This is the full list of all the films that have participated on SD since 2016 - click on the photos to open the related film page in a new tab. On the main page you can always find the documentary films that participate currently on the platform.
One woman’s journey through a century of love, war and discovery
Forced Landing
The less known story of those who survived extreme conditions, while being held as prisoners of war in the heart of Europe, in a supposedly friendly country.
From the Kitchen to the Parliament
An award-winning journey through a century of swiss history, tracing the footsteps of those who fought to get out of their kitchens and those who tried everything to send them back in.
Martha & Niki
The touching story of Martha Nabwire and Niki Tsappos, World Champions in hip-hop dance and role models in life.
GURU: Bhagwan, His Secretary & His Bodyguard
The real story of Osho, one of the most influential leaders of the 20th century.
Gaz Surf Club
Sick of the living conditions, a few young Palestinians find their own personal freedom in the waves of the Mediterranean – they are the surfers of Gaza.
A Quest for Meaning
Two friends travel the world to meet the greatest thinkers. In drawing together the messages of an urban gardener, a cellular biologist, an itinerant shaman, and a singer-turned- CEO, Marc and Nathanael invite us to join them on their soul-searching quest, calling into question our vision of the world.
Sheep Hero
The life of a traditional shepherd facing the demands of the modern world. Will his struggle pay off or will he have to go with the flock?
The Good Life
‘La Buena Vida – The Good Life’ is the story of the Colombian village of Tamaquito, told against a global backdrop of rising energy consumption being driven by the pursuit of growth and affluence.
A Peloton of One
In the fall of 2018, Dave Ohlmuller set out on a sprawling solo bicycle ride from Chicago to New York. An inspiring venture that can actually effect change for real.
Age of Iron
A poetic journey through ten Asian countries, through some of humanity’s hardest struggles and brightest smiles.
Natural Disorder
With his intellect intact in an unwieldy body, Jacob embodies the strangling limitations of the concept of normalcy: he is too disabled to be accepted as normal and too normal to accept his fate. Taking action, Jacob puts on a theater play to once and for all set things straight.
Refugees: Who Needs Them?
A cinematic composition of diverse perspectives on the journey of refugees and the challenges they have to face. A documentary film that provides a much needed answer to the question it highlights.
Ride With Larry
This is the inspiring real story of Larry Smith, who instead of giving up, decided to actively defend his life and spread hope all along this unique ride!
The Forbidden Strings
A multiple award winner, a brilliant real story of outstanding courage and determination, that can overcome the greatest risks and make dreams come true.
Sierra Leone’s Disgruntled Youths
Chester Yang takes us on a journey into the hustling historic city of Freetown, introducing us to its disgruntled youths and their ways of survival.
No Heroes
A space in time where the wheelchair meets the basketball, is where the protagonists don’t need to be called heroes anymore.
Exotica, Erotica, Etc.
” Sailors are like terrorists. They arrive in ports with a bomb called love and throw it. And do you know what happens? The bomb explodes when they go away and they never come back, destroying the hearts of all the girls in the neighborhood. How strange – To love somebody who pays you…”
Lee Scratch Perry’s Vision of Paradise
The unique story of the legendary Lee Scratch Perry, the inventor of reggae and dub, and a guide on how to change the world with art and music.
Knots: A Forced Marriage Story
Forced and child marriage is happening all across the U.S. legally. This film brings the true cost of this human rights abuse to light.
Normal Autistic Film
The brilliant real story of five remarkable children that society has consistently and unflatteringly labeled “autistic”
Doctors of Joy
Humor, lyricism and touching stories by the first Brazilian clown organization to work with hospitalized children
Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal
The incredible story of Mumia Abu-Jamal. The “voice of the voiceless” imprisoned for life. His spirit can’t be chained.
Who Cares?
The stories of the people that offer simple solutions to the hard questions that affect us all.
Self-Taught
Through the stories of six extraordinary individuals, Self-Taught explores what self-directed education means to them and the impact it has had on their lives, ambitions, work, and beliefs.
Film School Africa
A Hollywood director leaves her quickly growing career behind in order to teach film-making to youth in an impoverished South African community.
Bullied
Winner of several international awards, this alarming documentary film is sharing an honest and hard-hitting look into the often cruel and devastating impact of bullying.
Madagasikara
Three resilient women fight for better futures for their children in one of the most misunderstood countries in the world – Madagascar.
U.N. Me
In a film that exposes the hypocrisy and corruption at the heart of the United Nations, filmmaker Ami Horowitz takes us on a harrowing, yet often hilarious, trip through the farcical world of the organization that’s famous for safeguarding world peace…
Phone Line 137
In Argentina every 23 hours one woman falls victim to femicide. This is the story of those who support the victims of gender violence, on a daily basis.
But Now Is Perfect
This is the story of Becky Moses, a poignant story of faith, hope and…documents…
Deaf Child
Winner of the audience award in the world’s largest documentary film festival, ‘Deaf Child’ is ultimately a film about love and the challenges it can overcome.
Shooting Ourselves
13 lives affected by the arms trade converge in a warehouse in Berlin. From around the world, they have come to dramatise and record their personal stories for ‘Situation Rooms’, a show by Berlin-based theatre legends, Rimini Protokoll.
Allende mi abuelo Allende
In “Beyond My Grandfather Allende”, his granddaughter Marcia Tambutti Allende goes in search of Salvador Allende the man. She attempts to reconstruct the past through informal interviews with her family, quickly discovering that they don’t talk about “El Chicho,” as he was affectionately known. Memories of him have been buried deep and seem too painful to drag up.
A Bold Peace
One nation’s quest to abandon the fever of war.
Rebel Citizen
In Rebel Citizen, Wexler speaks with lucidity and a candor that can only come with hard-won experience and the wisdom of age, about his progressive political beliefs and his artistry. “There are a lot of ways to look at the world,” says Wexler, “that may not be presented to us as the important things.”
Dollars For a Saint
In Messolonghi, Greece, the roma community lives together in peace with the locals throughout the centuries. St. Symeon feast is the best way to celebrate this harmonious coexistence.
Tongue
An exceptional poetic film of historical significance, based on the belief that another history is possible in Cyprus. One of true freedom, unity and fellowship.
Anbessa
A boy caught between the ancient and the new navigates modernization on his own terms. By becoming a lion (anbessa) he can fight back against the forces beyond his control.
Beloved
Life as a herder is hard and solitary, but the 80-year-old Iranian Firouzeh loves the ever-changing nature, the hard life and her faithful cows. ‘Beloved’ follows this strong-minded woman in her work across the seasons as she tells the story of her life, with work and fate as the dominant themes.
My Soul Drifts Light Upon a Sea of Trees
The brilliant story of the Zen Buddhist priest Ittetsu Nemoto and the people near him, that rediscover life after limbo.
Anuktatop: The Metamorphosis
A severe identity crisis is emerging in the indigenous Wayana community, as their ancient cultural heritage is confronted by the intrusive spirit of globalization.
Missing Fetine
A great investigative journey in search of a woman, that like an entire generation of women, left Cyprus and never came back.
Back to the Top
Leonidas is a 33-years old punk drummer in a wheelchair, who plans to climb to the top of Mount Olympοs with his friends. For whom is it going to be more difficult?
Gianni Berengo Gardin’s Tale of Two Cities
The impact of globalization on the beautiful city of Venice highlighted by the work of Italy’s greatest photographer.
Arts of Conflict
Focusing on Notting Hill Carnival, on its arts and the dark past from which it emerged, ‘Arts of Conflict’ seeks to open up the conversation about Europe’s largest street festival’s significance, its origins and its true identity.
Wild Honey
A rapturous ethnographic look at traditional folk music, ‘Wild Honey’ presents the ethnic communities of five regions across Russia: the Bashkirs of the Ural Mountains, the Cossacks of the Caucasus, the Molokans of the Southern Steppe, the Ashkenazim and Krymchaks of the Black Sea, and the Altaians of Central Siberia.
Cycling Nomads
Cycling Nomads is an adventure documentary capturing the experiences of three travelers seeking to see the world on bikes.
The Case of the Three Sided Dream
The exceptional real story of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, the blind musician whose dreams inspired and guided him to create music history.
Isola
On the Western Mediterranean’s last prison island, both guards and prisoners are isolated by the sea and are subject to the laws of justice.
Balkan Melody
A cultural journey through space and time, where the new cannot exist without the old and the synthesis between East and West is at least as important.
The End of Time
The End of Time is a cinematic experience from visionary filmmaker, Peter Mettler, which explores our perception of time.
Toumast
‘Toumast – Guitars And Kalashnikovs’ retraces a part of recent history of the Tuaregs. Theirs is a fragmented history made of suffering, wandering, revolt and injustice – but also of travel, comfort and hope. Moussa Ag Keyna, ex-rebel and musician, guides us on these chance and complex trajectories.
Imagine Waking Up Tomorrow and All Music Has Disappeared
He shows it to us: Bill Drummond, the man who with The KLF once conquered the world of pop. An anarchic spirit, an eternal punk who now leads the largest choir of the world: The17, an ever changing ensemble of amateurs with no sheets of music and no rehearsals.
Alice Cares
In order to meet future care demands for elderly who are lonely and suffering from dementia, carebot Alice has been developed. Can a robot build a human relationship with someone and thus replace a person of flesh and blood?
Above and Below
“…In “Above and Below” I went out in search of protagonists in unknown surroundings and circumstances – hideouts and refuges. It was about what lies above and what hides below; about light and darkness. It’s an attempt at a review and preview of life past, present and future, and how people adapt moving forward…” Nicolas Steiner, Director
About Heaven
Some people think of Switzerland as heaven on earth, but what do the Swiss themselves imagine life after death will be like?
i itsai Romni – the child Woman
“A child gives birth to a child”. Nowadays, most Romani parents agree to the continuation of their children’s education. But what happens when the girl turns 13? A movie about the institution of marriage in the Romani tribe.
The Corporate Coup d’Etat
Donald Trump and right-wing populist movements around the world are the logical result of a creeping, corporate coup d’état that has taken over established political parties, both “liberal” and “conservative”. This film tells the story of how the coup happened and shows its disastrous effects on society’s most vulnerable citizens.
All Governments Lie
Truth, Deception and the Spirit of I.F.Stone
Independent journalists are changing the face of journalism, providing investigative alternatives to mainstream news outlets. Our cameras follow as they expose government and corporate deception – just as the ground breaking independent journalist I.F. Stone did decades ago.
The Joy of Sound
An ode to sound, that mysterious, invisible and intangible phenomenon that brings pleasure and togetherness – and sometimes irritation.
Guantanamo’s Child: Omar Khadr
This is the real story of the world’s youngest “war criminal”. He was detained in Guantanamo since he was 15; now home to Canada to complete his sentence. His story in his own words.
Songs from the Soil
A visual and musical narrative that challenges our experience of beauty and ugliness, and which might bring our consciousness somewhere else by focusing on all the things we don’t usually pay attention to, or maybe once did, before we learned to make our thinking and emotions more efficient in well-structured, rational paths. ‘Songs from the Soil’ was shot in connection with ‘Good Things Await’, and can here be experienced with a live choir, ‘Theatre of Voices’.
A Balloon For Allah
When Norwegian-Turkish filmmaker Nefise Özkal Lorentzen was a child, she used to send balloon letters to Allah. Now she has decided to send a new balloon, to challenge the role of women in the Muslim culture.
Manislam
This film examines the burdens of manhood within Islamic cultures. It brings us a new interpretation of David vs. Goliath. The main characters, bravely and frankly, share deeply personal memories and experiences in their effort to highlight and question the role of men in contemporary Islam.
Gender Me
We follow Nefise’s journey as she explores Muslim masculinity and attempts to undress Muslim men from their patriarchal heritage, examining the burdens of manhood in Islamic cultures.
Freedom Ahead
In the name of democracy and global progress laws are drafted that will outlaw simple activities that empower man, like growing our own food. Freedom is slowly being commodified and by taking it for granted we could be on the verge of losing it. In this colourful journey, we visit the people who are the conscience in a world which is losing its moral principles.
Voices of Transition
Voices of Transition presents paths towards a new model of human existence: one which is fair, environmentally sound and fulfilling, with soil and people supporting each other in a balanced and sustainable way.
Next Stop: Utopia
When a factory closed down because of the crisis in Greece, a group of workers occupied it and ran it on their own, following the principles of absolute equality and direct democracy.
Real Value
The award-winning economics documentary that delivers a refreshing meditation on how business can be used to create value beyond profit.
Accidental Anarchist
One man’s remarkable journey: from diplomat to anarchist. British diplomat Carne Ross worked on Iraq and its WMD, and resigned from the government over its lies before the 2003 invasion.
Danton’s Death
Steve, a young black man from the projects, is training to become an actor in Paris. A big challenge is lying ahead. Is there a way for him to succeed?
Delicate Balance
It is well understood that humanity is facing a global crisis, economically, socially, existentially. Could we make a way out of it?
Eternity Has No Door of Escape
An invitation to lose ourselves in a maze of universes beyond logic and reason, in the works of Jean Dubuffet, André Breton, Adolf Wölfli, Aloïse Corbaz, … it’s Art Brut.
Athina
At a time of growing anxiety and uncertainty blowing throughout the world, the documentary looks at the city of Athens for a better understanding of the World we live in today.
La Belle at the Movies
Carefully documented, lyric in its imagery, “La Belle at the Movies” is a testimony of a moment in time where the film industry feels orphaned but lives in hope for a brighter future.
A Residence Above The Clouds
The story of a man who changed the way we looked at the stars forever
Sounds of Kibera
This is how music sounds when it’s a matter of life and death: in Kibera, Nairobi, in the heart of one of the biggest slums in the world, three local musicians create the collective “Made in Kibera” (MIK), in order to unite and support the local music scene and support it by providing them a space inside the tough conditions. As the high-end studio is shaken by decibels and creativity, the collective is preparing a massive event…
One Fine Day
Behind the greatest deeds, there’s often an anonymous, “normal” human being. This film features six such people who performed a small nonviolent act and started something that has had a major influence on the world.
Transcend
Here is the story of Wesley Korir. A story of the elusive spiritual energy that is somehow forged in the intense rigor of long-distance running, an energy Wesley Korir is using to transform the nation that has done more than any other to change the face of the marathon.
Flirting With Heights
This film is the result of several years of shooting, essentially in the Champsaur region, in the Alps. The native valley of the director became his home again. Each day was an occasion to melt into the landscape, to watch and understand “each and everyone’s place”.
Draw Yourself
A windowglass tour of the world proposed to children too young yet to read or write; they simply take a place in the frame by drawing a picture of themselves…
Jackson
Jackson is an intimate, unprecedented look at the lives of three women caught up in the complex issues surrounding abortion access. Set against the backdrop of the fight to close the last abortion clinic in Mississippi, Jackson captures the essential and hard truth of the lives at the center of the debate over reproductive healthcare in America.
Planetary
We are in the midst of a global crisis of perspective. We have forgotten the undeniable truth that everything is connected. PLANETARY is a provocative and breathtaking wakeup call, a cross continental, cinematic journey, that explores our cosmic origins and our future as a species.
SEED – The Untold Story
As many irreplaceable seeds near extinction, SEED reveals the harrowing and heartening story of passionate seed keepers as they wage a David and Goliath battle against chemical seed companies, defending a 12,000 year food legacy.
Fight for Justice – David & Me
David McCallum is a convicted murderer from the mean streets of Brooklyn who has spent 29-years in prison. Ray Klonsky is a middle class, Jewish-Italian kid from Toronto. When fate crossed their paths however, a friendship was born that changed both of their lives forever. David & Me is the story of that friendship and the fight for David’s freedom, as Klonsky joins a dedicated team of lawyers and activists, including Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, who are looking into David’s case and searching for new evidence that will exonerate him.
Raising Resistance
Raising Resistance illustrates the mechanisms of a global economy that relies on ‘monocrop’ agriculture and corporate ownership of land. In telling the story of Paraguay, Raising Resistance poses the larger question of whether the global community wants to go on living with a system that allows one crop to prosper at the expense of all others.
Queen of the Sun
Taking us on a journey through the catastrophic disappearance of bees and the mysterious world of the beehive, this engaging and ultimately uplifting film weaves an unusual and dramatic story of the heartfelt struggles of beekeepers, scientists and philosophers from around the world.
Fonko
Fonko is a documentary movie about the new Africa told through its current music.
Doing Good
«Doing Good» is a film about the importance of hope. Margreth Olin has filmed 22 people meeting Joralf Gjerstad. Over the past 65 years over 50,000 people have traveled to the small village Snåsa in the north of Norway, hoping that he’d be able to help them.
Kumare
Kumaré is a feature documentary film about the time filmmaker Vikram Gandhi impersonated a fake guru and built a following of real people.
In Pursuit Of Silence
A meditative exploration of our relationship with silence, sound and the impact of noise on our lives.
Blood Brother
Rocky Braat, a young man from a fractured family and a troubled past, went traveling through India without a plan. Then he met a group of HIV positive children living in an orphanage — a meeting that changed everything for him.
A Brave Heart – The Lizzie Velasquez Story
A documentary that follows the inspiring journey of 26 year old, 58 pound Lizzie from cyber-bullying victim to anti-bullying activist. Born with a rare syndrome that prevents her from gaining weight, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Velasquez was first bullied as a child in school for looking different and later online, as a teenager when she discovered a YouTube video labeling her “The World’s Ugliest Woman”.
Banking Nature
Protecting our planet has become big business with companies promoting new environmental markets. This involves species banking, where investors buy up vast swathes of land, full of endangered species, to enable them to sell ‘nature credits’…
GMO OMG
Director and concerned father Jeremy Seifert is in search of answers. How do GMOs affect our children, the health of our planet, and our freedom of choice? And perhaps the ultimate question, which Seifert tests himself: is it even possible to reject the food system currently in place, or have we lost something we can’t gain back?
Documented
In 2011, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas outed himself as an undocumented immigrant in the New York Times Magazine. Documented chronicles his journey to America from the Philippines as a child; his public struggle as an immigration reform activist/provocateur; and his journey inward as he reconnects with his mother, whom he hasn’t seen in 20 years. A broken immigration system leads to broken families and broken lives.
The Altruism Revolution
If altruism really is intrinsic in humans, is it possible to build a society and an economy structured around altruistic behavior instead of greed, tribalism and winning at all costs? Bestselling author and Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard is leading a movement founded on the belief that this is indeed the case. The Altruism Revolution plunges deep into the human mind to explore this movement and find out what really drives us.
The Samba Within Me
Geórgia Guerra-Peixe takes us on a journey through her native Mangueira, a slum district in Rio de Janeiro hosting one of Brazil´s top samba schools.
The Other Kids
Mubiru Reagan’s life depends on a football scholarship. His dream is to emulate his idol, Fernando Torres, and be able to score a goal that will take his country, Uganda, to their first African Nations Cup. But above all he wants to study.
The Kid and the Clown
An extraordinary relationship develops between the cancer ill boy Tobias and the hospital clown Angus during Tobias’ 20 months of treatment. This bond of closeness, humor and play turns out to be extremely valuable and important for both the kid and the clown in their fight against cancer.
Walking Under Water
The Badjao are sea nomads living near Borneo. For centuries, they lived on the sea and from the sea. A fantastic underwater documentary with beautiful imagery and a moving story.
K2 | Touching the Sky
In the summer of 1986, several dozen alpinists from all over the world met to climb K2, second highest mountain on the planet. Very soon the season transforms into a series of tragic events called “black summer”, leaving 13 climbers dead. Almost 30 years later, Eliza Kubarska, the director of the film, together with an international group of grown-up children of acclaimed climbers, sets out on an expedition to reach K2 base camp, symbolic burial place for those who lost their lives on the mountain.
Hip Hop-eration
Hip Hop-eration is a poetic feel-good film that proves age has no limits and that hip-hop can set you free. It will make you want to celebrate life regardless of age or condition.
La scuola d’estate
Luca Ronconi, maestro of the contemporary stage, has chosen Umbria for the creation of a space for young actors and actresses, where the most liberal short-circuits of theatre can be put into effect, freed from all conditioning and the pressure of productive deadlines.
Journey to Jah
The documentary film ‘Journey to Jah’ is a tale of the seeking and finding of a spiritual home in a foreign culture, one that follows people who are connected by one thing: music.
My Stuff
A one-year human experiment by Petri Lukkainen about what truly matters. Buck naked at his flat in Helsinki, it’s another story – not a pretty one but pretty damn fun to watch.
Rêve Kakudji
When Serge was seven, he saw an opera on TV, and from that moment on he had a mission: he simply had to become an opera singer. But how can you become an opera singer when you live in the slums of Lubumbasi in Congo?
Tale of a Lake
The story of the film is told through tales that are based around the myths, legends and old beliefs that are part of the Finnish mythology.
Waiting for August
Georgiana Halmac turns 15 this winter. She lives with her six brothers and sisters in a social housing condo on the outskirts of Bacau, Romania, while their mother is away, working in Italy. You can’t help being amazed by their ingenuity, while also realizing how precarious their daily equilibrium is.
Out of Fashion
Fashion designer Reet Aus has an ambitious plan to change the world of fashion.
Drone
This is the new warfare: Young gamers recruited to operate drones through their computers to kill real people 7000 miles away. This is not science fiction but today’s reality and the big investment of the future: Robot war. As technology expands at an unprecedented rate we are part of an experiment that changes our wars and possibly our world. DRONE gives crucial context and new perspectives that reveal crucial secrets of the CIA drone war and asks where we are headed.
Sepideh
Sepideh wants to become an astronaut. She spends her nights exploring the secrets of the universe, while her family will do anything to keep her on the ground. The expectations to a young Iranian woman are very different from Sepideh’s ambitions, and her plans to go to university are in danger. How far could she go to make her dream come true?
The Case of the Three Sided Dream
“The image of Kirk that emerges is of an artist who fiercely asserted both his creativity and his personhood while pushing against two characteristics society would use to diminish him in any way it could.” JazzTimes
Teaching Ignorance
How do the Palestinian and Israeli (Arab and Jewish) education systems teach the history of their peoples? This powerful film follows several Israeli and Palestinian teachers over the course of an academic year.
