Zonta2016

The danger is palpable as intrepid young filmmaker Nanfu Wang follows maverick activist Ye Haiyan (a.k.a Hooligan Sparrow) and her band of colleagues to Hainan Province in southern China, to protest the case of six elementary school girls who were sexually abused by their principal.

As both a business woman and a long-time professional photographer, Robin Hauser Reynolds, Director/Producer, brings her creative eye and leadership skills to this documentary that exposes the dearth of American female and minority software engineers, and explores the reasons for this gender gap.

Selvi, like so many girls living within India’s patriarchal culture, is forced to marry at a young age, only to find herself in a violent and abusive marriage. One day in deep despair, she chooses to escape, going to a highway with the intention of throwing herself under the wheels of a bus.

If 18-year old Sonita had a say in things, Michael Jackson would be her father and Rihanna her mother. She captures her dream of being a famous rapper in her scrapbook. For the time being, her only fans are the other teenage girls in a Tehran shelter. There, Sonita, a refugee from Afghanistan, gets counseling for the traumas she has suffered and guidance in shaping her future.

Seal hunting, a critical part of Inuit life, has been controversial for a long time. Now, a new generation of Inuit, armed with social media and their own sense of humour and justice, are challenging the anti-sealing groups and bringing their own voices into the conversation.

At “Fifi’s”, a hair salon owned by a Christian Arab in Haifa, Iris Zaki installs a minimalist film set over the sink, where she converses with the clients she’s shampooing. She thus paints an unexpected choral portrait of this space that provides temporary freedom; where women share their differences and/or a community of views on politics, history and love.

This documentary follows the personal journeys of three former “comfort women” who were among the 200,000 girls and young women kidnapped and forced into military sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II.

Downstream from a De Beers diamond mine, the remote community of Attawapiskat lurches from crisis to crisis, while facing mounting environmental issues and an inability to directly benefit from resource revenues.

8% No Limit is a journey documentary that is both a window and a mirror into blindness as we step into the mind of a blind ultrarunner reflecting a life bound by disability. An exploration of dark and light, of boundaries, perceived limits and death to the left at every footfall.