Clin d'oeil Films

Doaa el-Adl, the first woman to be awarded the esteemed Journalistic Distinction in Caricature, serves as a catalyst for transformation within the predominantly male-dominated realm of Egyptian political cartoonists. Challenging patriarchal norms, she routinely confronts censorship, harassment, and even threats to her life. In a remarkable fusion of documentary, cartoons, and animation, Egyptian director Nada Riyadh breathes life into el-Adl's most renowned works. This dynamic and fearless presentation delves into the issue of violence against women, stretching the boundaries of freedom of speech in a society often characterized by restrictions. Through her exceptional talent, el-Adl not only champions women's rights but also serves as an inspiration for societal change.

A Swedish mining giant, Boliden, is accused of having dumped 20000 tonnes of toxic waste in a poor neighborhood in a Chilean desert town.

In the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, Saor, a young androgynous Indian, carries a coffin. He is taking Valentina, his lover, back to her native village to bury her. When Valentina left this village years ago, before becoming a transgender singer in a faraway city, people here knew her as Pol. Valentina's past and death remain an enigma. Yet bit by bit, through his encounters with the people of the village, Saor begins to perceive what connected them to Pol. Sensitive to the world around him, Saor, like a Shaman, enters their memories. Saor starts to understand that, like all homosexuals persecuted by Shining Path terrorists, Pol lived in terror. In the village cemetery, between rage and bitterness, Saor attends the burial of Valentina's body. A ceremony that is both a burial and an exhumation.

The Belgian filmmaker Manu Bonmariage, known as the spiritual father of the Striptease show, now has Alzheimer's at 76. Although his memory plays tricks on him, his daughter Emmanuelle goes back in time to portray a direct cinema filmmaker who was always close to the characters he so loved to film.

In the Philippines, women get deployed abroad to work as domestic workers or nannies. In one of the many training centers dedicated to domestic work, a group of trainees are getting ready to face both homesickness and the possible abuses lying ahead during a series of role-playing exercises.

Teresa and Ornella are sisters utterly devoted to one another despite a deeply buried secret between them.

After the fall of Assad’s regime, five survivors return to the former torture prison of Saidnaya to reenact what they experienced there during their incarceration. They reclaim their voices and bear witness for those who can no longer speak for themselves.

In Russia, criticizing the war in Ukraine or Vladimir Putin’s regime has become a crime. Thousands of ordinary citizens are being arrested, tried, and imprisoned. They are called “Politzek”: political prisoners. Filmed clandestinely over the course of more than a year, Politzek gives a platform to those who, despite the fear, continue to speak out against Putin’s repressive Russia. Through the intersecting stories of a teenager sentenced to five years in prison for criticizing the government on social media, a young artist jailed for placing anti-war stickers, a human rights activist, and two theater directors facing Kafkaesque trials, the film unveils the machinery of state repression in Russia. With rare footage, broken yet unyielding voices, this is a story of silenced resistance.

Two young paramedic women, Cuba and Alaska, live on the edge in the war-torn Kharkiv region. Their mission is to save lives while sharing good humor, and belief in victory.

The Amazon flows lazily through the goldmine-gashed landscape of northern Peru. Using real eyewitness accounts, directors Bénédicte Liénard and Mary Jiménez tell the story of a young woman who winds up in the clutches of forced prostitution when her initially hopeful attempt to escape the constrictions of her village goes wrong. Step by step, she is robbed of her moral and physical integrity. The film reconstitutes a space of dignity and returns voice and identity to a fate formally made nameless. With its powerful imagery, the girl’s traumatic odyssey embodies the destruction of life in a capitalist world in connection with horrific natural devastation.

Mr. McArevey is a visionary headmaster at a Catholic primary school in one of the toughest neighborhoods of Belfast, Northern Ireland. He loves Elvis and teaches his students to connect with their feelings, while taking on the legacies of the “The Troubles.” In this exceptional portrait of a community still healing from trauma, we follow this educator extraordinaire as he uses Ancient Greek wisdom as an antidote for pessimism, violence, and historical despair.

An intimate and vital account of love and friendship within a group of youngsters. They live in a complex, contradictory, and isolated world – the self-proclaimed state of Transnistra, where the national flag still holds the hammer and sickle. Tanya plans to move abroad, however future seems to offer frighteningly limited possibilities for her lovestruck friends.

A devoted soldier of the Taliban's ideology that has shaped his destiny since birth, Samim (23) struggles between the alluring promises of martyrdom and the mundanity of his daily existence as a husband and farmer. Samim's younger brother, Rafi (14), idolizes his big brother as he navigates the confusion of adolescence, leaving behind playfulness to enter a world shaped by decades of military intervention and resulting radicalization.

In the remote mountains of central Afghanistan, a Hazara family embarks on a journey for truth and justice after their daughter Zahra mysteriously dies at Kabul University. Told through the eyes of Zahra's younger sister, Freshta, the film is a moving contemplation of love, loss, and perseverance in spite of increasing unrest on the eve of the Taliban takeover of the country.

Although scientists and agribusiness have started touting edible insects as the future of sustainable food, the notion of eating bugs hasn’t exactly gained much popularity among the general public. Head Chef Ben Reade and Lead Researcher Josh Evans from the Nordic Food Lab in Denmark are looking to change that. With a focus on food diversity and deliciousness, they set out on a globe-trotting mission to take on the politics of the palate, sampling grubs in the Australian outback, pillaging giant wasp nests in Japan and attending food expos where entrepreneurs pitch their flavorless farmed crickets. Along the way, they put their own haute cuisine spin on local insect delicacies, whipping up dishes like cricket and grasshopper ravioli, maggot cheese gelato and bee larva ceviche.

After surviving ISIS prisons as a child, Rashid has been reunited with his family in Sinjar, northwestern Iraq. Now a teenager, the young Yazidi dreams of a brighter future. But peace is fragile, and hatred against his community is resurfacing.

Ben Felten (51), who as a teenager was diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease that left him completely blind in his mid-thirties. Despite his visual impairment, he wants to fulfill his childhood dream: top-level motorcycle racing.

When a vast solar park is built in the desert, gradually transforming the landscape, a nomadic Berber tribe is forced to abandon its centuries-old way of life.

How does one grow up on a planet that is destroying itself? Filmmaker Pieter Van Eecke provides a possible response to this urgent question. For four years, he has followed the beautiful and mischievous friendship between Bo and Luca, two teenagers who are as enthusiastic in their ecological activism as in their experience of the contradictory and surprising travails of growing up.

Laosan, a young family man, spends all his time smoking opium. For his community, lost in the heart of the Laotian jungle, opium farming is the only way to survive. But opium is also the poison that puts men to sleep and kills their desires.