The Reykjavik International Film Festival is starting in just over a month - on September 23. The final program is still being confirmed, but some of the categories are ready to go. Among them is the documentary category - Docs in focus, which includes 13 of the most interesting docs the world has seen in the last year or two. Those include films about drugs in Afghanistan, gay-porn in eastern Europe and housing in Bari, Italy.
Here are the films included in the Docs in focus category:
About Face: The Story Of Gwendellin Bradshaw (USA, 2009)
On a chilly Alaskan summer night in 1980, 10 month old Gwendellin Bradshaw was placed on top of a campfire by her mentally distraught mother. Given a 50-50 chance of surviving, she barely made it. Now 24 years later, Gwen is left with figuring out how to live with her physical and emotional scars and believes that finding mom is central to her healing. Her journey is an emotional path which leads her to find her own beauty and purpose in life.
www.aboutfacefilm.org
Addicted In Afghanistan (UK, 2009)
1 million Afghans are estimated to be addicted to drugs, especially heroin. Alarmingly, 40% of these are women and children. "Addicted in Afghanistan" is an intimate observational documentary that explores the heart-breaking reality behind the headlines as seen through the eyes of Jabar & Zahir, two 15 year old drug addicts living in Kabul. "Addicted in Afghanistan" is an intimate and uncompromising portrayal, filmed over a year, of the day to day struggles of a new generation of children addicted to heroin, trying to find their way in the new Afghanistan.
Everyday But Sunday (UK/Ethiopia, 2009)
Hiwot Beyene is 12 years old and dreams of becoming a doctor. She lives in a small Ethiopian village with her parents and brothers in a two-room hut. Every morning she walks for an hour and a half to school to learn about farming, hygiene and health. After school, Hiwot spends hours on household chores till the evening, when she steals an hour to do her homework.
The Genius And The Boys (Sweden, 2009)
Carleton Gajdusek won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of prions – the particles that would emerge as the cause of Mad Cow disease – while working with a cannibal tribe on New Guinea. He was a star scientist. Over his years working amongst the tribes of the South Seas, he adopted 57 kids, bringing them to a new life in Washington DC. But, at the height of his career, rumors began to spread he was a pedophile. Gajdusek would argue that if sex with children was okay in their own cultures, he wasn’t wrong to join in. Gajdusek himself participates in the film, as well as some of the men and women who came to know him closely as children. The film also features Gajdusek’s own – never before released – films.
Housing (Italy, 2009)
People clinging, as though shipwrecked, to the walls of a house. This is a prevalent image in certain neighborhoods where a dwelling is the only thing people possess. For over twenty years in Bari no new public housing has been assigned. Meanwhile, three thousand families are on the waiting list. Inevitably, a silent war among the poor has broken out, a war in which squatters lay siege to the lodgings of anyone careless enough to leave home for a few hours too many, whether to visit a relative or to keep a hospital appointment. The squatters mainly target the houses of old or single people. They stake their claim on the basis that they are large families and, once they’re in, it’s difficult to make them leave.
La Casa / The House (Spain/Columbia, 2009)
The Mendez family has been living on occupied land in the hills outside Bogota for forty years. They can be legally evicted at any time. Every day they walk down to the city to collect scrap materials to sell, and leftovers from restaurants to feed their pigs. Victor has been married to Marta for ten years, but his mother Elvira has never approved of her. The conflict between these two women forces Victor to take sides and comes in the way of their efforts to earn a living. Dignity and courage come to the fore in a story about the impossibility of progress and the persistence of dreams for this family of scrap merchants.
Monica And David (USA, 2009)
Monica and David explores the marriage of two adults with Down syndrome and the family who strives to support their needs. Monica and David embody childlike spirits with adult desires; they are aware of their need for assistance, but they are also capable beyond traditional expectations. Behind the couple’s blissful love are two mothers who struggled against an intolerant world and, with this wedding, realize a dream.
All Boys (Finland, 2009)
All Boys is a film about human relationships in the gay porn business and about the production and consumption of porn. When men make gay porn with other men, to other men, who is the abuser and who is the abused?
The Edge Of Dreaming (UK/Scotland, 2009)
The Edge of Dreaming charts every step of that year. The film explores life and death in the context of a warm and loving family, whose happiness is increasingly threatened as the dream seems to be proving true. From the kids reaction to their horses' death (they taught the dog a new trick - called 'dead dog'), the film mixes humour, science and married life as Amy attempts to understand what is happening to her.
www.edgeofdreaming.co.uk
Today Is Better Than Two Tomorrows (Ireland, 2009)
Filmed over the course of four years in an unknown corner of Laos, Today Is Better than Two Tomorrows tells the simple story of friendship between two boys, Leh and Bo, who leave home at age eleven to become novice monks. Director Anna Rodgers started this film as a young Irish backpacker who happened upon this family and spent years with no crew or translator determined to bring their enchanting story to life. One of the few documentaries to come out of Laos, Today Is Better than Two Tomorrows presents a rare window onto a unique and fading culture.
Which Way Home (USA, 2009)
Α feature documentary film that follows unaccompanied child migrants on their journey through Mexico, as they try to reach the United States. These are children like Olga and Freddy, nine-yearold Hondurans, who are desperately trying to reach their parents in the United States; children like Jose, a ten-year-old El Salvadoran, who has been abandoned by smugglers and ends up alone in a Mexican detention center; and Kevin, a canny, streetwise fourteen-year-old Honduran whose mother hopes that he will reach the US and send money back to her. These are stories of hope and courage, disappointment and sorrow.
Pilgrimage (Canada, 2009)
A road-movie about movies, renowned docu-maker Peter Wintonick and his 20-year-old media-making daughter Mira, take a trip across film history and media’s future, questioning how different generations view, use or make their own film, images, sound and media.
The Last Truck: Closing Of A GM Plant (USA, 2009)
This short documentary focuses on the workers of the General Motors Assembly Plant in Moraine, Ohio - which churned out an average of 280,000 small trucks a year. We meet and follow workers from the announcement that the Plant will be closing, to its last day on December 23, 2008, just two days before Christmas. While the workers are shocked that they will be losing their jobs, we quickly see they are also losing much more: the pride they share in their work, the camaraderie built through the years, and the shared concerns about what their collective futures will hold. As the major industry in Moraine closes its doors for good, many see its demise as an indication of the changing American landscape. Manufacturing seems to be dying out as products are increasingly being made elsewhere, and American industry is foundering in tough economic times.