Concrete Pharaohs

Moving away from the conventions of traditional documentary filmmaking, Gitani presents itself as a vibrant "emotional vision" of Romani life. Rather than a rigid factual account, the film immerses the audience in an atmosphere of pure euphoria and shared joy. Music serves as the essential thread that weaves the entire work together, while the visual narrative mirrors the fluidity of dance—constantly assembling and dissolving to the beat of the performers' movements. It is a rhythmic and sensory experience that prioritizes feeling and atmosphere, capturing the spirit of a culture through the harmony of sound and motion.

After I died from suicide, I was punished for this deadly sin, to live alone in the spirit world deep in the sea, but He gave me a chance to redeem my sin by shooting a film of a philanthropist's afterlife to ask and get the merits, I've been waiting for overly time to see a philanthropist's spirit.

Four experts in different areas such as religion, philosophy and thanatology, share their wisdom when it comes to death.

A troupe of gypsies takes a traveler along with them on their day trip.

Varanasi is the Indian city where Hindus go to die. Stretching along the Ganges, Varanasi holds great spiritual significance because Hindu scriptutres say that anyone who dies there will attain moksha—liberation from the cycle of rebirth. Berlin-based director Dan Braga Ulvestad captures life and death in India’s heartland in this moving documentary filled with exquisite cinematic moments. By the River starts its narrative journey with the city’s “death hotels,” dedicated apartments where people wait to die, sometimes for decades, so they can be cremated on the banks of the Ganges.

A film that immerses its audience in subjective states of consciousness they might experience when they die, imagining what they can see and think and hear in a seamless but fragmentary flow of poetic images, words and music. The viewer undertakes a journey into their own interior world of dreams and projections in which time and space, and cause and effect logic, are turned on their heads. Text Messages from the Universe is inspired by The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a text which guides souls on their journey of 49 days through the 'Bardo', or intermediate state, between dying and rebirth.

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A team of Romany football players try to overcome prejudice in this Czech documentary.

Prominent Ukrainian/Italian documentary film director Oleksandr Balahura (most known for link) visits Roma neighborhoods and social events in Zakarpattia (Western Ukraine) and re-visits his earlier work, "Widow-Street", shot on same locations in 1991. He also screens "Widow-Street" to its characters, whom he meets again in 2013.

Documentary about K-Tel - the "As Seen on TV!" company that was hugely successful in the 1970s and 80s.

An intimate look at Gypsy refugees in a Belgrade suburb who make a living by transforming Citroen´s classic 2cv and Dyana cars into Mad Max-like recycling vehicles, which they use to collect card-board, bottles and scrap metal. These modern horses are much more efficent than the cart-pushing competition, but even more important, they also mean freedom, hope and style for their crafty owners. Even the car batteries are used as power generators in order to get some light, watch TV and recharge mobiles ! Almost an alchemist´s dream come true ! But police doesn´t always find these strange vehicles funny... Pretty Dyana is a very funny documentary, but sad in a way... " If Mitic had focused only on the terrible misery these people live in, the film would have been unbearable. Instead, you never know whether you should cry after you laugh, or the other way around " Sara Hultmanm, Goteborg Film Festival

Alberto Spadolini, filmmaker and choreographer, dances to traditional Andalusian music. He pays tribute to the gypsy culture.

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Moved by a sense of outrage, David Scheffel, a Canadian anthropologist, is determined to help the impoverished Roma (Gypsies) rebuild their community in the eastern Slovakian village of Svinia. So-called “white” Svinia is a picturesque, typical Slovak village with well-kept homes, gardens, a store and a school. Some 300 metres past the last home is “black” Svinia, where the Roma live in squalid tenement blocks and one-room huts of sticks and mud-with no clean water or sewage facilities and with little hope of employment. Many Svinians, whose homes and gardens are regularly burglarized by the desperate Roma, have lost all patience and sympathy. Throughout Eastern Europe, the painful transition from communism to democracy has relegated the Roma to the farthest, most grotesque margins of society. The Gypsies of Svinia is a testament to the firm resolve of Scheffel and the Roma to make things better.

This one-of-a-kind comedy special showcases the comedian's riotous stand-up performance, exploring everything from the Disability experience to her Italian-Catholic upbringing to body image issues and more.

The news about the Swedish police's registry of Roma people has generated very strong reactions. In this new documentary we meet some young Swedish Roma people who talk about their feelings and thoughts about the registration.

Ever since the first Roma people arrived in Sweden five hundred years ago, they have been discriminated against and persecuted. The lack of knowledge, invisibility and denial of the historical abuses that Roma have been exposed to is one of the many contributing causes of continued marginalization and vulnerability of Roma today. Here, the Roma tell of the abuses and persecutions they experienced during the 20th century. How it felt like as a child being constantly expelled from the camp, not infrequently in the middle of the night, with violence and under gunfire. Soraya Post from the traveling group tells how her mother, as a pregnant 23-year-old, was forced to abort her child in the seventh month. The reason: She was a "gypsy".

Zenith Virago is an activist and educator who for over 20 years has been returning the coastal region of Byron Bay, Australia to a more communal, celebratory, and creative engagement with death and dying.

Do we still know the grotesque when we see it? Muniz Sodré and Raquel Paiva, two of Latin America's greatest thinkers in the field of Communication and authors of the seminal book 'O Império do Grotesco', revisit their work after two decades in an opera-doc that invites reflection on the grotesque today.

Anti is an 18-year-old gypsy boy with a passion for playing the guitar. He lives in a gypsy slum in a remote corner of Hungary. By an unexpected opportunity he has a chance to break out now from his hopeless situation. He gets selected to the Snétberger Music Talent Center among sixty other young talents. He is mesmerized by the chance of a better life and hopes for a miracle. Although it turns out soon that he has a huge disadvantage compared to the others, even to the gypsy students. He can't read the music sheets and he is not used to regular practice. The sensitive and lovable boy's story is full of unexpected twists and turns. The viewer is carried with his honesty and special humor. Through Anti's story the feature-length documentary gives a glimpse into the work of the Snétberger Music Talent Center with great music and memorable moments from the life of the Talent Camp.