Skopje '63

On October 17 and 18, 1961, during a non-violent demonstration against the imposed curfew, dozens of Algerians were murdered in Paris by police officers acting on orders from their superiors. For forty years, this crime has been concealed; yet these events, the deadliest on French soil since the Second World War, resemble, in some respects, the darkest hours of the collaboration. Why has this history been hidden? Under what conditions, and in the name of what reasons, did officials of a democratic state conceal the scale and gravity of such events?

Three demonstrators from October 17, 1961, and a journalist recount the peaceful success of the demonstration and its brutal repression in the streets of Paris. Five months before the end of the Algerian War, the Gaullist government violently suppressed (40 to 300 deaths in a single evening, according to various sources) a peaceful demonstration by the entire Algerian civilian population of the Paris region, protesting the curfew imposed solely on this population (all participants held French citizenship). The government long denied this state crime; the official version: 3 deaths! In 1962, these events were granted amnesty by a simple decree (later enacted into law) issued by the same Gaullist government.

Spain, 1968. An analysis of the political and social situation of the country, suffocated by the boot of General Franco's tyrannical regime. (Filmed clandestinely in Madrid and Barcelona during the spring of 1968.)

Global warming in context. What the climate of the past tells us about the climate of the future.

Shot in various villages throughout Yugoslavia, this is a disturbing document of a time when people were stabbing each other with knives without any real reason. Murderers, people who witness these murders and the families of victims all talk about the senseless violence and the human condition.

1962. A crystalline voice becomes a planetary tube. A Belgian nun jostles Elvis and the Beatles on the world charts. Her name: Sister Smile. A popstar with the trajectory of a comet who understands her success no more than the double meaning of her words… The harder the fall will be. Even God does not protect sharks' appetites or pretenses of success! Who killed the little voice of God? Here is the tragic story of an innocent voice, of an extraordinary fate, almost of a curse ...

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The protagonists of this docudrama are old farmers who migrated to Banat after the First World War, in 1922. The film is focused on a couple of important events in their impressive lives, which are woven into lively scenes and stories full of wise instances. Their statements become spontaneous recounts of the lives of people in this region.

The Happy Child is a story of "New Wave" rock genre predominant in the ex-Yugoslavia during the socialist 70's and 80's.

'L'ultimo pugno di terra' (The Last Fistful of Land) is a 1966 documentary film directed by Fiorenzo Serra about the anguish and instability of the lower classes in a destitute Sardinia. Originally commissioned by the Sardinian regional government as a celebratory piece on the 'miraculous' effects of the 'Piano di Rinascita della Sardegna' (Sardinia's Rebirth Plan), the film instead shows an island still 'standing still in time', barely affected by the painful oxymoron of the inevitable changes taking place.

A roller-coaster ride through the history of American exploitation films, ranging from Roger Corman's sci-fi and horror monster movies, 1960s beach movies, H.G. Lewis' gore-fests, William Castle's schlocky theatrical gimmicks, to 1970s blaxploitation, pre-"Deep Throat" sex tease films, Russ Meyer's bosom-heavy masterpieces, etc, etc. Over 25 interviews of the greatest purveyors of weird films of all kind from 1940 to 1975. Illustrated with dozens of films clips, trailers, extra footage, etc. This documentary as a shorter companion piece focusing on exploitation king David F. Friedman.

In the fifties, when the future Democratic Republic of Congo was still a Belgian colony, an entire generation of musicians fused traditional African tunes with Afro-Cuban music to create the electrifying Congolese rumba, a style that conquered the entire continent thanks to an infectious rhythm, captivating guitar sounds and smooth vocals.

Tucumán, Argentina, 1965. Three years before George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead was released, director Ofelio Linares Montt shot Zombies in the Sugar Cane Field, which turned out to be both a horror film and a political statement. It was a success in the US, but could not be shown in Argentina due to Juan Carlos Onganía's dictatorship, and was eventually lost. Writer and researcher Luciano Saracino embarks on the search for the origins of this cursed work.

13 August 1961: the GDR closes the sector borders in Berlin. The city is divided overnight. Escape to the West becomes more dangerous every day. But on September 14, 1962, exactly one year, one month and one day after the Wall was built, a group of 29 people from the GDR managed to escape spectacularly through a 135-meter tunnel to the West. For more than 4 months, students from West Berlin, including 2 Italians, dug this tunnel. When the tunnel builders ran out of money after only a few meters of digging, they came up with the idea of marketing the escape tunnel. They sell the film rights to the story exclusively to NBC, an American television station.

A simple story, but larger than life portrayal of the universal human saga represented through Dionis, a retiring biology professor, his wife and his fantasy of turning his unusual car collection into a museum in a small uneventful town.

Experimental movie, where a man comes home and experiences LSD. His kaleidoscopic visions follow, with readings inspired by the Tibethan Book of the Dead.

Stop-motion animation on the arranging of marriages in 1950/60s set in the Eastern-Polish borderland. The script is based on a part of Mikołaj Smyk's diary, the director's grandfather. The biographical objects used in the animation, such as an authentic headscarf, Polish and Russian books, the copy of Mikołaj Smyk's diary and photographs help situate the story in its original environment.

In 1966 a group of determined young men defied the New Zealand government and launched a pirate radio station aboard a ship in the Hauraki Gulf.