Dogs of Democracy

In 2017, twenty years after the British handed over Hong Kong to China in 1997, young people, more politicized than any previous generation and proud of their land, do not feel Chinese and actively fight against the oligarchs who want to subdue them to China's authoritarian power.

Between 1947 and 1951, more than 80 000 Greek men, women and children were deported to the isle of Makronissos (Greece) in reeducation camps created to ‘fight the spread of Communism’. Among those exiles were a number of writers and poets, including Yannis Ritsos and Tassos Livaditis. Despite the deprivation and torture, they managed to write poems which describe the struggle for survival in this world of internment. These texts, some of them buried in the camps, were later found. «Like Lions of stone at the gateway of night» blends these poetic writings with the reeducation propaganda speeches constantly piped through the camps’ loudspeakers. Long tracking shots take us on a trance-like journey through the camp ruins, interrupted along the way by segments from photographic archives. A cinematic essay, which revives the memory of forgotten ruins and a battle lost.

Since its adoption in June 1955 by the Congress movement, the Freedom Charter has been the key political document that acted as a beacon and source of inspiration in the liberation struggle against Apartheid. It was reputedly the main source that informed democratic South Africa’s liberal constitution and a constant reference point for the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and rival political parties that it spawned since 1994, all claiming the Freedom Charter’s legacy. Freedom Isn’t Free assesses the history and role of the charter, especially in relation to key political and socio-economic aspects of developments in South Africa up to the present period. It includes rare archival footage with interviews of a cross-section of outspoken influential South Africans.

In the United States of America, lobbyists, corporations and billionaires invest millions of dollars to ensure that a suitable candidate, one inclined to support their personal ambitions and economic projects, wins an election, which inevitably affects everything, from the selection of local officials to presidential elections, creates countless conflicts of interest and undermines what supposedly used to be a model democracy.

Thoughts of a diversity of public and private citizens on the virtues of democracy, its faults, its decadence, its fall and the rise of populism.

Too high, misused, unfair... a large part of the French and Europeans criticize taxes. From tax-rascal to tax revolt, the movement of yellow vests in France has returned to the center of attention the question of consent to tax. How to explain a different resistance to taxes from one country to another without tax pressure being an explanation? Is there a "good" tax? Jean Quatremer takes us on a journey to the tax center across Europe, to meet those who pay it, those who decide it, those who study it... or those who allow to avoid it.

In suburban Buenos Aires, thirty unemployed ceramics workers walk into their idle factory, roll out sleeping mats and refuse to leave. All they want is to re-start the silent machines. But this simple act - the take - has the power to turn the globalization debate on its head. Armed only with slingshots and an abiding faith in shop-floor democracy, the workers face off against the bosses, bankers and a whole system that sees their beloved factories as nothing more than scrap metal for sale.

Shot over three years, Pariah Dog paints a kaleidoscopic picture of the city of Kolkata, seen through the prism of four outsiders and the dogs they love. These men and women have found meaning and purpose in their shared mission to care for neglected street dogs, who have existed in the towns and villages of India for thousands of years. For some this mission is enough, for others, dreams of a better life are always near.

When the Chinese Communist Party backtracks on its promise of autonomy to Hong Kong, teenager Joshua Wong decides to save his city. Rallying thousands of kids to skip school and occupy the streets, Joshua becomes an unlikely leader in Hong Kong and one of China’s most notorious dissidents.

Unknown short stories from the past, the present and the future of fascism and its relation to the economic interests of each era. We will travel from Mussolini’s Italy to Greece under the Nazi occupation, the civil war and the dictatorship; and from Hitler’s Germany to the modern European and Greek fascism.