#hsdff2014

A bleak tale of lost Lebanese souls in Greece unfolds over the course of a telephone conversation between friends. Stranded in a country gripped by economic catastrophe, refugees have resorted to desperate measures to buy hard drugs for fleeting solace.

One cold December night, Israeli soldiers come up to the al-Haddad family home in a Palestinian neighborhood of Hebron and knock on the door. They've come to search the house. Diaa, the teenage son, reaches for the family’s video camera. As the search unfolds, a strange power struggle evolves, pitting gun against camera. The night grows colder, and the soldiers take Diaa outside and order him to face the wall. They won’t leave until he stops smiling.

A surreal study of a simulated terrorist attack in middle America. Composed frames observe the meticulous care taken to stage a hyperreal terrorist event. Once the bomb goes off, hundreds of volunteers deliver a convincing performance as stunned and mutilated blast victims.

The documentary One-Way Ticket tells the story of a young man and a woman, abused and persecuted due to their sexuality, who abandon their home countries in order to apply for asylum in the United States. The film portrays all the drama that surrounds the characters decisions and the reason their choices are made in the first place.

In Kennesaw, a small American town in the state of Georgia, a good citizen is an armed citizen. By law, since 1982, each head of household must own at least one working firearm with ammunition.

City of the Damned focuses on LGBT rights in the face of the brutal anti-homosexuality bill before the Ugandan Parliament. Although the death penalty has been withdrawn from the bill due heavily to international pressure, punishments are harsh and public opinion remains the biggest threat to the Ugandan LGBT community. The daring non-governmental organization Youth on Rock Foundation is fighting against this stigma by promoting economic empowerment among its members. Najib, YRF's treasurer, sells clothes in Uganda's largest market. He wants to prove that his sexuality does not define him; it's his respect for life, his determination for equality, and his aspirations to become a lawyer and self-respecting Ugandan citizen.

A tyre recycling workshop in South Okkalapa in Myanmar’s former capital of Yangon is a site of multiple uses and multiple deaths, for this is the place where defunct tyres are transformed from their original shape and use, and are reborn into new and completely different lives. Filmed almost entirely in black-and-white, this observational documentary gently explores a community of tyre cutters and recyclers, young and old, male and female, as they create with their super-sharp blades, careful eyes and skilful strokes, buckets, brushes and slippers from discarded rubber tyres. And, from time to time, in fleeting yet visceral moments in between their movements, snatched conversation and song, something lyrical, even philosophical emerges, and we are gently reminded of how every death gives way to a birth.

Perched atop a mountain, in a park of sacred miniatures, stands the world’s largest statue of Pope John Paul II. Constructed entirely of Styrofoam and fiberglass, the statue stands an impressive 14 metres high and overlooks a rural Polish town. Filled with stunning visuals and surreal scenes, The Supreme is a humorous portrait of the irony and spectacle of religion.