Paradigm Films

LIMINAL BY NIGHT

Chasing the Thunder and other Sea Shepherd Campaigns
Pedro Amaral
Documentary Presentation

Chasing the Thunder - On April 6, the notorious poaching vessel, Thunder, sank inside the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of São Tome. “Usually when a vessel is sinking, the captain will close all hatches so as to maintain buoyancy. However, on the Thunder, the reverse was done - doors and hatches were tied open and the fishhold was opened. It is an incredibly suspicious situation, to say the least.” - Capt. Peter Hammarstedt
A thrilling high seas adventure feature documentary where two marine conservation captains from Sea Shepherd go on a hundred day chase of the illegal poacher and pirate fishing vessel, the Thunder.
Directed by Mark Benjamin and Marc Levin

Trafficked, Fish Pirates Episode with Mariana van Zeller - Few Americans realize that as much as 30% of the seafood we eat has been caught illegally. Mariana goes inside the global hunt for these fish pirates, who make billions each year while destroying our oceans. Her journey will take her from the ports of Boston and Vigo, Spain, to the west coast of Africa, as she seeks to understand how these bad actors operate and why it’s so difficult to stop them.


Voice of the Fish
Mariana Machado, André Costa

Our ocean, and the life and ecosystems it supports, are in danger. For decades, the blue lung of our planet has been under immense pressure from human activity. Hidden from view, understood by few. The voice of the fish is here to set the record straight. Rising from the Baltic Sea and returning to the Atlantic Ocean, the statue traveled across the EU calling for action from public and politicians alike. This is its story…


The Whale’s Eye
Cesare Maglioni, Amaia San Sebastian

The disconnection between humans and the natural world, is the legacy that a 23-ton, 16-meter long whale leaves to Joseba, a plastic artist from Toulouse.

Locals of Pavones
Lorena Montenegro

Unlike the more touristic parts of Costa Rica, the distant fishing village of Pavones, where the jungle meets the sea, remains a refuge for the most adventurous surfers. Hidden at the end of the road, near the border of Panama, in one of the most biodiverse places in the world, this quiet fishing village roars to life when the swell perfectly along one of the most extensive points in the planet. With waves that can break for more than 1 kilometer, this long left drives local tourism and has already shaped countless talents in the water. The story of local surfers displaying sustainable lifestyles, sharing the unconditional love and environmental awareness for their land, the Pura Vida and the incredible scenery of this paradise are part of the documentary Locals of Pavones.


Yabá
Rodrigo Sena

In a small village of fishers whose ancestors came from Africa as slaves, ancient beliefs and ancestral cults still persist. Neide (played by Jari Nass) is a longtime resident searching for solutions to save her business, which is threatened by the decrease in fish caused by an oil spill in the region. The relationships between the traditional forms of fishing labor and their beliefs are contrasted with the need for collective work.


The Enigmas of Cabeço da Mina
Rui Pedro Lamy

The film The Enigmas of Cabeço da Mina is a documentary of museographic nature that was produced for the Interpretive Center of Cabeço da Mina in Assares, Vila Flor. The film portrays an enigmatic archaeological site where an extremely rare set of anthropomorphic-faced stelae and menhir statues have been discovered to this day. The film's theme combines a geographical and historical contextualization of the surrounding region and some fascinating discoveries from the beautiful Vale da Vilariça.

Religo
Flora Pesenti

Contemplating the sense of plenitude we feel communing with nature, RELIGO, from the Latin verb to bind, questions our relationship with the environment and a possible connection that binds all living beings.


The Roman Route
Rui Pedro Lamy

The Mata de Albergaria, included in the Gerês-Xurês Transfrontier Biosphere Reserve, was recognized in 2009 by UNESCO as one of the areas of enormous importance at the national level. This Forest, protected by the elevations that surround it, still preserves patches of primitive climatic forest, a habitat of priority conservation, and where ecosystems with unique, rare and threatened, and endangered, ecosystems develop. In this forest, the History of the Iberian Peninsula is perpetuated, anchored in the Roman road to Geira, which here mark its last miles in Portuguese territory.

The Roman road XVIII, called Geira or Via Nova, was built during the 1st century and connected Bracara Augusta, the current city of Braga to Asturias Augusta, the current city of Astorga, in Galicia. It is the best-preserved Roman road in the former Western Roman Empire. Along its route, we can see landscapes of great beauty, and where we walk the same path once traveled by Roman armies, soldiers and merchants.


Roman Mining Technology
Rui Pedro Lamy

In northern Portugal lies one of the most important gold mining areas in the entire Roman Empire. The expressive evidence of this exploitation and the employed technology can still be observed on-site. Enormous open-pit work fronts, deep galleries, and a complex hydraulic network of channels still impress with their extent and state of preservation. Much of the most valuable coinage minted in Rome in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD was also made with the gold extracted from this mining territory, which was the most important in Roman Portugal.


Indigenous Media Revolution
Nick Lunch
Documentary Presentation

Since 1999, InsightShare has pioneered the use of participatory video (PV) and digital storytelling to support the self-representation and self- determination of Indigenous peoples. We have repeatedly witnessed the value and power of training Indigenous peoples in digital activism: participants develop the skills to champion and conserve their own communities’ languages, culture, knowledge and lands, and often experience hugely positive and profound shifts in their personal sense of agency and optimism in the process.

The Living Cultures Alliance, is a growing movement of Indigenous video collectives across the world, a network for sharing knowledge and strengthening the power of Indigenous movements’ to shift public perspectives on Indigenous issues, peoples, traditions and land.

Nick Lunch, Director and co-founder of InsightShare will share a selection of films authored by Indigenous communities in Africa, Asia and the Americas and speak about the challenges, aims and vision of this work.


Nô Kumpo Guiné
João Meirinhos

In the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau, women often work outside the home and act as breadwinners, many by growing food and promoting agroecology. Yet they can also be saddled with the burden of running their homes, as men expect them to take on most of the housework and child-rearing duties. UNITE FOR BISSAU explores how women in diverse communities in Guinea-Bissau — ranging from the matriarchal villages of the Bijagós Archipelago to Muslim, Christian, and animist communities on the mainland — are confronting patriarchy, protesting female genital mutilation, asserting their role in preserving traditional agriculture, and building institutions to promote self-sufficiency. Carrying forward the legacy of Amílcar Cabral, the Bissau-Guinean independence leader who included women's rights and agronomy at the center of the struggle for liberation, the women of a rising generation are taking their power back.


All Eyez on Me
Robert Weijs

All Eyez on Me! is a filmic assemblage on representation. Over 15 years, the filmmaker visits the Loita Maasai in Kenya, becoming close friends with the brothers Lenaai and Matinkoi. Lenaai, aware of how the outside world looks at the Maasai, expresses that: "The thinking about the Maasai sometimes becomes really dangerous." Exploring this idea through an assemblage of three short self-reflexive films, All Eyez on Me! addresses representation, authenticity, and the dilemma of visibility.


The Scream of The Fox in the Cold Night
Rui Pedro Lamy

In a north-eastern village in the interior of Portugal, a group of young men conquer time and distance to periodically bring the magical moment of the Winter Fiesta to their village. A celebration with ancestral roots preceding Christianity that remains alive in the soul of its people. Like in many villages of the interior, immigration casts a strong and persistent shadow; the search for a better life gifts us mixed and contradictory emotions. But the strength of friendship and the sense of community is stronger for all those that return home year after year, to reunite and breathe life into the village.


Katu
Rodrigo Sena

The Guardians of the Atlantic Forest and their resistance to current problems in contemporary challenges such as the environment and agribusiness, evangelization in villages, drug abuse, indigenous education and higher education.

Wayuri
Diana Gandara

In the most preserved area of the Brazilian Amazon there are 23 indigenous ethnic groups and 16 native languages are talked, in addition to Brazilian Portuguese. The Wayuri Network of indigenous communicators of Rio Negro, operates here to give a voice for this population, so oppressed in the history of Brazil. The indigenous themselves produce podcasts, videos, photos, lives, audios and texts for, and about, this 750 communities. During the pandemic they saved many lives. Wayuri Network won the Rule of Law Award 2022 in the Hague, thanks to the combat of fake news, which often target economic and political interests against indigenous peoples and forest preservation. Wayuri means "joint effort". Despite the difficulties to circulate information, they find creative ways to bring and create information about this place, so important for the world, despite suffering constant threats.


Mapu Kutran
Roberto Urzua

MAPU KUTRAN is a word, that comes from Mapuche language, one of Chile first native peoples. It’s a disease without known origin, that attacks when the human damages nature. This disease starts when the person disrespects the environment: cultural spaces like "menoko" (source of water), "lawen" (natural herbs medicine), or high newen (power, strength). The documentary explores the human contradictions.


Fantasmagoria
Juan Francisco González

In the middle of Atacama Desert, vestiges of the last nitrate industry are​ ​found, while the residents witness the crash of an industry located in the driest​ ​place on Earth.


Patients: Medicinal Cannabis in Portugal
Laura Ramos
Documentary Presentation

The starting point for this documentary were the patients who use cannabis as a therapy, even before the medicinal cannabis law was approved in Portugal, in 2018. Trough a series of interviews, this documentary explores the 7 different definitions of the word "Patient" in the Portuguese dictionary, to raise awareness for their struggles and the therapeutic potential of cannabis, by providing real and feasible information. In this documentary, patients break the stigma about this millenial plant and tell, in the first person, their stories of courage and resilience.


Psychedelic Chronicles
Anya Oleksiuk and Rosalind Watts
Documentary Presentation

A documentary feature, following the dramatic re-emergence of the psychedelic movement in the West over the last five years, and the collision of indigenous practice, the modern mental health crisis and Western capitalism.


Tending the Garden
Claire Weissbluth, Jesse Dodd

A journey through a year in the life of three family farms cultivating cannabis, food and community in the pursuit of a regenerative future.


Descending the Mountain
Maartje Nevejan

What happens when you administer psilocybin to experienced zen meditators? A neuroscientist and a zen master carry out a double-blind experiment on a sphinxlike mountain in Switzerland. Their goal: to examine the nature of consciousness.


Eskawata Kayawai: The Spirit of Transformation
Lara Jacoski and Patrick Dequech Belem

In the heart of the Amazon Rainforest, the Kaxinawá people (self-claimed Huni Kuin, "true people") are experiencing their cultural and spiritual rennaissance. After decades of slavery during the rubber plantation era, when they were captured in the forests with dogs, marked with numbers and forbidden to speak their language and live their culture. It took more than 20 years of hard work, prayers, and cultural strengthening undertaken by the spiritual leader Ninawá Pai da Mata so that his people could return to their ancestral way of life.

In this feature film, we are taken by the villagers to the cacophony of the forest, the beauty and the simplicity of everyday life, the enchantments of the forest medicines and the effort of what it takes for a tribe to rediscover themselves in communion with nature. Such powerful return home is an example for the world, especially in the critical moment in which we live, proving that it is possible to rescue ancestry and revolutionize everyday life to be in harmony with the planet.


The Village of Lovers
Julia Maryanska and Naila Von Mendelssohn

In the Oak-dotted countryside of Southern Portugal lies Tamera Healing Biotope, one of Earth’s most radical social experiments in human futurism. Tamera began in the “free love” utopian movements of the 1960s’ and 70’s, and however soon realized that the necessary social change had to run deeper then reactions to the dominant system. Tamera realized that at the core, regenerating trust - especially in the most intimate areas of human life - was the missing key to long-standing cultural and political change. Now, over 40 years later, in an era of rampant climate chaos, post- global pandemic, and mounting political unrest - where humanity’s survival into the 22nd century becomes increasingly uncertain - Tamera may provide a regenerative model for a post-capitalist society, rooted in reconnection to life.


The Politics of Ecstasy: The Repression of the Bacchanalia in Ancient Rome
Chiara Baldini and Rafael Kozdron

More than two thousand years ago, in ancient Rome, a secret cult dedicated to frenetic dances, gender fluidity, ingestion of mind-altering substances and sexuality, was shaking the foundations of the order put in place by the very patriarchal, repressive and militaristic ruling elite. The clashing values between these different worldviews brought to a crude repression known as “The Bacchanalia Affaire”.


When the Body says Yes
melanie bonajo

When the body says Yes is a new immersive video installation by melanie bonajo, a Dutch artist, filmmaker, sexological bodyworker and somatic sex coach and educator.

About the project, bonajo says: “Love is not learned in isolation and, if you have felt it, someone else has probably felt it too. We created a collective spell in the form of a pleasure-positive camp, an eco-erotic queer eros, celebrating our kin through skinship. A place of productive chaos and care, where we practiced touch tutorials, set boundaries, gave and received consent, drank our own poison at the trigger bar, did weird therapies and acknowledged feelings as valid. We brought together a group of international gender queer people, where many have a bicultural identity and we expanded on sexuality beyond the western discourse, what our genitals mean to us and others, self-expression as a healing modality, the way our body matrix sends and receives information about closeness and touch, and how that is embodied in different language structures. Do you know the sensational dimensions of your No. How do you feel when your body says Yes?”

When the body says Yes invites visitors to reflect on the meaning of touch and intimacy in relation to their own bodies. Immersed in an atmosphere of softness and sensuality—a cushioned refuge from the outside world—they can discover their own “touch language.”


Patriarchy: An Unfinished Story
Pedro Serra

This documentary is a compilation of interviews with 20 activists discussing intersectional feminism and patriarchy in Portugal. Touching on topics ranging from female empowerment to deconstructing hegemonic masculinity, it explores perspectives on emotions, the culture of violence, and how all of this is rooted in the education of children from a young age. The film's main goal is to question gender norms in an extremely binary and heteronormative society, as well as to put an end to all forms of oppression and repression.


Pinks
Emilie Biason

An awarded short film written, directed, and edited by Emilie Biason about two girls who, consumed by the pressures of sexting culture, begin to obsess over the idea of labiaplasty, leading down a painful and dangerous path. With delicate and poetic photography, PINKS delves into the "beauty standards" surrounding female genitals, highlighting the dangers of doctors selling surgical procedures (FGCS) to young girls through social media.


Nomadic Island
Mattia Mura Vannuzzi

Nomadic Island: Towards Third Nature is a thought-provoking 20-minute documentary that takes you on a journey to a unique artist residency program in Differdange, Luxembourg. Join a diverse group of international artists as they explore the intersection of sustainability, community building, and art, and discover new solutions for addressing environmental challenges through collaboration and experimentation. The film also delves into the concept of "Third Nature," a fascinating term from social ecology that challenges our traditional notions of the natural and human-made environment. And with the inclusion of the first forest occupation in Luxembourg, the documentary showcases the power of community-led innovation, art, and activism in promoting a more sustainable future.


Transformational Culture
Julian Reyes
Documentary Presentation

Julian Reyes of Keyframe-Entertainment will be showcasing Underground Electronic Music Videos and Exclusive Content from "The Bloom: A Journey Through Transformational Festivals". The Bloom, An exclusive preview (before streaming release) of the revamped & improved classic underground documentary series about the visionary sides of festival culture. The Bloom takes you on a globe-trotting adventure into the world of transformational festivals and the powerful, true story of the counterculture of the millennium… it’s not just you, it’s a global phenomenon!!


The Century of the Self
Adam Curtis

The documentary explores the various ways that governments, global organizations and corporations have used Freud's theories. Freud and his nephew Edward Bernays, who was the first to use psychological techniques in public relations, are discussed in part one. His daughter Anna Freud, a pioneer of child psychology, is mentioned in part two. Wilhelm Reich, an opponent of Freud's theories, is discussed in part three. Along these lines, The Century of the Self asks deeper questions about the roots and methods of consumerism and commodification and their implications. It also questions the modern way people see themselves, the attitudes to fashion, and superficiality.