Clin d'oeil Films

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.

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.

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.

In a drought-struck region in India, suffering from climate change and a high suicide rate amongst farmers, a group of resilient women farmers, who recently lost their husbands, is coming together with a local psychologist to learn counselling and help others in grief.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In Bolivia, the glaciers are melting. Samuel, an old ski lift operator, is looking out of a window on the rooftop of the world. Through generations his family lived and worked in the snowy mountains, but now snow fails. While scientists are discussing and measuring ominous changes Samuel honors the ancient mountain spirits. Clouds continue to drift by.

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.

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.

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

Amany Al-Ali stands out as one of Syria's few female cartoonists, residing in her father's home in Idlib, the last city unconquered by Assad's forces. Like her remaining neighbours she's submitted to relentless Russian airstrikes and caught between advancing troops and extremist groups. Despite acclaim for her art, she faces threats, condemnation, and degradation, causing her to contemplate leaving. Ironically, her artwork has graced galleries in France and Italy but never received exposure within Syria's borders. The film captures her endeavor to organize her inaugural exhibition in Idlib. This experience compels her to confront the harsh realities of a city defined by bombings and male interference. While organizing drawing lessons for women and girls, comforting her young niece, and sharing her story with the documentary crew, Amany's outlook on the future gradually erodes.

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.

A portrait of an honour killing in the rural Kurdish Southeast of Turkey. 22-year-old Dilan pays for her forbidden love for a young man in a neighbouring village with her life. She has shamed the family and therefore must die at the hands of her own brothers. And as tradition will have it, the killing must be compensated.

This film is an African “Boyhood” that gives an insight to the political and historical situation of Burundi throughout the last 24 years through the eyes of six street children that now have become adults.