Docs showing at this year’s Festival

Pioneering black dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey earned his place in cultural history through tireless and boundary-breaking hard work and his unique perspective on dance, infusing his work with African-American and diaspora culture and history.

This exquisitely observed and beautifully paced film follows 18-year-old Ismail and 25-year-old Hakan as they leave their village for the first time to start working in a huge all-inclusive hotel on the Turkish Riviera.

Veteran filmmaker Alice Schmid comes to terms with being a victim of sexual abuse at the age of 16, an event that she has managed to erase entirely from her memory until recently. Now, fifty years later, the repressed experience has made its way back into her consciousness.

Cinema has been pushing boundaries as an art form for more than a century, including often uncomfortable boundaries between actors and directors, particularly in films of a sexual nature.

This masterfully observed film documents the events that took place in Romania when Colectiv, a Bucharest nightclub, burned down, killing 36 people and wounding numerous others, many of whom died later, not as a result of their burns but due to bacterial infection in state hospitals.

The Colonel’s Stray Dogs is both a personal journey of discovery for a son and a look into the machinations of liberation, and in its own way, asks questions about the personal cost of activism.

The world of stock breeders, a physically demanding occupation where sheer will and determination are required.

Cuban Dancer chronicles the life of young dancer Alexis Valdez, first in his home country of Cuba, and then in Miami, after his family emigrates to the USA, where he is forced to adjust and adapt his dance style to different cultural and technical demands.

This heartrending film documents the last four years of the life of director Melanie Chait’s partner, theatre director Nancy Duiguid, as she fought breast cancer.

This documentary about Cape Town’s Zip Zap Circus is as charming, entertaining, and heartfelt as one of the social circus’s performance events. As a social circus, Zip Zap trains young people, often from the most impoverished areas of Cape Town, and encourages them to realise that anything is possible and embrace their dreams.

A surreal experience that Paul finds himself in and through its music, edits and personal shots beautifully captures an image of a separated family and a lonely man.

In The Doll, a conflicted father consults his family on whether he should agree to let his 14-year-old daughter get married.

For six days in June 2000, a bloody war was waged in the city of Kisangani, located in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo, as troops from neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda fought for control of the region?s mining wealth.

The Endless Chain depicts an all-boys school in Wynberg, Cape Town, which breeds generations of young men in a close connection of brotherhood, brand loyalty and pride.

According to Ethiopian Sufi legend, khat, a leaf that produces a stimulant effect when chewed, was a gift from God to a Sufi imam in search of eternity.

Flee tells the true story of Amin, who was forced to leave Afghanistan as a child – but without his father – and who eventually ended up in Copenhagen, where he lives with the man he plans to marry.

A Friendly Man is a compelling story about a lifelong quest to belong and be accepted. All through his life, Joza Wilf has battled with feelings of loneliness and worthlessness.

Glass Negatives is a journey about the memory, history and lifetimes of Polish civilians during wartimes.

Balolé, the Golden Wolf provides a portrait of a community working in a quarry in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, where about 2,500 people, including young children, spend their days breaking large rocks into stones and gravel.

A striking look at nature conservation and how it affects the local communities.

This powerful film offers a portrait of 98-year-old Polish Holocaust survivor Ella Blumenthal.

In this tender but powerful film, Samuel, a gay Kenyan man, has to balance his duty to his family with his love for his partner, Alex, in a country where their relationship is criminalised.

I Don?t Feel at Home Anywhere Anymore chronicles the annual visit of a student returning home for the holidays to China from her studies in Belgium

An in-depth and highly intimate look at the experience of albinism through the eyes of Maryregina Ndlovu, an activist who has made it her personal mission to make albinism and albino people more visible in society and the media.

In Inside Out, members of a Western Cape dance company turn themselves inside out and display their passion, love and enthusiasm for dance.

It Takes a Circus: Juggling Life on a Tightrope follows a circus squad in Trenton, New Jersey, where students in the area and from the surrounding suburbs meet, learn tricks and perform after school.

In It’s Not Enough, a group of single mothers living in Dunoon, Cape Town, discuss their monthly struggles to provide for their families on a government SASSA child support grant.

Jeannette Makes Masks tells the story of a black female entrepreneur who during the beginning of the Covid pandemic, was faced with hunger as her shop was unable to make an income.

This fascinating film brings a fresh perspective and a new narrative to the Khoekhoe herders of South Africa, exploring the territories and historical events surrounding various breakaway groups such as the Hessequas, the Namaquas, and the Griquas, and interviewing their descendants.

King Bansah and His Daughter explores and challenges roles, expectations, and boundaries, while acknowledging the universal desire for belonging and a sense of home.

A uniquely intimate insight into the plight of West African migrants, The Last Shelter is concerned not with macro political conflicts, but with the lives of those affected.

Compassionate in how it captures its subjects and evocative in its editing, Lefu – The Funeral deals with one of the many devastating realities of the coronavirus pandemic.

Leviticus 19:34 reveals a city through the musings, interactions and explorations of a stranger. F

The story follows six-year-old Nawar Taliep, who represents the future generations that Sense Togieda Flowers hopes to nurture in order to develop strong characters.

A brief story about the art and crafts of the Cantabrian forefathers and their successors.

Beautifully crafted, in a time of non-stop living, the Max Richter’s Sleep is a reminder to slow down and to listen.

The Men who Speak Gayle explores the history of the gay community in Cape Town and the conditions that people who identified with being gay had to endure during that era, whilst it also provides a sharp contrast to the much more favourable conditions of openly gay men today.

Octogenarian widower Sergio is recruited to go undercover at a Chilean old age nursing home, serving as the eyes and ears of a private eye hired to investigate the care its residents receive.

This forensic documentary chronicles activist and investigative journalist Evelyn Groenink’s 30-year-long quest to get to the bottom of the murder of Dulcie September, the Chief Representative of the African Nation Congress in France at the time, in Paris in March 1988.

This dense but carefully paced film provides an impressionistic portrait of hip-hop juggernaut Isaac Mutant – a member of Dookoom and Koloured Ass Krooks and an MC in his own right – and the Cape Flats community he lives in.

With exceptional camera work and a striking eye for detail, Mutts is a captivating story about a refuge for stray dogs in Morocco.

This unique film chronicles the destruction of an abandoned train station in Zurich and the construction of a new prison and police centre in its place.

The story of The Ocean is told from the perspective of two different types of fishermen who have dedicated their lives to this craft.

“Phefumla” follows Loyiso Dunga, a marine scientist from one of South Africa’s most infamous townships, as he embarks on an opportunity of a lifetime.

A juxtaposition of elegant cinematography and sensitive storytelling with raw truths about today’s South Africa.

This gripping documentary from Camilla Nielssen, who gave us 2016’s Democrats, chronicles the 2018 Zimbabwe election in remarkable detail.

Red Card follows three women from the Comoros national women’s basketball team as they train for the 2019 Indian Ocean Island Games.

A shocking preview into the survival of the Hibakusha.

All captured observationally within the moment, the Sabay offers a chilling and striking view into the on-the-ground horrors of the Syrian conflict.

Sapelo tells the story of the Bailey dynasty, from steely matriarch Cornelia to young JerMarkest and Johnathan, living on the unique American island of Sapelo.

Schools Shut Down is an incredibly insightful documentary that draws our attention to the life of a young, determined matriculant from Orange Farm.

Charismatic 25-year-old Ghofrane Binous dreams of becoming a politician and being able to have an influence on the future of Tunisia.

Shepherds is a curious account of the correctional services system in Lesotho, looking at a prison and the detainees who are shepherds for the penitentiary.

Sifa follows Chris-Anne Sifa and her mother Riziama, refugees from the DRC, who fled the conflict in their homeland when Sifa was 10 years old.

A journey to find out the truth of ones family history spanning over 14 years and 2 continents.

An ‘invisible’ camera follows a pack of stray dogs through the streets of Istanbul, providing a profile of the city through their eyes.

Street Dogs is an absorbing, character-driven documentary focusing on the lived realities of waste reclaimers in Cape Town.

Suñu Ekool follows Babacar ‘Bouba’ Camara, a 51-year-old former construction worker who, after 15 years of working in Switzerland, returned home to Dakar, Senegal, to found a private elementary school called Adja Nene Soukho

Taking off the Mask follows the story of Isak Saas, a wrongfully incarcerated prisoner who speaks out about the life-scarring incident of how he was repeatedly raped while awaiting trial.

This emotionally powerful and politically important film looks at the largely unexplored intersection of Christianity, colonialism and homophobia in Africa, and specifically in Botswana, where it follows a queer human-rights organisation’s fight to decriminalize same-sex relations in the country’s constitution.

Toilets to Let provides a bold account of the lack of dignity society affords the poor, by degrading and devaluing even their most basic human needs.

Trade Secrets sheds a sensitive, honest spotlight on the destructive drug trade across Africa.

The Voice Break Choir follows a group of young pubescent choir boys in Sweden struggling to reclaim their masculinity as their voices become deeper and simple childhood days fade away.

An insightful portrait of contemporary India and the lives of its poorest citizens.

Wavelengths beautifully documents conversations between volunteers and callers of a womxn-support hotline at a time when reaching out and bridging new distances has become increasingly difficult.

For more than a century, South Africa was the world’s largest producer of gold, more of the precious metal having been extracted from its reserves than in the rest of the world combined. Today, however, many of these mines have closed and new waves of migrants are entering the abandoned but unsealed mine shafts to scavenge for the remaining gold.

Focusing on Mozambique, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), and Zambia, We Rise for Our Land seeks to address these issues and gain an understanding of why activists continue to be harassed by the state despite the existence of numerous legal frameworks that promise and promote basic human dignity.

This highly engaging feature debut tells the story of Khabar Lahariya, India’s only all-female newspaper, as it makes the transition to digital in order to increase its reach

A gripping on-the-ground account of the early days of the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan, Wuhan Wuhan balances the urgency and tension of observational footage filmed within emergency rooms and field hospitals with a gentle, intimate, and human look into the day-to-day life of its citizens as the city is shut down.

A breathtaking piece of poetry in motion.

Located in the heart of the Sahel, Zinder is Niger’s second largest city and home to numerous unemployed youths who are swelling the ranks of violent gangs.