Document Film Festival Saturday Shorts Programme

This year’s shorts programme demonstrates a huge amount of innovative style, untold stories, new insight - always in an impressively short space of time.

All of our shorts are free and unticketed

1pm Children of War: A Human Rights Anthology
In 2017, Oscar-winning director Terry George (Hotel Rwanda) challenged filmmakers across the world to tell a human rights story important to them. There were two conditions: the film had to be 60 seconds and it could have no dialogue. Creative Armenia has anthologised a few of these visions in this short film about the effects of war on children across the world.

2pm The Girls Club
Every Saturday, around 60 children gather at the primary school of Chicunguluine, in Mozambique. They dance, sing, play and enjoy together. Moreover they learn to express their opinion, take decisions and defend themselves, in case of any untoward situation.

3pm Home
Muna Alkurd is forced to share half of her house with Israeli settlers. Nayef Abassi can’t get a building permit for his house and his animals' barn has been demolished. The pressure of the occupation is very present for both young Palestinians. Yet they feel at home in East Jerusalem and they are trying to build a future for themselves in the city where they were born. They have similar ambitions as their peers elsewhere in the world, but when all policies are aimed at getting you out of the city, building a future in East Jerusalem becomes an act of resistance.

4pm There Are No Syrian Refugees In Turkey
Refugees attempting to enter the European Union play a specific role in the relation between the EU and Turkey. The EU border regime is responsible for tens of thousands of drownings in the Mediterranean, while Turkey has opened its borders to nearly three million refugees, more than all EU states combined. The film channels voices of Syrian refugees who preferred not to seek a way into the EU, choosing to continue their lives in Istanbul instead. The Syrians describe their life as “guests” in the continent's largest metropolis. One thing they discuss at length is the difficulty of making a living in Istanbul. Another is the reluctance of the EU to admit more than a pitiful number of refugees. Quietly reversing the entire perspective of the “refugee debate”, the film develops a political analysis of Turkish and European politics from the standpoint of Syrian refugees.

5pm Paper, Horses, and Birds
The documentary Paper, Horse and Birds follows a day in the life of a Roma family, who collect secondary raw materials and live in Niš. The film follows their activities – collection and division of scrap metal and waste paper, a family lunch and their everyday discussions, which helps us to understand how they make ends meet and what their hardships are. Despite the de facto difficult financial situation, we see a complex family with solidarity and warm interpersonal relations.