Deep in Mali, on the edge of the Sahel Desert, lies the peaceful city of Gao—a quiet way station for passersby with their eyes set on Europe in hopes of opportunity, safety and a better future.

Once described by the press as "one of the most controversial figures on the Australian art scene", avant-garde poet and playwright Christopher Barnett achieved a level of notoriety in the Melbourne underground theatre scene during the ‘70s and ‘80s, before self-exiling to France. He remains there today, running an experimental theatre lab working with the marginalised and underprivileged, applauded by the establishment (including former French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault) and faithful to his belief that art can change the world. These Heathen Dreams is an intimate portrait of Barnett's life and revolutionary philosophy. Combining archival footage dating back to the ‘60s with contemporary observational documentation and text from Barnett's writings, it is a poignant and inspiring study of the power of both art and political activism.

Using their bare hands, married couple Htwe Tin and Thein Shwe draw oil from a pit they drilled themselves on the land next to their house. There are lots of these “artisanal” oilfields dotted around Myanmar, where people have swapped crop cultivation for selling the oil they pump from the ground by hand.

In the land of the Zapatistas, Augusto Pinochet, and Fidel Castro, what are the stories Latin Americans have been telling to confront their troubled past? The film travels to 5 Latin American cities, to meet with famous crime novelists Leonardo Padura (Havana), Luis Sepulveda (Santiago), Paco Ignacio Taibo II (Mexico City), Santiago Roncagliolo (Lima) and Claudia Pineiro (Buenos Aires). Through their stories, we discover a unique genre of flourishing literature, strikingly different from its North American or Nordic counterparts: it's political, dark, and crimes are committed by the state itself.

An extraordinary journey through the material that makes up our habitat: concrete and its ancestor, stone. Victor Kossakovsky raises a fundamental question: how do we inhabit the world of tomorrow?

Six years ago, Charity Jimohe left Nigeria for France. After ten months of forced prostitution to pay off a debt of 35,000 euros contracted with the traffickers who had brought her here, she walked through the door of a police station in Nantes to denounce the members of her prostitution ring.

Rachita Taneja, creator of SANITARY PANELS, a popular stick figure cartoon series known for its sharp socio-political commentary, has captivated young, liberal Indians. In December 2020, she faced legal prosecution for three of her cartoons, prompting a need for extreme caution not only in her art but also in her involvement in this documentary. The challenges and uncertainties they encounter during filming strengthen the bond between Rachita and the filmmaker, fostering introspection on their beliefs, privileges, and inner struggles. The wait for the legal outcome adds stress, hindering Rachita's work. She seeks guidance and support from like-minded individuals dedicated to amplifying their voices. The film explores Rachita's inner world and her creative expression, depicting a dystopian narrative where freedom of speech rapidly erodes. This documentary showcases the resilience of a young Indian woman facing persecution and censorship with humor and unflinching honesty.

Artist Victoria Lomasko explores the link between domestic and state-sponsored violence in midst of an impending crisis. Having fled Russia in 2022, she embarked on a mural project depicting events since the protest-filled winter of 2021.

As well as providing the subject for Luc Besson’s The Big Blue, Jacques Mayol did more than anyone to establish the sport of free diving to enormous depths without an oxygen supply. Using breathing techniques derived from yoga, he went to 50, 60, and even 100 meters—depths no one had considered to be within the bounds of human possibility. Mayol was a sportsman, a mystic, a vagabond, but above all, a man who believed in testing the limits of experience. This visually stunning tribute shows a man’s quest to be at one with the vastness of the ocean and to have no fear of the abyss within, where lurks serenity, freedom and finally, death.

A group of young women from Ouagadougou study at a girl school to become auto mechanics. The classmates become their port of safety, joy and sisterhood, all while they are going through the life changing transition into becoming adults in a country boiling with political changes. In a country with youth unemployment at 52 percent, jobs are a hot issue. The young girls at a mechanics school in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou are right in the middle of a crucial point in life when their dreams, hopes and courage are confronted with opinions, fears and society’s expectations of what a woman should be. Using interesting narrative solutions, Theresa Traore Dahlberg depicts their last school years and at the same time succeeds in showing the country’s violent past and present. This is a feature-film debut and coming-of-age film with much warmth, laughs, heartbreak and depth.

Or 'Coming out of the Closet' as it means in Cameroon, is a criminal offence for the country's homosexuals. But Alice, a bold and intrepid lawyer, is standing alone to defend them. Ostracised by their families and imprisoned by their government, the people that Alice defends can only lead half lives in their own country. This heartbreaking documentary exposes their desperate search for acceptance.

33-years old Tamás Merthner is heartbroken, after his girlfriend Anna, who is on a scholarship in Paris, breaks up with him. While wallowing in self-pity, Tamás takes a trip down memory lane to figure out if love only exists when it's practically gone. As he's trying to pick up the pieces, he begins to realize what makes this current society so confused, which gives us a highly subjective view of Hungary's present.

Through a vast coverage of exclusive archive materials and interviews and personally narrated by his wife, Yelena Bonner, the story of the life of Andrei Sakharov, the most famous Soviet dissident, Nobel Peace Prize winner and the creator of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, is revealed.

When Lyudmila Ivanova made her infamous claim during a US-Soviet TV programme in 1986 that ‘There is no sex in the USSR!’, her comment – although roundly mocked at the time – revealed a certain truth about Soviet attitudes towards sex and the ways in which it was controlled by the regime, rendering it largely invisible. With this documentary, the director takes us through 70 years of Soviet history to highlight the interplay between sex, politics and society and the changing meanings attached to sex and sexuality under different General Secretaries.

Award-winning Lithuanian documentary filmmaker Vytautas Puidokas’s new film tells the story of a rehabilitation centre on an abandoned farm. It’s a refuge for troubled recovering addicts and former prisoners hoping for one last chance at a normal life. It is run by Žanas, a former addict who has turned his life around through nature and religion. One day, a 14-year-old boy named Matas joins the farm, seeking solace from his own childhood trauma. Together they begin to confront his past.