4 films from the WORLD STORIES series will be screened atCharlottenborg Art Cinema, Copenhagen. Come join us every Wednesday evening at 7pm from 15th February - 8th March.

Free entrance!

"Kunsthal Charlottenborg has since 1883 been the place where leading contemporary artists have displayed their works. Contemporary artists relate to contemporary society. Something they have in common with contemporary documentary filmmakers and therefore we find it natural to invite leading documentary filmmakers into the house."

- Michael Thouber, Director, Kunsthal Charlottenborg

Program at Charlottenborg Art Cinema

15th February at 6.30pm – TALK followed by film screening:

PLEASE VOTE FOR ME

Before the film, co-founder of The Why Foundation, MetteHoffmann Meyer will present the purpose of WORLD STORIES.

Wuhan is a city in central China roughly the size of London,and it is here that director Weijun Chen has conducted an experiment indemocracy. A grade 3 class at Evergreen Primary School have their firstencounter with elections – choosing their Class Monitor. Eight-year oldscompete against each other for the coveted position, applying spin, smearcampaigns and other tools one might recognise from “grown-up politics”. Thepurpose of Weijun Chen’s experiment is to determine how, if democracy came toChina, it would be received. Is democracy a universal value that fits humannature? Do elections inevitably lead to manipulation and corruption? PleaseVote for Me is a portrait of a society through a school, it’s children andtheir families.

Director/Producer / Weijun Chen

Year of Production / 2007

Country / China

Running time/ 45 min

22th February at 7pm - Film screening:

DANCING BOYS OF AFGHANISTAN

As the West pours billions of dollars into the fight againstthe Taleban in southern Afghanistan, an ancient tradition (banned when theTaleban were in power) has re-emerged across the rest of the country. Manyhundreds of boys as young as 10, living in extreme poverty, are lured off thestreets on the promise of a new life away from destitution, unaware their realfate is to be used for entertainment and sex. They’re the “Bacha Bereesh”,literally “beardless boys”, chosen for their height, size and beauty to singand dance before an audience prior to being traded for sexual favors among thewarlords and powerful men of Afghanistan. Bought and sold by their richmasters, most will suffer grotesquely: exhibited like a new horse or camel,beaten and raped, this is the true Kite Runner. All efforts by the authoritiesto eradicate the practice have failed largely because, as the film show, theauthorities themselves are involved.

Director/Producer / Najibullah Quraishi/ Jamie Doran

Year of Production / 2010

Country / Afghanistan

Running Time/ 45 min

1st of March at 7 pm – Film screening:

MINERS SHOT DOWN

In August 2012, mineworkers in one of South Africa’s biggestplatinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days later, thepolice used live ammunition to brutally suppress the strike, killing 34 andinjuring more. From the point of view of the Marikana miners, as well as themanagement, Miners Shot Down follows the strike from day one, showing the courageousbut isolated fight waged by a group of low-paid workers against the combinedforces of the mining company, Lonmin, the ANC government and their allies inthe National Union of Mineworkers. What emerges is collusion at the topspiraling violence and the country’s first post-apartheid massacre. SouthAfrica will never be the same again.

Director/Producer / Rehad Desai

Country / South Africa

Year of production / 2014

Running time/ 45 min

8th of March at 7pm - Film screening:

INNOCENT ON DEATH ROW

As a tropical storm beats down on the Philippine island ofCebu, two sisters leave work and never make it home. That same night PacoLarrañaga, the young man later accused of their rapes and murders, is hundredsof miles away in Manila at a party, surrounded by dozens of reliable witnesses.Reflecting schisms of race, class, and political power at the core of thePhilippines’ tumultuous democracy, clashing families, institutions, andindividuals face off to convict or free Paco. Their irreconcilable versions ofreality and justice play out in a case that ends a country’s use of capitalpunishment, yet fails to free an innocent man. Set amidst old world vestiges ofcolonialism, classism and backdoor politics in the Philippines, Innocent onDeath Row exposes a Kafkaesque contemporary world of corruption and injustice.

Director/Producer / Michael Collins & Marty Syjuco

Year of Production / 2011

Original title / Give Up Tomorrow

Country / Philippines

Running time/ 46 min

About WORLD STORIES

WORLD STORIES is a multi-season non-profit project that isdistributed on a scaled pay fee system to broadcasters all around the world.WORLD STORIES includes stories about culture and everyday life, civil andpolitical rights, war and peace, inequality and development, gender andsexuality.

Every year we select 20 outstanding documentary films andedit each film for a 45 minute television version. The films are licensed,versioned, updated and dubbed into local languages for broadcast partnersaround the world.

WORLD STORIES reaches a wide global audience through ourunique network of broadcasters including UN Futura (Brazil), VTC (Vietnam),NTCU (Ukraine), TV Rain (Russia), BHRT (Bosnia), BBSC (Bhutan), Wattan(Palestine), Al Jadeed (Lebanon), WGBH (USA), BBC World News and BBC Arabic.

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