October 2022 Festival – Highlights & Videos

A showcase of the winning feature film from the festival.

GLOBAL CITIES FREE OF SLAVERY, 52min., Brazil, Documentary
Directed by Luiz Eduardo Lerina


Global Cities Free of Slavery is a 52-minute documentary on modern slavery and the exploitation of labor in three different cities, located in different continents. Nottingham in the UK, Maputo in Mozambique and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

Regardless of the geographic location, it’s clear to realize that the issue of modern slavery occurs globally. The exploitation of work in the fashion industry and in the specific case of Brazil, where about 1 million seamstresses work in degrading conditions. On the other hand, the exploitation of work that occurs among millions of illegal immigrants in Europe, considering that UK is the second European country that receives the most immigrants today. And finally, child marriage that still occurs among hundreds of millions of children in the world, mainly in the low-income countries. And in the case of Mozambique, where it is still common for female children to be taken out of schools and forced into premature motherhood and condemned to live in conditions analogous to slavery.

Watch the Audience Feedback Video:

September 2022 Festival – Highlights & Videos

Showcase of the best FILMS in the world today.

Audience Award Winners:
Best Short Film: SOLSTICE
Best Documentary: TYRANNY

Watch the Audience Feedback Video for each film:

SOLSTICE, 7min., USA, Animation

Directed by Justin Vu
A young woman and her husky dog take the long journey home on foot through the Alaskan wilderness, with all its beauty and all its danger.

WATCH HERE – The audience feedback video of the film!


TYRANNY, 12min., Hungary, Documentary/Experimental

Directed by David Adamko
A dysfunctional society controlled by a toxic leader results in the reality of illiberalism and the sole autocratic EU member state is leading the way. Recently, an angular black hole appeared in the centre of this nation’s main square, which proved invisible to Hungarians. The analysis of this dark object offers a short glimpse at tyranny from the angle of anxiety.

WATCH HERE – The audience feedback video of the film!


EVERYDAY, 7min., India, Animation

Directed by Smita Minda
Everyday is a film about eco-anxiety, and how it keeps a girl named Judith from being able to have fun even at a birthday lunch with her friends. Having read too many articles full of bad news, and seen videos of the world coming to an end, she cannot help but see the darkness in everything around her.

WATCH HERE – The audience feedback video of the film!


ENTOMOS PHAGOS, 2min., France, Drama

Directed by Florian Le Tavernier ARM
“Between his ecologist mother and his very careerist and non-chalaching father, Nathan does not hesitate to face their contradictions in a surprising way.”

WATCH HERE – The audience feedback video of the film!


A CHALET AT THE FOOT OF THE FIZ, 36min., France, Documentary

Directed by Godefroy de Maupeou
An elderly woman returns to her chalet at the foot of the Chaîne des Fiz and finds the draft of a letter she had written years earlier.

WATCH HERE – The audience feedback video of the film!


MESSAGES FROM THE MARSH – PARTS 1-3, 3min., USA, Experimental

Directed by Amy Kaczur
Messages from the Marsh, 2021 to current, is an immersive experience with multiple video projections, sound art, and mapping. The project focuses on marsh locations on the east coast, and the work is developed via site-specific research, video documentation, and in-person engagement. Videos depict marsh spaces inhabited, spaces transformed, and spaces potentially lost.

WATCH HERE – The audience feedback video of the film!


August 2022 Festival – Highlights & Videos

A showcase of the winner POLITICAL Feature Film of 2022.

IT ALL BEGINS, 92min., Switzerland, Documentary
Directed by Frédéric Choffat

Watch the Audience Feedback Video:

Sacrificed generation? At the beginning of 2019, young people are taking to the streets all over the world to warn of the climate emergency. In Switzerland, young people are demonstrating, blocking banks and questioning the system. As their voices begin to resonate, the arrival of the coronavirus in 2020 abruptly cuts their momentum and silences them.
It all begins intimately follows these activists through the euphoria of the first demonstrations and the spleen of the health crisis. It asks us, young and old, about our relationship with this world that is collapsing and how to envisage a future together, all generations included.

Director Biography – Frédéric Choffat

Born in 1973 in Agadir (Morocco). Swiss and French nationality. 1992 Diploma of professional photographer, IREC (Institute of Research and Teaching of Communication), Monthey. 1994-98 Training at the ECAL (Ecole Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne). 1998 Diploma of the ECAL, in directing. Since 1998 independent filmmaker. 2009 Founded Les films du Tigre. 2016 Received the “Louise Weiss Prize”, European journalism prize.

Director Statement

Three years ago, I started this film. An urgent film in reaction to this global collapse: the fall of primary resources, the disruption of the climate, the acidification of the oceans, the melting of the permafrost. A violent economic reality and the potential collapse of an entire system.
I wanted to make a quick film, to alert, but very quickly, I discover that this subject will take more time, that we can’t respond to urgency with urgency, that it seems to me necessary to focus on the most immediate to tell the most global story. Starting from the
country where I live, Switzerland, as a metaphor. A world nerve center of raw materials, finance, scientific research and pharmaceuticals.
I also understand that my children, Solal 19 and Lucia 15, are at the heart of this fight. That this film is above all addressed to them. To them, to their friends, to this generation generation that doesn’t even fight for the next generation, but for their own possibility of future, the one that was stolen from them. They are convinced that nothing can go on as before and that if we together continue as before and that if we don’t move with them, their future won’t look like anything else.
I also discovered that one only makes one film about one’s own children in one’s life, and that the subject is too essential to be told in a few months. This project then became the one and only film I had to make. Today, a subjective film is taking shape, the cartography of this youth who has made this probable collapse its priority.
Through the eyes of my camera, I see my children growing up to face the world and the carefree attitude of their age. I see them getting informed, thinking, questioning society, science, the economy. They doubt, are enthusiastic, fight, struggle, They take to the streets, armed with their only weapon: their youth in the face of a system to their claim of a livable future.
I interview scientists who silently shout about the collapse of biodiversity, the contamination of water the dramatic fall of fertility and the disappearance in three decades of more than 60% of the population of certain species. Retired bankers analyzing a financial world that is ecocidal and without a future. Lawyers and politicians, unable to make justice and the economy hear the urgency of putting a destructive system. All victims of the legal and democratic slowness and of the victory of a populism which summarizes tomorrow to a feeling of insecurity in front of the loss of its own comfort.
At the beginning of 2020, it is the Covid-19 that arrives and the confinement that follows it closely. It is then suddenly there is total silence. All gatherings are forbidden, the street has been extinguished, the rebellion is stifled. All discordant voices are silenced. And the whole planet, worried, takes refuge at home, relegating the question of the future to an even more distant and uncertain future.
Usually, adolescence is a time of life when sorrows concern above all a break-up in love, a personal or family question or a questioning about a professional path that is taking shape. But today, it is a deep malaise which falls on this youth: daze, impotence, paralysis, burn-out, depression. It is a a serious and existential crisis that they meet, the one that we often live at the beginning of on the verge of 40 or 50 years old. The one I am experiencing, for example. And then our crises collide.
The first law passed in Switzerland in an emergency at the end of the first confinement was a massive and unconditional financial support to aviation and airports, while no real funds were have been released to think about a long-term ecological future. We must save the economy first.
While a few impulses of protest from these young people emerge, the repression takes over more and more and each new action ends up in identity controls, arrests, gardening and identity checks, arrests, police custody. The climatic lawsuits of their past actions are redeployed, the companies targeted for their ecocidal actions are protected and the verdict for the young people is without appeal: fines, suspended sentences, firm prison. It is necessary to ask for authorization, act legally, follow the law. You have to respect the legal time, accept the democratic slowness, wait gently for everything to work out.
Demonstrations and mass movements reach their limits and show their incapacity to change the system, while legal and political issues are locked. A more radical societal shift finally appears to be the only solution for this generation. How long will they accept a system that no longer listens to them? Should they attack private property? Should they go underground to question this way of life that is leading us straight into the wall?
While some throw in the towel, others dream of more radical action.
This film tells a few years of life on our earth. This film draws up a report and and explores some paths. The voices of generations that cross, contradict and complement each other, choirs of voices for a possible tomorrow. It is the portrait of a youth that will not let itself be so easily done.
This film does not propose a solution, but asks us questions. Questions to to provoke the desire to understand, to think, to act.
Together.

POLITICAL Festival Best Scene Reading: HAMMER AND NAILS, by Lowell Williams

What if someone when into the seminary to bury his own anger? Jonathan Daniels stumbles into the Civil Rights movement and finds himself face to face with moments that viciously try and pierce his peaceful personality. Based on a true story, he joins Stokely Carmichael and other Black activists during the early days of the civil rights movement, eventually making the ultimate sacrifice.

CAST LIST:

Narrator: Steve Rizzo
Loretta: Kyana Teresa
Jonathan: Shawn Devlin

July 2022 Festival – Highlights and Videos

Showcase of the best FILMS in the world today.

Audience Award Winners:
BEST Feature Film: SHOPPING CART PEOPLE
Best Sound & Music: PLEASE DON’T TURN AWAY

Watch the Audience Feedback Video for each film:

SHOPPING CART PEOPLE, 20min., USA, Documentary

Directed by Duffy Hecht

Shopping Cart People presents an unflinching exploration of people living in today’s world as homeless and those advocating for them. Stories are told, lives are shared, as a filmmaker delves into a community’s efforts to help those without a voice and protect their belongings. You’ll see interviews with community members and activists as they grapple with this controversial issue.

WATCH HERE – The audience feedback video of the film!


CANDIDATO 34, 38min., Peru/Canada, Documentary

Directed by Ryan Marley

Bryan Russell is the first person in the world with Down syndrome to ever run for public office. CANDIDATO 34 is a documentary short that follows Bryan and his campaign team during the 2020 congressional election in Peru as he attempts to convince a reluctant public that he is capable of being a congressman, and an important voice for change.

WATCH HERE – The audience feedback video of the film!


PLEASE DON’T TURN AWAY, 3min., Australia, Music Video

Directed by Elizabeth Usher

The compelling music video for “Please Don’t Turn Away”, a song inspired by animal photojournalist and founder of We Animals Media, Jo-Anne McArthur. Written by Elizabeth Usher, performed by MC Pony feat. Leafy Greens, and featuring many of Jo-Anne McArthur’s striking photographs.

WATCH HERE – The audience feedback video of the film!


Deadline Today: POLITICAL Feedback Film Festival. Use 50% off discount code. 

Deadline Today: POLITICAL Feedback Film Festival

https://politicalfeedbackfestival.events/

https://filmfreeway.com/PoliticalFilmFestival

Use 50% off discount code: 50politics

Festival designed to showcase independent politically inclined films from all corners of the world.

Agenda is to help show the world stories with a macro political agenda. This is purely a partisan minded festival. Our goal is to show films from different ideological points of view. (As long as their is no hate filled, rascist, sexist, or violent points of view)

In this time of divided cultures, our idealistic agenda is to help bridge the gap in some small way. To entertain and educate by films and screenplays that need to be seen by the world.

Recent Testimonials:

This is a great festival, I enjoyed feedback format and they are very responsive and accommodating. The WildsoundTV app is a great way for them to screen the films and I hope it continues to grow. And they try to foster connection between artists and participants. Overall, it was a great experience to be a part of this.

A very important festival in its contents and organized by pleasant people. It was a great honor to participate and a great joy to win. I love the audience feedback. Thanks Political Film Festival

A truly immersive experience! Never felt so involved. Love the audience feedback. Thanks for awarding my video and I am proud to be part of the festival.

May 2022 Festival – Highlights and Videos

Showcase of the best FILMS in the world today.

Audience Award Winners:
Best Feature Film: Democracy Vs. The Big Lie: The Truth Behind Mail-In Voting
Best Short Film: CONFLICT
Best Cinematography: INSIDE BORIS JOHNSON’S MIND
Best Sound & Music: HAPPY

Watch the Audience Feedback Video for each film:

INSIDE BORIS JOHNSON’S MIND, 52min., France

Directed by Alice Cohen
Boris Johnson, the UK Brexit leader, left an indelible mark on his country – for better or for worse. While UK is facing its first pandemic crisis on its own, what future is there for Europe and the country?

WATCH HERE – The audience feedback video of the film!

CLICK HERE and see full info and more pics of the film!


Democracy Vs. The Big Lie: The Truth Behind Mail-In Voting, 61min., USA

Directed by Jesse Grace, Steve Weiss
Democracy vs. The Big Lie, narrated by Alec Baldwin, and directed and produced by South African filmmaker Jesse Grace, is a feature-length documentary that follows the controversy surrounding mail-in voting during the 2020 U.S. election.

WATCH HERE – The audience feedback video of the film!

CLICK HERE and see full info and more pics of the film!


CONFLICT, 12min., USA, Drama

Directed by Chozy Aiyub, Malik J Ali
Conflict is about Mohammad Abdullah, a Palestinian prisoner who is being interrogated by Moshe Levi, an Israeli soldier. They both exchange their own point of views in a heated conversation which eventually creates an unpredictable outcome.

WATCH HERE – The audience feedback video of the film!

CLICK HERE and see full info and more pics of the film!


HAPPY, 39min., Russia, Documentary

Directed by Ivan Rodin
Bangis Schastlivyi (Happy in Russian) is a son of an influential Guinean, and a simple Russian woman. He is one of the few black people born in the USSR. His whole life is a series of fascinating events: a meeting with his father, whom he has never seen before, gold mining in Africa, loses and gains. Despite all the difficulties, Bangis surname corresponds to reality. No matter what happens, he is still happy.

WATCH HERE – The audience feedback video of the film!

CLICK HERE and see full info and more pics of the film!


Feature Film: INSIDE BORIS JOHNSON’S MIND, 52min,. France

Directed by Alice Cohen
Boris Johnson, the UK Brexit leader, left an indelible mark on his country – for better or for worse. While UK is facing its first pandemic crisis on its own, what future is there for Europe and the country?

Watch the Audience Feedback Video:

Behind his veil of buffoonery, will Boris Johnson embrace the stature that befits a statesman or lead his country to disaster? At heart, is he the United Kingdom’s gravedigger? Or is he a restorer of British greatness?

Behind his veil of buffoonery, will Boris Johnson embrace the stature that befits a statesman or lead his country to disaster? At heart, is he the United Kingdom’s gravedigger? Or is he a restorer of British greatness?

Feature Film: Democracy Vs. The Big Lie: The Truth Behind Mail-In Voting, 61min., USA

Directed by Jesse Grace, Steve Weiss
Democracy vs. The Big Lie, narrated by Alec Baldwin, and directed and produced by South African filmmaker Jesse Grace, is a feature-length documentary that follows the controversy surrounding mail-in voting during the 2020 U.S. election.

Watch the Audience Feedback Video:

Politicians from both sides, including Colorado Governor Jared Polis, Senator Michael Bennett, Representative Nikema Williams, Representative Adam Kinzinger, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, and more discuss the role of mail-in voting in democracy – the good and the bad.

We document the news media’s coverage of the election starting in the primaries, through the general election, insurrection on The Capitol, inauguration, and beyond. We featured the entire country but highlighted 3 key states: Texas, Colorado, and Arizona covering their elections processes, taking a behind-the-scenes look at how mail-in ballots are processed and what systems each state has in place.

Election officials provide an insider perspective of the elections process, allowing the public to peek behind the veil. Voters share their opinions, concerns, and questions. Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden are key voices featured throughout. Organizations such as the National Vote at Home Institute are the non-partisan backbones of the story. The documentary wraps up with a look into the future of mail-in voting and its important role in the health of the U.S. democracy moving forward.

The main purpose of this film is to provide a behind-the-scenes look at the elections process focusing on mail-in voting and to shed light on the facts surrounding the security of mail-in ballots.