Category: GLOBE AWARD ARFF Paris 2023

Original Film Title: 44 LIGHTS: Music From Ground Zero

Director’s Name: Barbara Blackburn Tuttle

Writer’s Name: Barbara Blackburn Tuttle, Tim Tuttle

Producer: Joe Romeo, David Wakefield

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 1 hour 7 minutes

Film Description:

On September 11th, 2001, Tim Tuttle walked out of the World Trade Center in New York City at 830 am. Ten minutes later the world changed forever. Tim lost 35 friends and neighbors that tragic Tuesday morning. That night he wrote a song to try and explain the unimaginable loss he had witnessed. He wasn’t a professional musician but he went into the studio to record it 3 weeks later. One song turned into 2 CDs. On the first anniversary of the tragedy Tim and a few real musicians got together to commemorate the day. One concert turned into 20 annual music memorials as “Music From Ground Zero” rose up from the ashes. Healing though music.

Original Film Title: Finding Courage

Director’s Name: Kay Rubacek

Writer’s Name: Kay Rubacek, Andrew Parker

Producer: Paulio Shakespeare, Kay Rubacek

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: Australia, Canada, China, France, New Zealand, United States

Language: Chinese, English

Runtime: 1 hour 20 minutes 47 seconds

Film Description:

13 Best Feature Doc Awards – This gripping intense film is about a former journalist for the Chinese Communist Party (YIFEI WANG), living in exile in San Francisco, struggles to settle into life in America while working to heal her family’s wounds from their tragic past. She is seeking justice for the murder of her sister at the hands of the Chinese authorities. Rare undercover footage of a meeting with the director of the labor camp where Yifei’s sister was killed reveals shocking admissions of torture, slave labor, corruption, and a general disregard for human life pervading the camp system today. Exclusive interviews with former Chinese Communist Party officials provide a unique insight into the hidden world of terror that many Chinese citizens live without ever knowing that life can, and does, exist with freedom outside their world.

Original Film Title: Motherland

Director’s Name: Vic Gerami

Writer’s Name: Vic Gerami

Producer: Vic Gerami

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: Armenia, United States

Language: English

Runtime: 2 hours 2 minutes

Film Description:

It took 106 years before the United States formally recognized the Armenian Genocide of 1915 at the hands of the Ottoman Turks. On April 24,2021, President Joe Biden became the first US president to officially recognize the Armenian genocide and to recommit preventing such an atrocity from occurring again. Tragically, history is repeating itself with Turkey’s ongoing genocidal attack and ethnic cleansing against Armenians as we’ve witnessed recently in Artsakh. “Motherland” tells the story of this ongoing tragic chapter through the lens of Armenian-American journalist and LGBTQ+ activist, Vic Gerami.

Original Film Title: Time and Stone

Director’s Name: Li Yue

Writer’s Name: Kong Lili

Producer: Li Dongshen

Country of Origin: China

Country of Filming: China

Language: Chinese

Runtime: 1 hour 23 minutes

Film Description:

In 1958, iron ore was discovered in the desert of the Qilian Mountains, at the western end of the Great Wall of China, and 30,000 young people came here to build the largest ironworks in northwest China.

At first there was nothing in this desert. 60 years later, a city of 300,000 people was built here.

The young people who came to this desert spent their youth here，and despite the difficulties of life there was no shortage of laughter, love and happiness. They grow old with the city，the only thing that remains the same is time and the stones of the desert.

Original Film Title: GO THROUGH THE DARK

Director’s Name: Yunhong Pu

Writer’s Name: Xilin Zhang

Producer: Jean Tsien, Yunhong Pu

Country of Origin: China

Country of Filming: China

Language: Mandarin Chinese

Runtime: 1 hour 18 minutes

Film Description:

Guanglin is a blind boy in China who displays great skill at the ancient board game called Go, in which two players place black and white pieces on a grid in an attempt to dominate their opponent. Raised by a single father with limited means, Guanglin faces deep societal prejudice against the blind.

Original Film Title: Высокий дух

Director’s Name: Didar Orazov

Country of Origin: Russian Federation

Country of Filming: Russian Federation

Language: Russian, Tatar

Runtime: 1 hour 39 minutes 57 seconds

Film Description:

Documentary-spiritual drama, video journey in search of the missing Tatar national poet Rakhim Sattar.
Continuing to be actively engaged in creativity during the Second World War, the young poet with Muslim education chooses a military vocation. Rakhim arrives at the front, or rather, surrenders. Our film is a search for answers to the main question – what is the reason for the fateful decision?

Original Film Title: 我要赢

Director’s Name: Yi Lin

Writer’s Name: Hanwen Zhang, Lu Yang, Yi Lin

Producer: Lu Yang

Country of Origin: China

Country of Filming: China

Language: Chinese

Runtime: 1 hour 29 minutes

Film Description:

The goalkeeper Mao’er, the child of a wonton stall owner, attends the key middle school with his sister to change his own destiny. He suffers from misunderstandings, betrayals, hurts and diseases.
He must win the game, and simultaneously, win a brighter future for him and his sister.
The forward Li Xiaobo is a talent in playing football, but he experiences parents’ divorce, game losing, the broken friendship, and the resignation of his coach. Thus, he chooses to change his life through football and win happiness back through victories.
In this way, the two teenagers keep forging ahead continuously in their lives. Standing on the field of finals, they not only strive to win the game, but also win a successful life for themselves.

Original Film Title: Giving Back: Students Who Returned As Teachers

Director’s Name: Amel Tresnjic

Writer’s Name: Amel Tresnjic

Producer: Amel Tresnjic

Country of Origin: Australia

Country of Filming: Australia

Language: English

Runtime: 1 hour 19 minutes 31 seconds

Film Description:

A comédie noire s