OVERCAST - An Investigation into Climate

EngineeringOVERCAST is a groundbreaking documentary about a phenomenon that most of us would consider normal: Jet contrails that spread into clouds, covering the sky and blocking the sun. For some people however, these trails are the biggest environmental crime in the history of mankind.

Based on ideas first outlined in 1974, scientists have developed the basic technology necessary for climate control. Jet planes would be deployed, dispersing large amounts of harmful chemicals into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space.

However, what if this technology known as geoengineering has already been fully implemented for many years, with neither public consent, nor disclosure? Are the jet trails and the whitened skies that we see today the result of such a geoengineering program?

Director Biography

Matthias Hancke was born in January 1980 in Brig Switzerland. He studied History, Media Science and Anthropology focusing on moviemaking at the University of Bern. From 2009 on he has worked professionally on his second movie OVERCAST, after he had observed the phenomenon in February 2008. In the meantime he worked with an exceptional passion and discipline on the finishing of the movie and met numerous well-known scientists and experts in this field, which gave him an extensive and differentiated insight into the phenomenon. 2010 he won an award for his short movie “Unknown”.

Specifications

Film Type:Documentary, Feature

Runtime:1 hour 20 minutes

Completion Date:October 9, 2015

Production Budget:85,000 USD

Country of Origin:Switzerland

Country of Filming:Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States

Film Language:English, French, German

Refugee Kids: One Small School Takes On the World

Refugee Kids: One Small School Takes On the World is a short documentary that follows students at a New York City summer program for children seeking asylum from the world’s most volatile conflicts. The film presents an intimate, emotionally gripping account of the students’ stories of escaping war and conflict and resettling in America, chronicling their triumphs and setbacks as their lives unfold over the course of one formative summer. Refugee Kids humanizes complex geopolitics and depict the challenges and urgency of immigration to America in an increasingly dangerous – and interconnected – world.

Director Biography

Renée is a news and documentary producer whose work has been distributed theatrically and broadcast on the major networks including PBS, ARD and ZDF German Public Television Networks, the BBC, Channel Four, UK and NHK among others where she has produced hundreds of reports including an award winning 3-part feature series on global warming in Alaska for German NOVA. She has also covered countless breaking news stories from 9/11 to Eric Garner. Having started her career as an assistant to feature film director, Jerry Schatzberg, she has also written, produced and directed two award winning short dramatic films, Other Islands and Deep Water.

Specifications

Film Type:Documentary

Genres:Human Rights, Immigration, Education, Children

Runtime:39 minutes 40 seconds

Completion Date:March 1, 2014

Production Budget:90,000 USD

Country of Origin:United States

Country of Filming:United States

Film Language:English

KIDS OF CARNAVAL

Кids of Carnaval shows art and life of the children of the samba schools. The documentary goes into the heart of the schools in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo to follow in the footsteps of children who dance samba from beginning to stand. Shows the formation and dreams of these "dancers".

Specifications

Film Type:Documentary

Runtime:1 hour 12 minutes 34 seconds

Completion Date:November 25, 2015

Production Budget:80,000 USD

Country of Origin:Brazil

Country of Filming:Brazil

Film Language:Portuguese

Drachinzeit, a rite of passage

Independent documentary film "Drachinzeit" about female coming-of-age

"Drachinzeit`` a rite of passage, is an independent documentary film, which shows the coming-of-age of 8 girls on the verge of womanhood and take the awkwardness of puberty and transform it into beauty. During six months, the German film maker Sil Egger accompanied teenage girls on their journey involving several encounters in which they are consciously working towards becoming young women, guided by a female community. Step by step they grow in confidence, learn to set their personal boundaries and discover their own femininity. In a final ceremony, they say goodbye to their childhood. It is a journey full of mixed emotions and surprises.

Specifications

Film Type:Documentary

Runtime:1 hour 19 minutes

Completion Date:October 1, 2015

Production Budget:15,000 EUR

Country of Origin:Germany

Country of Filming:Germany

Unlearning

As normal families, we both worked 8 hours a day, our little girl was at school until 4 PM and when it came dinner time when we can finally get together, we sadly figured out that we were simply too tired and we just ended up talking about mortgage and bills or how we would have arranged the next … “survival” day!

This is currently a very common pattern and we followed it for too long, sharing it with most of Italian families, every single day of our life. We got aware that with our own daily choices, we’ve contributed to legitimate a “good practice” schema that it’s slowly drowning us towards a lifestyle, that we are unconsciously passing it as an indisputable truth to our children.

Director Biography

Before Unlearning, he was director of commercials and documentaries (on TV broadcasters e.g. Comedy Central, MTV, etc.), and his own bizarre video clips. When it came to more complex situations, he joined as a camera assistant, or director’s 1st assistant. In the Unlearing project, he’s the “factotum” for all audio-video issues.

Specifications

Film Type:Documentary

Genres:Documentary

Runtime:1 hour 13 minutes

Completion Date:June 1, 2015

Country of Origin:Italy

Country of Filming:Austria, Italy

Film Language:English, German, Italian

Russian Face

My mother was born in Moscow to a family of a physics professor but chose to become a painter. I did not get to choose and grew up in Jerusalem as an immigrant’s daughter in a home that doubled as a studio. When I was a child I wished my mother would work in an office, and that we would have no financial worries. Two years ago with a camera in hand I found myself following in her footsteps. Today I ask myself: Is it possible to be an artist and a good parent simultaneously?

Director Biography

I was born in Jerusalem in 1985 and grew up in a family of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. My first significant cinematic experience took place at the Jerusalem Cinematheque where I used to go every week to watch movies: domestic and international, contemporary and old. In 2010 after my military service and some traveling abroad, I enrolled in the film program at Sapir College in Israel. My primary focus was on documentary film. My interest in the documentary movie grew from a sense of curiosity about people in my life, and it allowed me to explore new angles to represent reality. In 2012 I attended KINO, a workshop and Film Festival in France. As a school project I edited Raz Badu’s film; "One Night Jaffa" which was awarded the first prize in Cinema South International Festival in 2014. Today I am an assistant director in the newsroom of Channel 99 of the Israeli TV.

Specifications

Film Type:Documentary, Short, Student

Genres:Family, Imagration, Art

Runtime:30 hours

Completion Date:June 10, 2015

Production Budget:12,000 USD

Country of Origin:Israel

Country of Filming:Israel, Russian Federation

Film Language:Hebrew, Russian

Atuel water´s memory

For more than sixty years, the residents of the west of La Pampa have been suffering a process of desertification of their region. After the construction of the dam “El Nihuil” in San Rafael, Mendoza, in 1947, the Atuel river´s flow was interrupted before entering the province of La Pampa. While the South of Mendoza obtained access to water irrigation, the West of La Pampa began a process of impoverishment, which was reflected on its residents´ life. The interviewees express how is like to live with the idea of a river that belong to them but that haven´t ever seen flowing uninterruptedly, and explain the problems they had to deal with during those years and the consequences of the lost memory of water of new generations. Despite water was declared a Human Right by the United Nations, there is still a great controversy between those who consider water as a commodity and those who consider that the principal use of water should be to sustain life. As a consequence, sixty years from its beginning, the Atuel river´s case is a conflict that continues without resolution.

Director Biography

Valeria Tochi is a documentary filmmaker and cinematographer.

Specifications

Film Type:Documentary

Runtime:30 minutes

Completion Date:June 6, 2014

Production Budget:6,000 USD

Country of Origin:Argentina

Country of Filming:Argentina

Film Language:Spanish