The BSFF will take place from the 2nd to the 12th of September 2020 and the BRIFF from 3rd to 13th of September 2020.

The opening ceremony at the Vendôme Cinema will be honoring The European Short Film Audience Award (ESFAA), which was launched last year in partnership with 9 European festivals. It offers a selection of the best European short films awarded an Audience Award in their country !  You will be able to watch movies of different genre such as animation, comedy, thriller, and also vote for the European Audience Award!

The festival will be screening a total of 157 short films, as well as different competitions and numerous events.

The full program and lineup can be found on their website.

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The renovation, carried out in collaboration with the regional department of Monuments and Sites, aimed to restore the nightclub, which has been on the conservation list since March 1997, to its former glory of the 1930s. Clubbing will remain at the heart of the nightclub’s weekly programme, but it will also be open to cultural events.

The “Ciné Mirano” cinema, which opened its doors in 1934, closed down in 1978. It was transformed into a disco in 1981.

Tanguy Dimanche and Behrad Hatefi took over the management of the renovation as part of the “Art Blanc” group in June 2017. The group already has many hotels and restaurants in Brussels and Wallonia, including the restaurant “Les Brasseries Georges”, the discotheque “Spirito” and the event room “Quay 01”.

Two weeks after purchasing the nightclub, the decision was taken to launch a major renovation project. From the gold/black colour codes to the choice of materials such as limestone or wooden panelling and the (re)introduction of neon lights, everything possible has been done to return the place to its former glory.

Theatre, dance….

The rotating dance floor has been taken off its carousel motor for a modernised system. Enlarged and adorned with a golden curtain similar to the one that reveals the cinema screen, the stage will welcome clubbing audiences on weekends, as well as theatre, contemporary dance shows and concerts during the week. The new lighting structure was the biggest challenge of the project, as it required the entire roof to be renovated. The sound has also been completely redesigned to better suit different types of music and events.

Acoustic insulation was installed on the entire roof and on the adjoining walls to appease residents of the neighbourhood. The building has also been completely renovated to conform to modern safety standards.

As for club’s programme, music club nights will be held at least two evenings a week, with electro-style music playing on Friday and more urban music on Saturday.

“In clubbing, we want to surprise people, to make them discover new artists,” says Tanguy Dimanche. Behrad Hatefi also states that he wants to “open up the club to culture with photo exhibitions, shows, corporate events, and so on”.

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The second annual Brussels International Film Festival (BRIFF) kicked-off in the Grand Eldorado movie theatre at UGC De Brouckère on Thursday night with a screening of It Must Be Heaven, the new film by acclaimed Palestinian director Elia Suleiman.

Suleiman stars as a fictionalised version of himself in this slapstick comedy, whose story often masks themes of great subtlety and, it must be said, frequently frustrating ambiguity.

Its basic plot can be neatly summarised: an old(ish), single, almost perpetually mildly bemused, and apparently virtually mute Palestinian man (Suleiman) sees a bunch of strange, faintly amusing stuff happen in his hometown of Nazareth. Subsequently, Suleiman flies to Paris, where he again sees a bunch of strange, faintly amusing stuff happen. Next, Suleiman travels to New York, where he once again sees a bunch of strange, faintly amusing stuff happen. Finally, Suleiman returns to Nazareth, where stuff is still strange and – you guessed it – stuff is still faintly amusing.

(The final scene of the film, however, is – almost meta-strangely – neither strange nor moderately amusingly: it consists of Suleiman sitting alone at the bar at a club in Nazareth, looking on inscrutably at a group of Palestinian youths as they ebulliently dance the night away. The interpretative significance of this scene is unclear, as is, in fact, the significance of much of the film.)

The putative intricacy of It Must Be Heaven, unsurprisingly, lies in its details, namely in why Suleiman travels to Paris and New York in the first place, and what he ends up seeing both at home and on his travels.

To start with the why: although the death of an unnamed close acquaintance and the mild craziness of (the fictionalised rendition of) everyday life in Nazareth are both key factors in his decision to travel to the West, the primary cause is Suleiman’s need to acquire funding for a film that he is making – a film which, in a paradoxical, self-referentially ironic twist, is also called It Must Be Heaven.

Suleiman, however, does not succeed in persuading a Western studio to produce his film. The rejection he receives in Paris is particularly amusing: he is told by a stereotypically arrogant French producer that, although his film company is “sympathetic to the Palestinian cause”, it nevertheless cannot fund Suleiman’s project because “the film could take place anywhere; it is not Palestinian enough”. This is one of the few points in the film where Suleiman’s near-permanent expression of mild bemusement noticeably transforms into something approaching scorn: he, a Palestinian, is being denied a cinematic platform by a European simply because he fails to conform to the latter’s Orientalist stereotype of what a “Palestinian” film should be.

Similarly, in New York, Suleiman is introduced by a friend to an American film producer. “He [Suleiman] is not a Palestinian from Israel, but a Palestinian from Palestine,” his friend says, before adding: “He’s a Palestinian filmmaker, but he makes funny films. His new film is called ‘Heaven Can Wait’. It’s a comedy about peace in the Middle-East.” All of these remarks are, at best, seriously misleading: Nazareth is a city in Israel, not Palestine; the title of the film is “It Must Be Heaven”, not “Heaven Can Wait”; the film is manifestly not “about peace in the Middle-East”; and, finally, the implication that Palestinian filmmakers are expected only to make non-comedic films is not only insulting, but also, one could argue, mildly racist.

It is here that we can also see the interpretative ambiguity inherent in so much of the film. To take (again) the example of Suleiman being described as “not a Palestinian from Israel, but a Palestinian from Palestine”: are we, the audience, supposed to mock Suleiman’s friend’s ignorance regarding Nazareth’s actual location? Or are we to interpret him as suggesting something else, namely that Suleiman is in some sense a real Palestinian, despite living in Israel? Or are we supposed to interpret him as making an overtly political statement: that all, or at least some, of what is legally part of Israel is in fact properly construed as being part of Palestine?

Regardless, the film encourages us to assume that Suleiman never receives Western funding to make his film – this very film. The intended message here seems clear: in order for a Palestinian to make his voice heard – his true voice, and not an Orientalised caricature thereof – he cannot ask for handouts from the Middle-East’s past or present colonial masters. (As it happens, though, It Must Be Heaven was actually produced by a collection of French, Canadian, German and Turkish film companies – which might suggest that Suleiman is being characteristically ironic here.)

Returning to the issue of what Suleiman ends up seeing: many of the comedic vignettes that Suleiman is a witness to, both in Nazareth and the West, are clearly intended to have interpretative significance. For instance, in Nazareth he observes two IDF soldiers driving a military vehicle while they continually swap sunglasses and narcissistically examine themselves in the car’s rear-view mirror, while utterly failing to take heed of the road ahead; meanwhile, in the backseat of the car sits a lonely, docile, blindfolded Palestinian woman. Similarly, in France, the enormous police presence and overall militarisation of society are repeatedly emphasised: we observe tanks rolling down outside the Banque de France; we witness policemen chasing suspects down streets on segways and roller-blades, and we even see policemen (amusingly) attempt to intimidate an old lady on a subway platform by walking very, very slowly behind her.

Finally – and arguably most symbolically – in New York there is a scene where a woman in Central Park, dressed in a white costume adorned with angel wings, removes her top to reveal the Palestinian flag drawn across her chest. Almost immediately, NYPD squad cars arrive on the scene to arrest her. When the police finally capture and smother her, however, she vanishes, Obi-Wan Kenobi-style, with only her angel wings remaining where she previously lay. Sometime later, however, on a night that looks like Halloween, she reappears, this time with her chest unexposed. A figure dressed as the Grim Reaper sees her, causing his face to contort with rage; the Reaper then stares threateningly across the street at Suleiman, a perpetual witness to this symbolic surrealism.

Though each of these three (sets of) scenes have obvious interpretative significance, it is, in fact, often frustratingly difficult to pin down what exact interpretative significance they are supposed to have. To take the case of the preening IDF soldiers: do they represent all Israelis, or merely the IDF, or only those fashion-conscious, consumer-obsessed youths that one often finds in the bars and clubs of Tel Aviv? Furthermore, is the fact that the Israelis fail to look at the road ahead of them at all relevant? (And is a literal – as well as metaphorical – car crash therefore inevitable?) And what is the significance, if any, of the Palestinian in the back of the car not only being a prisoner, but also being docile, lonely, a woman and blindfolded? On reflection, is Suleiman perhaps intentionally aiming for precisely such ambiguity? Or, when all is said and done, is he merely trying to be funny?

Much of this movie, however, consists of scenes that do not have any obvious interpretative significance. For instance, in Paris, Suleiman adopts a stray bird who happens to fly into his apartment. One afternoon, when Suleiman is trying to write on his laptop, the bird repeatedly tries to stop him from working by hopping onto his keyboard. At first, Suleiman swipes the bird away each time it approaches, but eventually he becomes frustrated, heads to the window, and points upward at the sky, clearly suggesting to the bird that it leave. After some deliberation, the bird acquiesces and flies away. Again: is this whole scene simply supposed to be mildly amusing? Or is it supposed to suggest something else, for example, that hosts inevitably tire of those they are hosting? Or is it, more speculatively, perhaps some kind of bizarre metaphor for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? It isn’t clear; indeed, whether or not this scene is intentionally ambiguous is itself inherently ambiguous.

Arguably, nowhere is the film’s ambiguity more pronounced than in its title: “It Must Be Heaven”. To what, exactly, is this “it” referring? Nazareth? Palestine? The world? Or is “it” only intended to refer to Suleiman’s fictionalised renditions of these places (e.g., a Paris where all the women are stunningly beautiful)? Or is “it” perhaps referring to the film itself, thus suggesting a form of escapism through film, one that is especially tailored to those Palestinians whose daily lives consist of ritual subjugation and humiliation? Come to think of it, is the title of the film even meant to be take seriously, rather than ironically? We simply don’t know; and Suleiman, it seems, is not at all willing to tell us.

Suleiman, however, has said the following: “If in my previous films, Palestine could be seen as a microcosm of the world, my new film, It Must Be Heaven, tries to present the world as a microcosm of Palestine.” But in what sense is the world, except in a trivial sense, a microcosm of Palestine? (Moreover, in what sense are Paris and New York collectively even a microcosm of the world?) Yes, it is of course true that in both Western and Middle-Eastern society mild craziness and amusement can be found in many different places. And yes, much of society – even Western society – is becoming increasingly militarised. But where in Europe or America is the equivalent of, say, Gaza, which for years has been subjected to a brutal and devastating Israeli-led blockade? Where is the equivalent of mass home demolitions? Of de-development? Where – the history of the native Americans excepted – is the equivalent of the dispossession, the annexation, the military occupation suffered by Palestinians?

Undoubtedly, It Must Be Heaven has its amusing moments. But insofar as it unambiguously says anything, what it says is at best a truism or, at worst, radically or even grotesquely false. To compensate for this, it seems, the films attempts to feign profundity by engaging in sustained ironic ambiguity – but, in doing so, it arguably ends up saying little of any interest at all.

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Thanks to the Goethe-Institut Belgium every year three of the most important German Filmfestivals make a stopover in Brussels, one of them DOK Leipzig on June 13th in BOZAR Cinema.

DOK Leipzig is one of the leading festivals for documentary and animated film. The festival, being the first in the world to combine these two genres, is built on more than 60 years of history and tradition. The festival is a celebration of films with the highest artistic and innovative approaches to storytelling, embodying our values of peace, tolerance, human dignity and freedom of expression.

 

Synopsis:

Werner Herzog meeting Mikhail Gorbachev opens a fresh door to some of the most significant happenings of the late 20th Century from nuclear disarmament to the unification of Germany. It also puts into perspective today’s era of populist political leadership. Herzog and Gorbachev meet three times over a six- month period, and although the last President of the Soviet Union is an ailing man, his mind is sharp. His warmth and humour, and Herzog’s ability to tackle unexpected and personal areas of his life, make the encounters engaging, insightful, moving and important.

Directors Statements

Werner Herzog

Meeting Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev three times over a six-month period was a fascinating and enlightening experience. I was anxious not to film a biography of him but to try to understand the character of such an important figure. Here was a man who changed the course of the twentieth century and whose actions transformed the world I grew up in; yet in Moscow, I found a somewhat tragic and lonely figure, surrounded by people who blamed him for the loss of the Soviet Union and for not fulfilling the promises of perestroika and glasnost that he had hoped would improve their lives. Our conversations were frank, and wide-ranging, from his anger over the lack of progress over nuclear arms reduction that he had initiated with Ronald Reagan to personal tragedies such as the loss of his beloved wife Raisa in 1999. Although Mikhail Sergeyevich was not a physically well man, his intelligence, charisma and sense of purpose were still sharp and illuminating and it was a pleasure to have been able to meet such a charismatic, genuine and significant giant of the 20th century.

André Singer:

When agreeing with MDR (the German ARD Channel) to make a film about the last President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, the filmmaker in me asked how we could create a narrative that was engaging, unique and attractive to a new generation who had little experience or knowledge of the ‘Gorbachev Years’ and the Cold War? Having collaborated with Werner Herzog over a thirty year period, I thought that his inimitable insights might provide the key. I was therefore delighted when he agreed to participate, co-direct and conduct the interviews with the ailing ex-Soviet leader. It worked wonderfully. There was a great bond between the two men and Werner was able to ask questions other interviewers would not have dreamt of. “What would you like inscribed on your gravestone?” He asked. “ We tried”, Gorbachev replied. “I am a German, and the first German you met you probably wanted to shoot” Werner says referring to the hatred between Russia and Germany stemming from World War 11.

“NO” said Gorbachev, and relayed how as a boy nearby Germans made wonderful biscuits in the shape of rabbits that made the young Gorbachev really like Germans!! We made a film that was deliberately not a stereotype history documentary. Instead of detailing all the events of the 1980s and 90s we followed the personal story seen through Gorbachev’s eyes enabling us to expose the humanity behind political characters that shaped the end of the Cold War, the unification of Germany and the attempts to end nuclear proliferation.

Eventually Gorbachev failed in his attempts to fully reform the old Soviet Union, but the contrast between what is happening in the world now and what he was confronting in the 1980s is dramatic. Whilst making the film we were moved by the loneliness of the man who tackled the impossible and is regarded today by many Russians as the person responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Empire. He is now an ailing 87 year old figure living in isolation in Moscow but still has lessons he wants to give the world and which he relayed to Werner in his interview – particularly about the dangers of nuclear weaponry which he sees with alarm going in the opposite direction to what he and Ronald Reagan fought for thirty years ago. We both felt this was a man still worth listening to and we were privileged to hear his insights and to be able to share them in this film.

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Cinema Parenthèse and Goethe-Institut Brüssel present a series of screenings that explores the relationship between film and radical politics. The title of this series, taken from Red Army Faction (RAF) member Holger Meins’ last letter perhaps in some measure is able to anticipate the films included in the program. Or perhaps not. Struggle takes on various meanings as we navigate through the program.

There is first and foremost, a self-struggle, then a moral and a formal struggle that are intrinsic characteristics of for example Straub and Huillet’s films, then there is a historical registration of struggle, for those who were ushered away from Germany and France by the Nazis, followed by the struggle between memory and history, image and text, isolation and reckoning.

This series, via the screenings and associated discussions around the films, will provide a perfect opportunity to thoroughly investigate the many possible relationships between stratas of political thinking and film, associations between television and cinema, the critical possibilities of film history on film and the grounds for convergence between literature and cinema.

25.04.2019, 19:00, Cinema Galeries
Cesare Pavese. Turin – Santo Stefano Belbo
Renate Sami; Petra Seeger (D 1985, 60 min, DE,IT / ST EN, 16mm)
Introduction by Carolin Weidner

The author Cesare Pavese was born in 1908 in Santo Stefano Belbo, a small town in the mountains between Turin and Genoa. He lived and worked in Turin, where he committed suicide in 1950. These two places also play a part in his last two novels — Turin in “Tra donne sole” and Santo Stefano Belbo in “La luna e i falo” — and so we will walk through these two places, arriving at the station just like the main characters in both novels. There are two interviews — one with Massimo Mila, a writer and Pavese’s friend in Turin, the other with Pinolo Scaglione, a carpenter and cooper and his friend from childhood in Santo Stefano Belbo. (Renate Sami)

Carolin Weidner is a German film journalist. Since 2017 she is a member of DOK Leipzig’s Selection Committee.

26.04.2019, 18:00, Ciné Club de l’INSAS
Dalla nube alla resistenza (From the Cloud to the Resistance)
Danièle Huillet; Jean-Marie Straub (D/IT 1979, 105 min, IT, NL, FR, D / ST EN, 35mm)

Dalla nube alla resistenza, based on two works by Cesare Pavese, falls into the category of History Lessons and Too Early, Too Late as well. It, too, has two parts—a twentieth-century text and a text regarding the myths of antiquity, each set in the appropriate landscape. Pavese’s “The Moon and the Bonfires” looks back on the violent deaths of Italian anti-Fascist resistance fighters; “Dialogues with Leucò” is a series of dialogues between heroes and gods, connecting myth and history. (Barton Byg)

08.05.2019, 19:00, Cinema Galeries
Filmemigration aus Nazideutschland – Teil 1
Günter-Peter Straschek, (D 1975, D / ST EN, 60 min, 16mm to Digital)
Introduction by Volker Pantenburg

Roughly five-hour long Film Emigration from Nazi Germany was broadcasted on Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) on successive Tuesdays in 1975. The entire series comprising of about fifty interviews recounts emigration from the German film industry during the Nazi years. The film intercuts testimonials of various individuals, some who were forced to leave, and some who found it unbearable, with archival footage from various films made during the time to present a harrowing account of Fascism, forced exile and the perpetration of violence. The first of the five parts will be shown in the program.

Volker Pantenburg is Professor of Film Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. He has published widely on essayistic film and video practices, experimental cinema, and contemporary moving image installations.

11.05.2019, 19:00, Cinema Galeries
Fluchtweg nach Marseille
Ingemo Engström; Gerhard Theuring (D 1977, D / ST EN, 217min, 16mm to Digital)

The theme of the film is the escape route of the German emigrés in France in 1940/41. It describes a research of the past against the background of landscapes and towns which once were scenes of persecution. The leitmotif of the journey is Anna Seghers’ novel “Transit”. The film is dedicated to the landscape of the resistance. (Ingemo Engström/Gerhard Theuring)

14.05.2019, 19:00, Cinema Galeries
Cellule 719
Annik Leroy (B 2016, 15 min, EN, digital)
Es stirbt allerdings ein jeder, Frage ist nur wie und wie du gelebt hast. Holger Meins.
Renate Sami (D 1975, 60 min, D / ST EN, 16 mm)

For Annik Leroy Cellule 719 is only an intermediate stop in a longer process, a study of the historical RAF and, even more so, into the psychological mechanisms of terror, and the personality structure of a public figure who is left alone in complete isolation with her most private self. (Edwin Carels)

Holger Meins started studying film in 1964. When he was arrested in 1972, he was accused of being a terrorist and died in prison while on a hunger strike in 1974. He was thirty-three. In my film, I interviewed a friend who lived with him for a while, a young woman who was part of a student group. Holger Meins and Günther Peter Straschek were working on a film project aimed at helping the young ones articulate their problems and translate them into film. (Renate Sami)

Practical Information

Dates: 25.04.-14.05.2019

Location: Cinema Galeries & Ciné Club de l’INSAS

More information: Here.

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From 23 to 30 April, a selection of outstanding documentaries will be screened at various Brussels venues including European Parliament and the House of European History, drawing attention to serious human rights violations around the world at the premises of important European institutions. This year, the festival will highlight the current crisis in Venezuela, freedom of the media in Russia, recent events in Poland, and the contemporary situation in Iraq. Each screening will be followed by a discussion with human right defenders, journalists and academics.

One World in Brussels once again presents the selection of the best movies from One World in Prague, the biggest human rights documentaries festival in the world, awarded also by UNESCO for its contribution to human rights education.

“The topic of this edition is Safe Proximity – through the documentaries and debates, we are looking for what connects us, rather than what brings divisions,” says Zuzana Gruberová from the organizing NGO People in Need. “We are glad that we collaborate with a number of Brussels-based non-governmental organizations that deal with various human rights issues, helping us to provide more context in the debates. As every year, we are expecting among the visitors also those who can have direct impact on the issues discussed and help in resolving them.”

One World in Brussels is organized by People in Need, Czech Permanent Representation to the EU, and Czech Centre Brussels together with local NGOs and other partners. All screenings (except for the opening) are free. You can find the complete program of the 13th annual One World in Brussels, the full list of partners and guests at oneworld.cz/brussels.

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Background

The seringueiro movement was conceived in the mid-1970s, when global demand for cheap synthetic rubber began to increase, causing a corresponding decline in the demand for the natural latex found in Brazilian rubber trees. Consequently, the Brazilian government, having deemed cattle farming to be more profitable than rubber tree tapping, began to incentivise cattle ranchers to purchase, and clear, rainforest land that had previously been used for the cultivation of rubber trees.

Massive deforestation of the Amazon rainforest ensued, as did the widespread forced displacement, beating, and even murder of numerous seringueiros.

The most famously effective, and symbolic, form of resistance used by the seringueiros against this government-sanctioned brutality was the empate, which translates, roughly, as “standoff”. Often accompanied by their wives, parents and sometimes even children, the seringueiros would form a human chain around those areas of the rainforest that had been designated by the government to be cleared by loggers.

“Empate means risking our lives, our wives’ lives, our children’s lives, our parents’ lives, in order to preserve our way of life,” says one seringueiro interviewed in the film. “That’s what empate means to us.”

During its peak period of international fame in the 1970s and 80s, the seringueiro movement won many plaudits, both in Brazil and internationally, for its non-violence and environmentalism. Nevertheless, the internationally renowned and recognised leader of the movement, Chico Mendes, was eventually assassinated by a rancher’s son – with possible Brazilian government complicity – outside of his home on December 22, 1988, in Xapuri, Brazil.

Empate, renewed

Empate is a deeply moving, often tragic, and expertly shot film, which makes for compelling, and occasionally unsettling, viewing.

In particular, one of the film’s core theses is that the seringueiro movement is, worryingly, far more fractured and isolated than it was 30 or 40 years ago. This is in spite of the fact that the movement, and the Amazon rainforest more generally, are possibly facing a more serious threat than ever before in the form of Brazil’s new anti-environmentalist President, Jair Bolsonaro, whose expressed intention is to open up the Amazon rainforest to exploitation for the benefit of Brazilian and international agribusiness.

“Forty years ago we were unified, connected,” explains one seringueiro during the film. “Now we feel disengaged, separated. People forget that what we achieved was not a gift, but a collective triumph. We need more empates.”

This sentiment was echoed during the Q&A which followed the screening, in which Angela Mendes – the daughter of the murdered Chico Mendes – spoke, as did Portuguese MEP Marisa Matias (who chaired the event) and the film’s director, Mr Carvalho. All of them emphasised the seriousness of the threat currently being posed by the Bolsonaro government to the inhabitants of the Amazon rainforest, many of whom are still being murdered, beaten, and forcibly displaced.

Furthermore, all of them stressed the need for the international community to act, and aid, those currently struggling to protect the rainforest, including the seringueiros. Mr Carvalho, in particular, warned of the “environmental catastrophe that await us” all if the international community fails to act.

The final scene of Empate symbolically – and beautifully – captures this alarming predicament: it is an aerial shot of a moonscape-like, completely deforested area, separated from the lush green of the Amazon rainforest by a thin dirt path, along which walk a small group of aging seringueiros: the last, vulnerable line of defence against further destruction of the rainforest, and a group which is, right now, visibly and painfully alone.

Undoubtedly, a luta continua: the struggle continues.

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Chances are all of them ended up in Ghana, in the world’s largest dump of electronic appliances called Agbogbloshie. Tons of electronic waste arrive every day to be ripped apart, turned into scrap metal and re-sold to European markets. About 6,000 women, men and children live and work there. Ghanaians call it Sodom. It is one of the most poisonous places on earth.

Welcome To Sodom, a documentary by Christian Krönes and Florian Weigensamer, shows the desolate existence of the people working in Agbogbloshie. Throughout the film there’s one constant image floating across every shot: dark clouds of smoke covering people’s souls, staining their bodies, filling their lungs. Because that’s what is done there, every day of the year, the burning of computer and printer cables, ethernet and telephone cables, the fire will eat everything except the metals.

The camera follows the lives of a handful of characters: a young girl who’s shaved her head to become a boy. “In this world I am a boy. I make more money selling metal as a boy, than water as a girl,” she says. There’s also the man who’s come from Gambia, an educated man with a PhD who likes to read the Shakespeare pages he finds as he walks amid the mounds of waste. And why is he living here? Because in his country, gay men are tortured to death.

At the end of the film one question reverberates in the viewer’s mind: Are we conscious of the effects our ever-growing consumption has on the world and the environment?

The film was shown at Cinema Galeries on March 24th as part of the Millennium Documentary Film Festival. For this edition, the festival’s organizers wanted to highlight the major themes of the globalized world: consumption in all its forms, challenges of the environment, women’s and children’s rights, as well as the hidden sides of social networks and the unknown America.

The festival goes on until March 30th. Not to miss.

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