Witness

Two Sudanese inventors use a drone to take on desertification and their rivals in a TV competition for entrepreneurs.

A Tamil filmmaker living in Sri Lanka reflects upon the experience and impact of three decades of civil war.

Joe Moses, the leader of the Paga Hill settlement in Papua New Guinea, struggles to save his community from eviction.

A film by Haibo Yu and Kiki Tianqi Yu Vincent van Gogh only sold a few paintings in his lifetime, but Chinese copy artist Zhao Xiaoyong has sold over 90,000 reproductions of the Dutch painter's masterpieces over the past 20 years. Born in a rural Chinese village, Zhao moved to Dafen Oil Painting Village in 1996, with thousands of other migrant workers and aspiring artists, who had been flocking to Dafen since the late 1980s to paint copies of iconic works for global export. He has long admired Van Gogh's work and feels a special connection to the artist's tragic life. After decades of studying the artist's paintings through photos, Zhao is invited to Amsterdam by his top client to see Van Gogh's original work. The trip is a shock and a revelation for Zhao and inspires him to pursue his own artistic expression, for as long as he can afford to do so.

A young girl's dream to return home after two years of working in the markets of Accra clash with family pressures.

A Syrian-American doctor travels to a hospital on the Turkey-Syria border determined to help victims of the ongoing war.

This multi-award-winning film follows a medic through five years of upheaval after US troops withdrew from Iraq.

The men of a Pakistani bomb disposal unit risk their lives in KPK province, armed with little more than courage.

A father attempts to swap fishing for smuggling in a bid to provide for his family amid economic crisis in Venezuela.

A notorious war criminal searches for the prisoners he tortured during the Bosnian War to seek their forgiveness. Esad Landzo was convicted of torture, war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 1998. He was a 19 year old prison guard at the Celebici camp in Konjic, Bosnia, notorious for abuse and torture of prisoners of war, many of whom were civilians, during the Bosnian War. When he is released from prison in Finland after 10 years, Landzo is without a job and unable to get a visa from any other country. Desperate to rebuild a normal life, but tormented by the demons of his past, he begins an exhausting search for the men he tortured in an attempt to repent for the suffering he caused. A handful agree to listen, but their anger is palpable as they confront the horrific violence of their past.

Recently deported Dilan lives in fear of the MS-13 gang, but discovers El Salvador's booming call centre industry.

Meet the 'Queen Hunter' Aisha who catches Boko Haram fighters and searches for kidnapped children in northern Nigeria.

Meet the wives, mothers and daughters behind Greece's notorious right-wing Golden Dawn party.

Oula has run a mobile library in the Nordic Arctic for 40 years, but as retirement looms the bus' future is uncertain.

What happens when Indonesian migrant workers trapped in debt-bondage in Canada decide to fight back?

A landmark legal battle over the future of tattooing erupts in Japan after police crack down on tattoo artists in Osaka.

A Lakota teenager growing up on the Pine Ridge Reservation confronts the injustices facing his people.

Meet the prisoners competing to participate in Russia's prison song contest and the woman inspiring them to sing.

'To survive here, it's about family.' -Frances Sistook Ozenna, tribal coordinator, Little Diomede Close to the Arctic Circle, lie two remote islands. They are only about four kilometres apart, but they are separated by an invisible border known as the 'Ice Curtain'. Little Diomede is part of the United States. Big Diomede is part of Russia. During the Cold War, the Inupiat tribe living on both islands was torn apart. In 1948, the Soviets moved the residents of Big Diomede to mainland Russia. Their relatives on Little Diomede remained. Now, more than two decades since their last reunion, Frances Sistook Ozenna, a tribal coordinator on Little Diomede, is attempting to reunite her people with their Russian relatives. I think about how my grandparents must have felt when they separated them. That must have been a big grief for them to lose that connection. Frances Sistook Ozenna, tribal coordinator on Little Diomede 'I've heard stories a long time ago about how there was interaction between the villages before the Ice Curtain,' she says. 'I think about how my grandparents must have felt when they separated them. That must have been a big grief for them to lose that connection.' But bringing their Russian relatives to Little Diomede is as challenging as thawing volatile US-Russia relations. They must secure visas for the US, and also navigate treacherous storms in order to reach the remote island. But, conscious that it may be the last opportunity for the tribe's few remaining elders, Frances and the community are determined to make the reunion happen. During the Cold War, the Inupiat tribe were separated by the 'Ice Curtain', a narrow expanse of water separating the US and the former Soviet Union [Jonathan Schienberg, Tik Root/Al Jazeera] FILMMAKER'S VIEW By Squint at a map, and you will find two dots in the middle of the Bering Strait, just south of the Arctic Circle, where humans are thought to have first crossed to North America. That's how we first found the Diom

Four men. Four stories. Four alternative views of the battle for Aleppo. When the stories of the war in Syria are told will they be reduced to simple tales of good and evil? What will they include and what will they leave out? And will each be able to be summarised, like the old saying suggests, as A Stranger Came to Town? There are four characters in this film, each from the Syrian city of Aleppo. Four men who once lived a stone's throw away from one another, but who took four different paths as revolution, violence and chaos engulfed their city. Four men who now fear that their homeland may be lost to them forever.

The Apology follows the personal journeys of three former 'comfort women' who were among the 200,000 girls and young women kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. Some 70 years after their imprisonment in so-called 'comfort stations', the three 'grandmothers' - Grandma Gil in South Korea, Grandma Cao in China, and Grandma Adela in the Philippines - face their twilight years and fading health. After decades of living in silence and shame about their past, they know that time is running out to give a first-hand account of the truth and ensure that this horrific chapter of history is not forgotten. Gil Won-ok, or 'Grandma Gil', as she is affectionately known among a well-established network of activists, has been attending weekly demonstrations in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul for years. Despite her age and declining health, she remains a key spokesperson in the movement for an official apology from the Japanese government. Her exhausting travels eventually take her to the hallowed halls of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to deliver a petition with over a million signatures on behalf of her fellow survivors. Grandma Cao lives in a remote village surrounded by mountains in rural China, where what happened to hundreds of local girls after they were kidnapped has long been an open secret among the old-timers. Fiercely independent, Grandma Cao insists on living alone despite the protests of her loyal daughter, who has been unaware of her mother's story. It is only when a historian requests an account of her experiences that Grandma Cao agrees to break decades of stoic silence about her painful past. In Roxas City, Grandma Adela manages to find solace, camaraderie and a sense of freedom as part of a support group for other survivors. Though she found love after the war, she carefully hid the truth about her past from her husband. Now widowed, she is wracked with guilt for not sharing her secret. She resolves

'What would happen if thousands of Gazans, most of them refugees, attempted to peacefully cross the fence that separated them from their ancestral lands' That was the question 33-year-old Palestinian poet and journalist Ahmed Abu Artema posted on Facebook earlier this year. His post went viral. It was a rallying cry that inspired a movement of peaceful protests known as the Great March of Return. Frustrated by Israel's more than decade-long land, sea and air blockade of the Gaza Strip, upon which it has waged three wars in the past 10 years, and wanting to draw attention to the Palestinian right of return, Ahmed organised the marches as a cry for help. Our hardships induced this scream for life. The March of Return is a scream for life so that we may leave the walls of our prison. 'Our hardships induced this scream for life,' the soft-spoken father explains. 'The March of Return is a scream for life so that we may leave the walls of our prison.' But Ahmed is an unconventional protest leader. More comfortable in a library than at a protest camp, the former student of non-violent resistance wanted the movement to follow the examples of Martin Luther King Jr and Mahatma Gandhi. 'Up until a few years ago, the idea of peaceful struggle in Gaza was considered strange and disapproved of, because in people's minds it meant surrender,' he reflects. 'But with the March of Return, there was a positive transformation. People started having faith in peaceful struggle.' Many of the protests took on a carnival-like atmosphere, with people of all ages and even traditional dabke dancers in attendance. But they were met with violence. More than 18,000 Palestinians have been injured so far, many of them seriously, and nearly 200 killed by Israeli forces, including 21-year-old volunteer paramedic Razan al-Najjar who was shot as she tended to a wounded protester. It's a toll Ahmed grapples with in Gaza: Between Fire and Sea, as he visits some of the injured and relatives of the deceased

Amid spiralling crime and violence in the marginalised South African township of Galeshewe, local resident Pantsi Obusitse has formed a vigilante group called Operation Wanya Tsotsi. The group has set about administering its own DIY brand of justice with a focus on corporal punishment. 'People were angry; people couldn't take it any more. We went out with machetes, spades. Every weapon that is there. We were carrying weapons. We went out to hunt these boys. Because we know them, who are terrorising our communities,' says Pantsi Obusitse, chairperson of Operation Wanya Tsotsi. 'We had to take an approach that is abnormal, because we are facing an abnormal situation.' Despite its controversial methods, Operation Wanya Tsotsi has gained widespread support within Galeshewe and demand for the group's limited resources is growing. But the response from the South African state and a stretched local police department has been ambivalent. The Reluctant Vigilante follows the trajectory of Obusitse, his continuing quest for legitimacy in a country with a long and often brutal history of vigilante violence, and his complex relationship with law enforcement and the local community.

Casey Kauffman and Alessandro Cassigoli met when they were in their early 20s, sharing a flat in Rome. Casey, an American who aspired to become a journalist, and Alessandro, an Italian with ambitions of becoming a filmmaker, had very different personalities. But a friendship soon blossomed between them. Casey would meet people from all walks of life, while Alessandro would film his encounters. 'Since Alessandro loved filmmaking and I was starting out in journalism, we had a common interest in filming things,' Casey recalls. 'We talked a lot about video cameras, about characters, about how to capture special moments ...' But then Casey moved to the Middle East to begin his career as a journalist, while Alessandro set off for Berlin. 'When I started working as a one-man-band reporter and cameraman for Al Jazeera, Alessandro wanted to see the footage. And I wanted him to have it,' Casey explains. He began sending all of his raw footage to his friend. The most horrific and hilarious moments, too unconventional for Casey's TV reports, all ended up with Alessandro. But what started out simply as a way to keep in touch soon became something more - allowing the two friends to discover a world they never knew. Casey's footage, shot in the back of immigrant trucks heading to Europe, during bombing campaigns in Gaza City and in homeless shelters in the United States, penetrated Alessandro's comfortable life in Europe. As the tapes and hard drives kept coming, Alessandro, once shy and introverted, started to feel more connected to the stories they contained. As he sifted through the footage, it was often those moments that weren't directly related to the straight news story Casey was reporting that Alessandro was most drawn to. 'There is humanity in this footage where you would least expect it,' he reflects. But while Alessandro delved deeper into his footage, Casey, constantly faced with other people's trauma, struggled to ma

Heba is a young Iraqi woman with a good job as an electrical engineer and the prospect of a decent future. At 28, she owns a modern flat in the newly-built Bismayah New City in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, where she lives with her mother and younger sister. It’s a vast development of neat, white and beige apartment blocks, wide, well-lit walkways and plenty of green spaces, where children can play and ride their bikes. Heba says living there makes her feel safe and secure. 'This place has given us freedom and peace of mind,' she says of the complex that is one of many joint ventures between the governments of Iraq and South Korea. But this isn’t Heba’s only South Korean connection. In fact, she’s obsessed with all things South Korean. She uses Korean cosmetics, listens to Korean music, watches Korean dramas on television, cooks Korean food and has studied Korean Hangul with the aid of YouTube tutorials. 'Korea didn’t shape who I am, but it did bring out the real me,' she reflects. But Heba isn’t satisfied with pursuing her love for South Korea from afar. She dreams of one day being able to move there. And she isn’t alone. Heba represents a new and growing trend among young Iraqis who find in South Korea a vision for the future. While life in Iraq seems chaotic and unpredictable, South Korea offers them an enticing example of order and stability. But moving to South Korea is a huge undertaking. Heba risks losing her job and, along with it, her family’s main source of income. Not all of her family are supportive of it. Korean Lovers in Baghdad follows Heba on an emotional journey as she pursues her dream and goesin search of her place in the world, encountering seemingly insurmountable obstacles along the way.

In September 2017, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees fled Myanmar, where the military was waging a brutal offensive against them that the United Nations has described as 'a textbook example of ethnic cleansing'. Among those fleeing Myanmar's Rakhine State for neighbouring Bangladesh was 23-year-old Mohammed Yusuf, his wife, parents and younger brothers. The former teacher and his family settle in a makeshift home in the vast Kutupalong-Balukhali refugee camp in Cox's Bazaar, where he quickly discovers that among the many things of which the refugees are deprived, there is one that stands out: information. Its absence can exact a heavy practical and psychological toll on the refugees, who have limited access to telephone networks and are unable to understand local radio. 'Wherever I go in the camp, everyone is waiting and looking for any news,' Yusuf explains. The consequences of this can range from a lack of information about when aid will arrive or how to protect their flimsy tents from the monsoon rains to the trauma of being unable to locate lost loved ones. 'My people need information,' Yusuf reflects. 'News about not just the camp but also the people we have left behind in Myanmar.' Problems arise, he says, because 'the right information is not reaching the right place'. But Yusuf has a plan. He wants to build his own radio station that will report the news and provide information to the refugees. It's a major undertaking for somebody with so few resources and so many obstacles to navigate, and he's acutely aware that delivering the news comes with great responsibilities when so much and so many depend upon it. His is a dream that speaks not only to the desperate practical plight of the refugees, but also to their need to share their stories, to be heard and to connect with a world beyond the camps. But can Yusuf overcome the bureaucratic chaos, the monsoon rains and the trauma of his own family&

You can't fight city hall. Or can you Residents of a beleaguered mobile home park are about to find out. The City of Calgary has served them with an eviction notice, but some are refusing to leave. Midfield Mobile Home Park is in a prime Calgary location, a 17-acre inner-city site located in one of the busiest sections of the city - where the TransCanada Highway meets the city's main freeway. For more than four decades, residents have watched the city grow up around them, while their community has remained largely unchanged. Neighbours helped neighbours, gardens were planted and children were raised. Midfield was a small town within a big city. Then, in 2014, residents received an eviction notice: the park was to be be closed on September 30, 2017. The date was set for the final battle in a war that had been raging for 20 years. The City of Calgary cites crumbling infrastructure for the closure. Sewer pipes were placed under the homes in 1968, but time and a lack of maintenance have taken their toll. The City has stated that it would be too costly to conduct the necessary repairs. But residents of Midfield aren't buying it. With homes in the surrounding communities selling for millions of dollars and an aggressive redevelopment plan for the area already approved by City Council, the residents of Midfield Mobile Home Park believe they are sitting on land so valuable, it must come at the cost of their homes and their community. Rudy Prediger, an 83-year-old former long-haul trucker, is not a man who is afraid of a fight. More than half of Midfield's residents are like Rudy: elderly, poor and with no other place to go. The $10,000 [≈ Average community college tuition, four years, 2010] ≈ Average used car ≈ Average household credit card debt, 2010 'transitional allowance' the city is offering them doesn't even come close to a down payment in Calgary's frantic real estate market, and most of the mobile homes are too old to move. A pr

In the fields and terraces of the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian woman is leading a quiet revolution. Vivien Sansour is distributing rare, ancient heirloom seeds to Palestinian farmers. Inspired by memories of her grandmother and the delicious food of her childhood, Vivien wants to reintroduce long forgotten Palestinian produce to the tables of people across the West Bank and beyond. And she believes these organic, climate change-resistant seeds are the key to that. She experiments with growing the treasured seeds in her own garden beside the separation wall, under the watchful eye of Israeli soldiers. Popular local herbs and seasonal vegetables flourish as she tends to her garden with expert care and dreams of reviving and celebrating Palestinian food culture. But can she persuade farmers struggling with the pressures imposed by the Israeli occupation and agri-business to embrace such traditional crop-growing methods To convince them of the value of the seeds, she sets up a travelling kitchen, taking her seeds and their produce on the road and reminding Palestinians of the power of food to capture the joy and beauty of home.