Gogogo Films

On January 31, 1857, the French writer Gustave Flaubert (1821-80) took his place in the dock for contempt of public morality and religion. The accused, the real one, is, through him, Emma Bovary, heroine with a thousand faces and a thousand desires, guilty without doubt of an unforgivable desire to live.

Things are busy at the Paris hospital where young psychiatrist Jamal and his colleagues work. The place is run down, the staff are exhausted, budgets are constantly being slashed. You know the story, but you’ve rarely seen it conveyed as engagingly as in ‘On the Edge’, which employs a handheld camera and meaningful, artistic interventions to observe the daily routine at the psychiatric ward. The deeply sympathetic Jamal is an everyday hero with an exemplary, humanistic disposition, for whom the most important prerequisites for mental health – and for a healthy society in general – are good relationships with other people. He puts his philosophy into practice by listening patiently, giving good advice and organising theatre exercises based on Molière. Realism and idealism, however, are in balance for the young doctor, at least as long as the institutional framework holds up.

How did Nazi Germany, from limited natural resources, mass unemployment, little money and a damaged industry, manage to unfurl the cataclysm of World War Two and come to occupy a large part of the European continent? Based on recent historical works of and interviews with Adam Tooze, Richard Overy, Frank Bajohr and Marie-Bénédicte Vincent, and drawing on rare archival material.

A Syrian migrant working as a crane operator in Beirut volunteers to cover a shift on one of the most dangerous cranes, where he is able to find his freedom.

To write In Cold Blood (1966), a nonfiction novel that revolutionized world literature, Truman Capote (1924-84) spent five years in Kansas researching the murder of members of the Clutter family and collecting the confidences of its two authors.

Ever since 25-year-old Gabi has lived alone in her caravan on the edge of the forest, a mysterious beast prowls around at night.

How did the USSR - a country considered a second-rate industrial power, economically inferior to Germany, the USA and the UK - shape its victory over the armies of Hitler's regime, and secure its place among the winners?

Lebanon, 2018. War, politics or revolution: these are the choices faced by Georges, Joumana and Perla Joe. Three destinies and a shared desire to rebuild a troubled country. How is it possible to continue to dream when everything around is falling apart?

The Inspection is a mighty film without (luckily) any morality in the end — it is a story about what can and what cannot be told to children. A school teacher receives a visit from an educational inspector, who is trying to coherently react to the parents’ complaints. It turns out she spends too much time telling children about the horrible events of the 20th century, in particular about the Holocaust — all in contradiction to the logically drawn school curriculum. She is deeply convinced that while one cannot talk too much about the genocide of the European Jews, it is way too easy not to say enough, not to warn and not to explain.

In 1994, film producer Patrick Sobelman recorded the testimony of his grandmother Golda Maria Tondovska, a Polish Jewish survivor of the Shoah.

Marianne and Pétion live in Haiti and wait impatiently for a call from their son in the USA. The promise of the American dream now seems to elude them, as the line between hope and reality becomes increasingly blurred.

Jeanne is taken by a group of resistance fighters to the place of her execution. During this journey to death, she reflects on the capricious destiny that led her there. From her childhood in her parents' butcher's shop at the dawn of the 20th century, to the years of wandering in Paris, her encounter with the intrepid Céleste, then her reunion with Guillaume de Barante, her adventures in the war, in Brazil or during the Roaring Twenties, to her fulfilled dream of becoming a countess. Jeanne has crossed the century like a long flight forward that is inexorably leading her towards her fall.

In Memphis, one of the USA’s most distressed city, the Stax Music Academy is an oasis. Founded in 2000, the academy continues the legacy of Stax Records, the legendary 60s soul label which was a refuge and an active space for dialog during the Civil Rights movement. By learning and understanding soul music in after school programs, teenagers embark into Black Americans legacy and open themselves to new future prospects. Soul Kids is a musical odyssey through history and the concerns of a new generation.

Houston, Texas. As a hurricane looms, Alexandra, Will and Nate fight to survive in a city that seems to devour people as well as dreams. In this atmosphere suspended in time, these characters live their lives between music, hallucinations and hopes for redemption.

‘Tunisia. A word I have trouble articulating, when I want to tell it to my son.’ Dhia, a 29-year-old filmmaker, left Tunisia after having taken part in the Revolution. Exiled to France, he’s worried about transmitting his stuttering to Elia, his two year old son. In his pursuit to overcome this challenge, Dhia embarks on a journey of hypnosis and speech therapy sessions. Yet, as these sessions unfold, it is evident that the issue isn’t managing a fluent speech so much as figuring how to talk to Elia about Tunisia, his home country.