Empty Cans

Maternal

December 2019 •Spanish

Lu and Fati are teen mums living in a religious shelter in Buenos Aires. Sister Paola arrives there to take her final vows. But the girls’ impending motherhood faces her with a challenging situation.

Haus

October 2018 •English

A displaced black queer boy finds refuge in his city's underground Kiki Ballroom scene.

Dog Leash

May 2012 •English

Cracks are starting to burst in Marina's frozen life, leading towards finding refuge in dangerous places.

National Theatre Live: The Boy With Two Hearts

October 2021 •English

When a young mother speaks out against the Taliban, she and her husband are forced to flee their home and country with their three sons. Embarking on a long and terrifying journey across Russia and through Europe, they seek final refuge in the UK. But, as their eldest son’s life-threatening heart condition worsens and requires urgent surgery, their escape soon becomes a race against time. Amit Sharma directs this widely acclaimed stage version of The Boy with Two Hearts (BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week). Based on extraordinary real-life experiences, it is a powerful story of hope, courage, and humanity – and a heartfelt tribute to the NHS.

Life Track

October 2007 •Korean

A story about the relationships between the disabled man Xiangshu and a deaf-mute girl on the run from the police who takes refuge on his land.

The Agreement

August 2016 •Serbian

First Serbian film shot in Kosovo after its separation.

Refuge

January 2017 •Arabic

Refugees are captured by border patrol officers as one woman escapes to find herself surviving on her own in a foreign land.

Beyond the Blue Border

October 2024 •German

GDR, August 1989: Hanna and Andreas became a target of the secret police and had to give up their plans for their future studies and desired professions. Instead, they face arbitrariness, mistrust and reprisals. Their only chance for a self-determined life lies in fleeing across the Baltic Sea. Fifty kilometres of water separate them from freedom - and only a thin connecting rope around their wrists saves them from absolute loneliness.

Hurrah! For Freedom

October 1946 •Korean

Hurrah! For Freedom (aka Viva Freedom) is a 1946 Korean film directed by Choi In-kyu. It was the first film made in the country after achieving independence from Japan. During the country's occupation Choi was only allowed to make Japan-friendly films, but the plot of Hurrah! For Freedom is distinctly different, telling the story of a Korean resistance fighter in 1945.

The Claustrum

June 2014 •English

Three women are in enclosed psychological zones that function as both refuge and jail.

Don't Open the Door

April 2024 •Greek

Far from civilization, in a frozen forest on an inhospitable mountainside, a group of researchers is attacked by an unidentified figure. The sole survivor, a young biologist, takes refuge in the isolated cabin of a mysterious man.

Kitten of vluchteling?

September 2023 •Dutch

Refuge(e)

March 2019 •English

Refuge(e) traces the incredible journey of two refugees, Alpha and Zeferino. Each fled violent threats to their lives in their home countries and presented themselves at the US border asking for political asylum, only to be incarcerated in a for-profit prison for months on end without having committed any crime. Thousands more like them can't tell their stories.

Mr. Gay Syria

September 2018 •English

In focusing his attention on the competitors of Mr Gay Syria, director Ayse Toprak shatters the one-dimensional meaning of “refugee”. Using the pageant as a means of escape from political persecution, the organiser Mahmoud — already given asylum in Berlin — hopes to offer the winner a chance to travel as well as bring international attention to the life-threatening situations faced by LGBT Syrians.

Borderlands

April 2023 •English

Fleeing the 1980 Civil War in El Salvador, Dora Rodriguez, among a group of twenty-five asylum seekers, were abandoned by their guide and left to fend for themselves in the relentless Sonoran desert of Arizona.

Chasing the dragon

January 2021 •French

Unexpected shelter made of prefabs in the heart of a burning city, the supervised drug consumption facility is open every day of the year. Cause some things know neither relief, nor rest, nor death. A place like no other where to come back, again and again, because here, they would make you feel, at last, you’re someone.

Porky in the North Woods

December 1936 •English

Porky Pig runs a game refuge. Despite the abundant signs to the contrary, Jean-Baptiste the trapper sets numerous traps, ensnaring many animals.

Scared Topless

October 2015 •English

A group of unsuspecting college students explore a haunted house and get more than they bargained for when the sexual frenzy of the paranormal world reveals itself.

Antes de las once

August 2008 •Spanish

A story about three adolescents as they address the universal challenges of growing up in a time where drugs, sexual promiscuity, delinquency, and suicide seem to run rampant.

Window Horses

March 2017 •English

Rosie Ming, a young Canadian poet, is invited to perform at a Poetry Festival in Shiraz, Iran, but she’d rather be in Paris. She lives at home with her over-protective Chinese grandparents and has never been anywhere by herself. Once in Iran, she finds herself in the company of poets and Persians, all who tell her stories that force her to confront her past; the Iranian father she assumed abandoned her and the nature of Poetry itself. It’s about building bridges between cultural and generational divides. It’s about being curious. Staying open. And finding your own voice through the magic of poetry. Rosie goes on an unwitting journey of forgiveness, reconciliation, and perhaps above all, understanding, through learning about her father’s past, her own cultural identity, and her responsibility to it.