdoor sports while the women are busy with their weaving, and, with the coming of spring young and old alike repair to the fields once more to plough the earth in preparation for another season of varied crops. One of the first NFB films to be produced, directed, written and shot by women.

Poverty, Inc.

2015

Poverty, Inc. explores the hidden side of doing good. From disaster relief to TOMs Shoes, from adoptions to agricultural subsidies, Poverty, Inc. follows the butterfly effect of our most well-intentioned efforts and pulls back the curtain on the poverty industrial complex - the multi-billion dollar market of NGOs, multilateral agencies, and for-profit aid contractors. Are we catalyzing development or are we propagating a system in which the poor stay poor while the rich get hipper?

Goeie mensen

2025

Sjaak and Clara founded the very first food bank in the Netherlands in 2002. Since handing over their responsibilities at the food bank, they have continued their mission unabated. They still run a soup kitchen and the Social Café Onder de Oranjeboom (Under the Orange Tree), where vulnerable members of society can find a hot meal, support, and a good conversation. For many years, this dedicated couple has been committed to helping people in Rotterdam living in poverty.

The Grass Dwellers

2022

Juan Méndez Bernal leaves his house on the 9th of april of 1936 to fight in the imminent Spanish Civil War. 83 years later, his body is still one of the Grass Dwellers. The only thing that he leaves from those years on the front is a collection of 28 letters in his own writing.

Agent of Happiness

2024

The documentary team follows two happiness agents in their forties who spend a month and a half on the road twice a year, going door-to-door with their questionnaires in isolated villages in the Himalayas. The filmmakers undertake to provide an intimate insight into the daily lives and desires of Bhutanese people, and also seek the answer to the universal question of whether happiness can really be measured. Gross National Happiness promises a heart-warming journey into a mysterious, fairytale-like world, which is the exact opposite of the social order dominated by consumption and desires.

The We Should Game

2023

Fame driven Ken Dean becomes the subject of a documentary when he attempts to start a pornography company. Following the failure of the company, Ken uses his father's religious music to start a Christian rock band but finds himself trapped in a gay conversion cult.

Disintegration

2013

In this documentary mosaic of a continued social disintegration, seven filmmakers bring to the screen protagonists and stories that live in an abyss of despair, in the chasm between those who have and those who do not. An old man rummaging for food in bins; a father who cannot give water to his infant daughter because he’s been cut off; an overcrowded ER that cannot cope under the pressure; a man who nearly buys an expensive Lexus and may yet decide to buy a Mercedes; a realtor in a well-fenced villa; and a mother sitting in a small crowded house with a hungry baby in one arm and a canister of gas in the other.

Countdown

2004

Portrait of Augustinas Baltrušaitis, film and theatre director, as well as actor, who fell into obscurity and has now been relegated to the margins of society, as a result of specific political circumstances. Countdown is a film about the limits of memory, the effects of the implacable passage of time, and a hope that surpasses time.

Gros-Morne

1967

BORN SEXY YESTERDAY: Decoding the Enigma of Beauty

2027

The phrase "Born Sexy Yesterday" is derived from the 1950 film "Born Yesterday." However beneath this superficial portrayal of some women lies a more complex understanding , revealing deeper narratives that resonate with many. October 1, 1985. The chilling emptiness in Michele Avila's eyes. Her murder, a savage ballet of teenage fury, ripped through the town, festering wounds exposing the venomous underbelly of a seemingly innocent friendship. Jealousy, a serpent coiled in the heart of adolescence, struck with the force of a viper, revealing the terrifying depths of envy's reach. These weren't just girls; they were predators. Women are born with many layers, a mix between good and evil. Ironically of all the positive tropes that can validate the existence of women, why is it that "Born Sexy Yesterday" is a trope that resonates with our male counterparts the most?

Before Father Gets Back

2018

In a darkened classroom, the white cracked walls serve as a movie screen. We are in a remote mountain village in Georgia. The light from the projector breaks the darkness: the children's first cinematic experience is about to begin. Among the kids are Iman and Eva, two Muslim girls, for whom the experience becomes a turning point and inspires them to pick up a camera and start filming their daily lives. The girls are growing up in a valley infested by radicalism, where most people live in constant fear that their relatives will sacrifice their lives in the name of God.

Silver

2025

In the silence and darkness of a trembling mountain, we discover the underground world through the eyes of a boy, an old miner and a woman. Where sweat mixes with the blood of history, a story emerges about colonial heritage and the endless cycle of exploitation.

Between the Anvil and the Hammer

1973

A 1973 documentary film from the Central Office of Information about the Liverpool and Bootle Constabulary.

Africa Light / Gray Zone

2010

"Africa Light" - as white local citizens call Namibia. The name suggests romance, the beauty of nature and promises a life without any problems in a country where the difference between rich and poor could hardly be greater. Namibia does not give that impression of it. If you look at its surface it seems like Africa in its most innocent and civilized form. It is a country that is so inviting to dream by its spectacular landscape, stunning scenery and fascinating wildlife. It has a very strong tourism structure and the government gets a lot of money with its magical attraction. But despite its grandiose splendor it is an endless gray zone as well. It oscillates between tradition and modernity, between the cattle in the country and the slums in the city. It shuttles from colonial times, land property reform to minimum wage for everyone. It fluctuates between socialism and cold calculated market economy.