Director: sourav sarangi.

Meet Rubel, fourteen years old boy smuggling rice from India to Bangladesh. He has to cross the river Ganga acting as the international border. The same river eroded his home in mainland India when he was just four. Years later a fragile island called Char was formed within the large river. Rubel, with his family and many homeless people settled in this barren field controlled by the border police. He dreams of going his old school in India but reality forces him to smuggle stuff to Bangladesh. But he fights on while monsoon clouds arrive inviting the flood, the river swells up again. 'Char may disappear but we won’t, smiles the boy.Meet Rubel, fourteen years old boy smuggling rice from India to Bangladesh. He has to cross the river Ganga acting as the international border. The same river eroded his home in mainland India when he was just four. Years later a fragile island called Char was formed within the large river. Rubel, with his family and many homeless people settled in this barren field controlled by the border police. He dreams of going his old school in India but reality forces him to smuggle stuff to Bangladesh. But he fights on while monsoon clouds arrive inviting the flood, the river swells up again. 'Char may disappear but we won’t, smiles the boy.

trailer link: http://vimeo.com/27704517

 

Director: Shashwati Talukdar and P. Kerim Friedman.
Over 60 million Indians belong to communities imprisoned by the British as "criminals by birth." The Chhara of Ahmedabad, in Western India, are one of 198 such "Criminal Tribes." Declaring that they are "born actors," not "born criminals," a group of Chhara youth have turned to street theater in their fight against police brutality, corruption, and the stigma of criminality — a stigma internalized by their own grandparents. 'Please Don't Beat Me, Sir!' follows the lives of these young actors and their families as they take their struggle to the streets, hoping their plays will spark a revolution.

Director: Roman Shumunov.
This is a story about the solitude of the new immigrants and their endless struggle to survive, to be accepted and to be a part of Israeli society. Andrei, the protagonist, a new immigrant from the former Soviet Union, discovers that in order to save his sick father’s life he must buy an expensive drug that is well beyond his means. At the same time, Andrei and his two best friends, Zura and Marat, also living alone in the country, try to achieve their dream to be heard and understood via their poesy music. Andrei decides to get the money for the medicine his father so desperately needs at all costs.

Director: Pierre Yves Clouin.
Once Mars is colonized, we must go to Alpha Centauri. - Ray Bradbury

Director: Matt Taabu.
Rafik and Ibrahim, two Kurdish brothers with very different outlooks, struggle to shape their lives in a new world far from home. Rafik does what he can to survive. Ibrahim seeks solace in tradition as he works towards achieving his dream. When their actions collide, it’s up to them to come to terms with their differences. Brotherhood is about the choices we make that define who we are.

Director: Polly Guentcheva.
The story of a father and his young son placed in an unusual situation. They find themselves alone at Christmas Eve and have to celebrate without their wife and mother. Both they try to rediscover hope and the path to each other. Pushed to the wall, mixed up and filled with contradictions, the man will recognize himself as a father figure for the first time in his life. The boy will reveal his true inner essence to his Dad and the Father in heaven. This night is a revelation for their spirit and mind. A healing of souls and finding hope for being a family.

Director: Elise Kermani.
In Sophocles' play "Oedipus Rex" Jocasta hangs herself shortly after finding out that Oedipus is both her husband and son. In Euripides' play "The Phoenician Women", Jocasta stays alive a little bit longer to try and reconcile her sons but stabs herself shortly after they kill each other during the war at Thebes. But in Kermani's film "Jocasta", Jocasta stays alive after her sons' mutual murders to perform a sacrifice to save Thebes, and to satiate Ares' ancient fury of Kadmos' slaying of the dragon. Jocasta chooses the creative act of writing over suicide. Her ritual act remembers that Body is Presence (Plato's 'ousia' and Heidegger's 'Ereignis') and Jocasta reminds us that she (also known as Iocasta) is related to Io, the Great Cow goddess of Egypt. The origins of writing are sacred manifestations of ousia/hestia...esti/Being. She reverses the taboo of incest, and reestablishes the symbollic image of mother and son. Jocasta's sacrifice was inspired by an ancient Persian ritual of ingesting the Word to cure illness. www.elisekermani.com/jocasta.html www.elisekermani.com/thejocastaproject.html

Director: Christon Joseph.
World's hottest news on Laden and Obama are unfolded by Lawrence and Andappan during their bicycle journey to a nearby toddy shop. The story is being reveled through a third standpoint. This short film was made before the actual event.