The commune of Otto Mühl, the acclaimed Vienna Actionist, was one of the most controversial artistic and social experiments of the 1970s. In the countryside, in the grounds of the Friedrichshof, unrestrained sexuality, common property, body art, and the consistent removal of any permanent relationships served as the foundation for this project. The most ambitious aim of this Austrian commune was Mühl 's third generation project — child production — which aimed to create a completely new human being. Twenty years later, in the summer of 1991, Mühl was arrested for child abuse and the community dissolved. The company's experiment was a dramatic failure. Through the eyes of these children, the film looks back at the community and examines what has become of the children of Mühl's utopia.

producer: Titus Kreyenberg
editor: Barbara Gies
camera: Sandra Merseburger
sound: Florian Matzku, Juri von Krause
music: Andy Simanowitz, Pop-Metzger, Attila Mühl

production info:
Unafilm Cologne
Alteburger Str. 2, D - 50670 Cologne
tel.: +49 (0)221 3480 280
fax: +49 (0)221 3480 281

Filmed over four years, Garbage Dreams follows three teenage boys born into the trash trade and growing up in the world's largest garbage village, a ghetto located on the outskirts of Cairo. It is a world folded onto itself, an impenetrable labyrinth of narrow roadways camouflaged by trash; it is home to 60,000 Zaballeen, Egypt's "garbage people." The Zaballeen survive by recycling the city's waste. For generations, the residents of Cairo have depended on the Zaballeen to collect their trash, paying them only a minimal amount for their garbage collection services. These entrepreneurial garbage workers recycle 80% of all the garbage they collect, creating what is arguably the world's most efficient waste disposal system. When the city they keep clean suddenly decides to replace them with multinational garbage disposal companies, the Zaballeen community finds itself at a crossroads. Face to face with the globalization of their trade, each of the teenage boys is forced to make choices that will impact his future and the survival of the whole community.

producer: Mai Iskander
editor: Jessica Reynolds, Kate Hirson
camera: Mai Iskander
sound: Paul O'Connor
music: Raz Mesinai

production info:
Iskander Films, Inc
338 Prospect Place Apartment 4g
Brooklyn, NY 11238—4017
tel.: +1 646 515 5995
info@garbagedreams.com
www.garbagedreams.com

There are about 2.5 million Turkish minority members in Germany. Every year at least a dozen Turkish women are beaten to death by their husbands or other relatives. In Turkey, more than 300 so-called honor killings are committed annually while 40% of wives are victims of domestic violence. Little Bride reveals the story of a Turkish girl who was sent to Germany and forced to marry when she was 13 years old. Soon after her arrival her husband started abusing and beating her regularly. After several years of maltreatment she finally managed to escape and is now in hiding from both the tyrannical man and her family whom, according to traditional Turkish "family values," she dishonored by running away. Unable to rely on her Turkish kin, afraid to appeal to the German authorities, will she be able to pick up the shreds of her life?

producer: Katarzyna Ślesicka, Adam Slesicki, Anna Wydra
editor: Jakub Kossak, Bartek Pietras, Lesław Dobrucki
camera: Piotr Rosolowski
sound: Zofia Golebiowska

production info:
Krakow Film Foundation
ul. Morawskiego 5 (Room 434)
30-102 Krakow, Poland
tel.: +48 12 294 6945
info@kff.com.pl
www.kff.com.pl

filmography:
The Booth of Fortune (2008) / The Crew (2007)

A young Ugandan boy's desperate desire for an education in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds: forty years ago, tribal elders buried a pen, placing a curse on the written word. Even longer ago, white men came and took away the children to make them fight in their wars, using the pen to enlist them. The boy still suffers from the cultural consequences of this symbolical curse. Unearthing the Pen is an intimate portrait of a boy's struggle to reconcile tradition with his desire to learn.

producer: Carol Salter
editor: Carol Salter
camera: Carol Salter
sound: Peter Hodges

production info:
Rock Salt Films
tel.: +44 207 722 9335
info@rocksaltfilms.com
www.unearthingthepen.com

filmography:
Mayomi (2008) / Sunday (1998) / Missing the Traffic (1998)