Content from BABEL Doc

Dirlinho and his cousin’s childhood is marked by deprivation and violence. They try to escape by working as jockeys. While the punters bet on them, they gamble with their lives for a better future by riding doped horses.

American states and parents in both Europe and the United States are engaging in a joint fight against digital giants to ensure their responsibility in the addiction of young people to screens and social media is recognized. Among them, five women have chosen to disrupt their daily lives: Alexis, Kathleen, Elisabet, Laure, and Socheata.

Oxycontin. Codeine. Fentanyl. All prescription drugs to which countless patients have become addicted. As America battles an opioid crisis that sees 170 citizens die everyday, lawyers and prosecutors are trying to bring an end to Big Pharma's impunity. How did it happen? And how can we hold those responsible to account?

In Russia, criticizing the war in Ukraine or Vladimir Putin’s regime has become a crime. Thousands of ordinary citizens are being arrested, tried, and imprisoned. They are called “Politzek”: political prisoners. Filmed clandestinely over the course of more than a year, Politzek gives a platform to those who, despite the fear, continue to speak out against Putin’s repressive Russia. Through the intersecting stories of a teenager sentenced to five years in prison for criticizing the government on social media, a young artist jailed for placing anti-war stickers, a human rights activist, and two theater directors facing Kafkaesque trials, the film unveils the machinery of state repression in Russia. With rare footage, broken yet unyielding voices, this is a story of silenced resistance.

Set against the turbulent backdrop of Iranian history over the last 40 years, Silent House tracks the fortunes of three generations of an upper-middle-class Iranian family. At the center of the story stands the century-old house in Tehran in which the family lived through both happy and tragic times.

Since the rise to power of Hindu nationalists in 2014, India has been gradually moving away from democracy towards a regime where ethnic identity prevails. This transition is driven by Hindutva, a Hindu supremacist ideology embodied by Narendra Modi. For the past 10 years, Prime Minister Modi has relentlessly pursued his fascist policy based on Hindu supremacy. This ideology of hatred towards other religions in the country, particularly Islam, has also spread globally. Those who follow this belief want India to be only for Hindus, treating people of other religions, like Muslims or Sikhs as second-class citizens. Attacks against Christians have surged by 400% since Modi's election, accompanied by discriminatory laws targeting Muslims and widespread lynching incidents. Hindutva's influence permeates all levels of Indian society. This documentary thus unveils a darker side of India, far from its portrayal as the world's largest democracy and Gandhi's dream of peace among communities.

The nephew of a Republican exiled during the Spanish Civil War is pushed to discover the fate of his uncle by a forgotten letter. Meanwhile, a researcher tries to discover what happened to another deportee after reading the novel "El impostor" by Javier Cercas. When the two coincide, they discover that the lives of their two ancestors are intertwined and end up unearthing the story of František Suchý and his son, who risked their lives and defied the Nazi regime from the Prague crematorium to save the ashes of more than 2,000 victims.

Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard is the story of two Hollywood movie stars, accusing each other of domestic violence, during a libel suit broadcasted online, followed in the entire world. During the spring of 2022, this media uproar was going along with an unprecedented online smear campaign against the actress. In fact, behind the casual banter, lie groups of angry men which, for many years, have the hate of women as their prority : masculinists.

Their words had never been heard before. Co-directed by French-Rwandan musician and author Gaël Faye and director Michael Sztanke, this movie records with sensitivity and for the first time the testimonies of Prisca, Marie-Jeanne and Concessa about their lives during the genocide and after. The three Tutsi women tell the camera about their daily lives during the genocide and in the refugee camps of Murambi and Nyarushishi, where they lived a nightmare under the guard of the French soldiers of the Opération Turquoise who, under a UN mandate, where supposed to protect them. While the French army denies any rape accusation, the three women filed complaints with the French justice system in 2004 and 2012. The investigation is now at a standstill.

For 50 years, Berlin was the symbol of the Cold War. The city at the heart of the intelligence war between the US and the Soviet bloc. Thousands of KGB or CIA, agents observed each other, cogs in the biggest information war in history.

When the pandemic hit it highlighted how much Western countries rely on the chip industry. Today Europe, America and China are involved in an intense commercial struggle to dominate this sector that is so strategic for the future. From Taiwan to Shanghai, via Brussels and San Francisco, investigative journalist Nicolas Vescovacci went to meet the most influential players in this microchip war, which is redefining world geopolitics.

TikTok, the most popular app among young people, has nearly 1.6 billion users worldwide, including almost one in three French citizens. Often seen as a platform for dances, animals, music, and star influencers, it is above all a global success story from China, owned by the company ByteDance. Its content management system remains opaque, even to its moderators. Accused of collecting personal data like other social networks, TikTok is also suspected of sharing that data with the Chinese government and influencing public opinion worldwide.

From disturbing viral video trends to the monetization of family life, this investigative work delves into the dark consequences of parents sharing private moments of their children’s lives online. Through raw firsthand accounts, it reveals how an obsession with profit and online fame can enable the manipulation, mistreatment, and erosion of childhood innocence when posted for the world to see.

The film follows the artistic body of the Municipal Theater of Rio de Janeiro when salaries are suspended. It records the wait, marked by the long days without good news, and the resistance: because despite ruin and misery, it is necessary to produce and survive.