This film portrays an unexpected encounter between an old Tzotzil man, who is going blind, and his granddaughter, who does not remember her childhood well. The granddaughter, having grown up in the city estranged from her grandparents, returns to visit her grandfather’s village. While he weaves a traditional hat, the threads of family history unwind and are rewoven. In between silences and unspoken words, the renewed possibility of understanding...

Enset, which is related to the banana plant, is very drought resistant and a good source of carbohydrates (in the stem and underground bulb). Enset has been farmed from time immemorial in the Gamo Highlands of southern Ethiopia, where women are the main cultivators. The film focuses on Aiye, the filmmaker's grandmother, who shares her knowledge about the enset plant, and shows how it is possible to produce good organic food by using simple farming...

Dancing Grass captures the communal harvesting of teff among Tigreans of Northern Ethiopia. Teff, an ancient indigenous grain, is central to the livelihood of smallholder farmers and may be called the 'cereal core' of Ethiopian national food identity. A local elder provides the commentary for the sequence of events that unfold in the homestead, fields and neighbourhood of the author's eldest brother and family: the cutting of the 'dancing grass';...

THE WOMEN WEAVERS OF ASSAM focuses on the craft, labour and the everyday lives of a group of women weavers in India’s northeastern state of Assam. The weavers belong to a non-profit collective called Tezpur District Mahila Samiti (TDMS), which was founded a century ago by women activists and Gandhian freedom fighters of Assam. The TDMS weavers preserve traditional motifs and methods of Assamese weaving, which have been declining since the introduction...

In the highlands of Tigray - northern Ethiopia - on the edge of the escarpment that descends steeply to the Danakil dessert, Hagos Mashisho and Desta Gidey have toiled and struggled for years to turn the rugged slopes of the East African Rift Valley into fertile ground. They have grown crops here not only to feed themselves and their family, but also to share with others, in particular the pilgrims who regularly pass by on their way to the monastery...

A powerful mother-daughter drama is at the centre of this film. Rooted in disagreement—both personal and political—the film follows the consequences of a war that leaves them with an impossible choice. When a peace agreement between the FARC rebel movement and the Colombian government looks as though it will put an end to half a century of conflict, 30-year-old Yira visits her mother in Colombia after spending 10 years in exile in Cuba. Yira has...

Filmmaker Kaira's childhood friend Shawa moved as a young widow with two sons to her present home in search of good land. Here she met Garombe and had four more children. We get close to each family member in scenes of daily life, starting with children milking cows at dawn. After taking grain by donkey to a distant flourmill, Shawa and daughters brew beer, which the sons drink when plowing the field. We learn how Shawa trained oxen to plow, and Garombe...

Our bodies are semi-permeable. All over the world, stories are being told about heroes who magically “close” their bodies, so as to become invincible. This film follows one such story, as it is told in Santo Amaro, Bahia (Brazil). Besouro Mangangà was a capoeira player, a black hero, who had closed his body. No bullets, no knives or daggers could pierce his skin. Bahian men explain how “closing the body” makes sense in their precarious and...

Human bodies don’t simply disappear. They were kidnapped, buried, broken into pieces. But they are also searched for, recovered and if forensic experts achieve the unlikely, reconstructed as persons. These only return to their homes if they are identified as dead. An audiovisual journey through Mexico’s landscapes of disappearance, between mass graves and fragments, affected families and forensic anthropologists. In search for the human that remains,...