Torch Films (Firm)

Emanuel arrived in Norway in 2003 as a stowaway on a container ship. He arrived with no papers, claiming to be from Liberia and to have fled its civil war in the early 1990s to spend the next decade on the streets of Ghana. But Norwegian authorities suspect he is of Ghanaian origin, and have sent him to Ghana twice, only to have Emanuel rejected and returned to Norway.. He is held for a year in a Norwegian detention center, where he is subject to...

The Great Wall is a visually hypnotic and disturbing study of borders and immigration in a contemporary Europe increasingly preoccupied with its own fortification.. In a simple but highly suggestive manoeuvre, we hear Kafka's short story, "The Building of the Great Wall of China" being read over searing images of concrete walls, maps, barbed wire and armed guards, which chart the ominous security culture that aims to protect EU citizens from the perceived...

After the Norwegian Ministry of Culture's Human Rights Award was bestowed upon Thomas Østbye's previous film IMAGINING EMANUEL, Emanuel uses the money to buy fake identity papers and smuggle himself out of Norway and back to Liberia in order to start a new life.. With a single handheld camcorder, Emanuel films his escape into Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast and his eventual return to his home village in Grand Bassa, Liberia,...

Filmed on the Native American reservation of the same name in South Dakota, where Americans with native blood live a life in the middle -- and yet outside -- of American society, PINE RIDGE explores what shapes the lives and dreams of today's Native American youth.. Depicted on their own terms during a long warm summer, Lance Red Cloud, Kassel Sky, Cassandra Warrior, her young daughter Diamond Rose, and their friends and families know one thing for...

Israel invests heavily in military weapons research, which isn't surprising given it's history and location. Large companies develop and test deadly technology, which is sold worldwide by private agents, often to countries with oppressive regimes and abysmal human rights records. This process takes place among a highly developed network of military officials, politicians, and consultants who advise nation-clients on how to conduct counter-insurgency...

As the Syrian Civil War began to slowly bear down on Damascus, its residents were forced to decide whether to stay and protect their homes or to flee and leave everything behind.. Some residents appear perpetually ready to leave, but seem to be staying nevertheless. They ask themselves how many artillery shellings are too many. The simple act of deciding which family heirlooms to pack carries a sense of loss. Some who had hoped to have finally found...

In 2001, a mass grave was discovered in a suburb of Belgrade. Soon, more were to be found. DEPTH TWO investigates the hidden story behind these horrid discoveries, and takes us back to 1999 and the atrocities committed in Kosovo. Using the verbal testimonies of perpetrators and victims, Depth Two unfolds like a hypnotic thriller that follows the trail of this untold massacre, in an attempt to uncover and give a voice to stories that are still intentionally...

Aysén, a region in Chilean Patagonia, is the size of England but has only 90,000 inhabitants. They live isolated with nearly no roads in a stunning rough landscape. Somewhere in this lost world, a mysterious city is hiding. Five hundred years ago a group of conquerors built a city entirely of gold. As legend describes, whoever sets foot on it becomes immortal but loses their memory. It is the City of the Lost Caesars.

On the brink of the Syrian uprising, in the refugee camp of Yarmouk, the Shebabs, a young close-knit collective of third-generation Palestinian refugees, are preparing for a future of profound uncertainty. Now facing adulthood, they possess a genuine thirst for life in constant confrontation with the harsh realities of the camp and their own sense of rootlessness.. THE SHEBABS OF YARMOUK is a poignant lament for the lost youth of Yarmouk, captured...

Nominated for Best Documentary at Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival, NO MAN IS AN ISLAND illuminates the refugee experience and its contradictions.. The Italian island of Lampedusa has increasingly become a rescue point for migrants and refugees seeking a gateway into Europe. Omar, a refugee who fled Tunisia during the Arab Spring, was taken in by a doctor and set up with a job as an interpreter in the local center for refugees. Adam,...