Docs in Exile Film Festival 2021

An exploration into the creative process of native Hawaiian slam poet Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio, as her art is reinvigorated by her calling to protect sacred sites atop Mauna Kea, Hawai’i.

Sabine is looking for a missing image: a day that has left its mark forever and that everyone remembers but her. But maybe this absence is what allows her to move on with her life?

Three African American fathers – Josh, Mel and Dot – unravel the incomparable partnership of forgiveness and community with the help of their family, friends and faith.

Filmed decades apart on the same miniDV camcorder, “To Know Her” is a poetic exploration of the filmmaker’s relationship with her mother, who passed away when she was 14, due to clinical depression.

Snowy, a four-inch-long pet turtle, has lived an isolated life. With help from a team of experts and his caretaker, Uncle Larry, we ask: Can Snowy be happy, and what would it take?

“Some Kind of Heaven” explores life inside the palm-tree-lined streets of The Villages, America’s largest retirement community in Florida. Referred to as the “Disneyland for retirees,” this planned community is home to over 130,000 seniors, offering residents a utopian version of the American yesteryear.

This heart-wrenching documentary would be called expressionistic if it wasn’t so unintentionally real. Syrian artist Amel Alzakout documents her dramatic passage from Turkey to Greece via a camera affixed to her wrist, when the boat she is fleeing on suddenly sinks off the coast of Lesvos.

Ismail and Hakan start working at a gigantic all-inclusive hotel on the Turkish Riviera. As the friendship between the two boys grows stronger, it becomes clear how different they are.

Furkan, the youngest member of a Roma family living in Sweden, attempts to come to terms with the mysterious illness of his two sisters. Ibadeta and Djeneta have been in a coma-like state for several years, victims of what has been named the “resignation syndrome.”

“Ascension” is an impressionistic portrait of China’s industrial supply chain that reveals the country’s growing class divide through staggering observations of labor, consumerism and wealth. The documentary portrays capitalism in China across the levels of its operation, from the crudest mine to the most rarefied forms of leisure.

A powerful and anonymous man has developed an unusual hobby. He buys century-old trees, some as tall as 15-story buildings, from communities along the Georgian coast, and has them excavated to collect them for his private garden. This almost poetic act of bottomless egotism leaves everyone in a state of discomfort.

Take a journey back in time to meet the former stars of the post-war national Japanese women’s volleyball team. Now in their 70s, they used to be known as the “Witches of the Orient” because of their seemingly supernatural powers on the courts.

Drawing on letters written by Turkish philanthropist and intellectual Osman Kavala, “Letters from Silivri” conjures up a creative timeline of his imprisonment.

This surprising combination of fiction and documentary turns the spotlight on the struggles of an entire community that’s facing group eviction and what it means to have a home.

Images captured on the fly, images from the internet and images from the past expose the violence of the current conflict in the streets of Santiago de Chile, juxtaposed with the past.

As the sun sets on the banks of the River Severn, a group of men race to catch a vanishing creature, the elusive elver (baby eel), supposedly worth more than its weight in gold.

A moving and joyful time capsule of opera singer Marilyn Minns, an Alzheimer’s sufferer whose memories are increasingly fragmented, but remains resolutely hopeful.

Alongside referee Fedayi San, we experience the highs and lows of a football game, what it means to earn respect on the field and conduct the energy of an entire stadium like a true maestro.

Passionate and strong, Ivanna is a young Nenets woman and mother of five children. Raising them on her own in the harsh environment of the Arctic tundra, she lives according to Nenets traditions: Herding reindeer through the vast tundra in small nomadic communities, moving their houses on sleds and enduring extreme temperatures.