The Twinning Reaction

Sieben Mulden und eine Leiche(de)

Thomas Haemmerli is about to celebrate his fortieth birthday when he learns of his mother's death. A further shock follows when he and his brother Erik discover her apartment, which is filthy and full to bursting with junk. It takes the brothers an entire month to clean out the place. Among the chaos, they find films going back to the 1930s, photos and other memorabilia.

Geographies of Kinship(en)

In this powerful tale about the rise of Korea’s global adoption program, four adult adoptees return to their country of birth and reconnect with their roots, mapping the geographies of kinship that bind them to a homeland they never knew.

Me + You(fr)

A documentary about twin sisters whose beliefs have taken them on different paths. Filmmaker Zohra begins filming her twin sister Sanaa in their apartment in Brussels. When Sanaa silently turns to Islam, the religion the two sisters partially grew up with, Zohra becomes more and more consumed by capturing her sister. The inevitable transformation leads to a need to understand each other anew.

Strong Island(en)

Examining the violent death of the filmmaker’s brother and the judicial system that allowed his killer to go free, this documentary interrogates murderous fear and racialized perception, and re-imagines the wreckage in catastrophe’s wake, challenging us to change.

Given Away(en)

What does it mean to adopted and brought up far away from your country of birth? In “Given Away,” this week’s moving new Op-Doc by directors Glenn and Julie Morey, Korean adoptees who grew up in Western countries reflect on the complicated emotional terrain that they’ve navigated in their lives. Glenn Morey was himself adopted from Korea in the wake of the Korean war, and the directors have channeled that connection to create a beautifully nuanced and emotional film. As the Moreys write of Glenn’s experience interviewing adoptees, “He has needed others like him … to help him make sense of his life. They have also helped him make peace with the universe.”

The Wikipedia Promise(de)

In 2001, Jimmy Wales published the first article on Wikipedia, a collaborative effort that began with a promise: to democratize the spreading of knowledge, monopolized by the elites for centuries. But is Wikipedia really a utopia come true?

Eva: A-7063(en)

As a 10-year-old “Mengele Twin,” Eva Kor suffered some of the worst of the Holocaust. At 50, she launched the biggest manhunt in history. Now in her 80s, she circles the globe to promote the lesson her journey has taught: Healing through forgiveness.

Me Mataron 3 Veces(es)

After their mother's femicide, three siblings are separated and forced to live in different places. Years later they gather to raise their voices and fight to be made visible in a country where orphans for femicide are ignored by the state and invisible to society. It's up to them to tell their story.

Lenin kam nur bis Lüdenscheid - Meine kleine deutsche Revolution(de)

The free, almost naive view from the perspective of a child puts the "68ers" in a new, illuminating light in the anniversary year 2008. The film is a provocative reckoning with the ideological upbringing that seemed so progressive and yet was suffocated by the children's desire to finally grow up. With an ironic eye and a feuilletonistic style, author Richard David Precht and Cologne documentary film director André Schäfer trace a childhood in the West German provinces - and place the major events of those years in completely different, smaller and very private contexts.

The Power of Good: Nicholas Winton(cs)

A gripping documentary about the courage and determination of a young English stockbroker who saved the lives of 669 children. Between March 13 and August 2, 1939, Nicholas Winton organized 8 transports to take children from Prague to new homes in Great Britain, and kept quiet about it until his wife discovered a scrapbook documenting his unique mission in 1988. Winton was a successful 29-year-old stockbroker in London who "had an intuition" about the fate of the Jews when he visited Prague in 1939. He quietly but decisively got down to the business of saving lives. We learn how only two countries, Sweden and Britain, answered his call to harbor the young refugees; how documents had to be forged and how once foster parents signed for the children on delivery, that was the last he saw of them.

Aka Dan(en)

YouTube musician and Korean American adoptee Dan Matthews travels to South Korea to perform and reunite with his biological family, including a long lost twin he never knew he had.

Le mystère des jumeaux(fr)

Separated(en)

Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Errol Morris confronts one of the darkest chapters in recent American history: family separations. Based on NBC News Political and National Correspondent Jacob Soboroff’s book, Separated: Inside an American Tragedy, Morris merges bombshell interviews with government officials and artful narrative vignettes tracing one migrant family’s plight. Together they show that the cruelty at the heart of this policy was its very purpose. Against this backdrop, audiences can begin to absorb the U.S. government’s role in developing and implementing policies that have kept over 1300 children without confirmed reunifications years later, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Shalom Italia(he)

Shalom Italia tells the story of three brothers, who set off on a journey to find a cave in the woods of Tuscany. The place where they, as children, hid to escape the Nazis. But more than a search to find a geographical location, the brothers are on their way to locate the common ground of memory, the nexus where the conflicting versions of their stories can come to rest.

Every Good Marriage Begins with Tears(en)

Two Bangladeshi girls born and raised in London have weddings arranged for them against their will by their family. Shahanara, the rebel of the family, banished from the family in her teens for being "too Western", has to swap her pink hot pants for a sari as she goes off to the airport to meet her new Bangladeshi husband. Her sister Hushnara is the opposite of Shahanara; a devout Muslim who agrees to marry so she doesn't upset her parents.

Les Sirènes d’Ukraine(fr)

In February 2022, in Kharkiv, twin sisters Maryna and Vladyslava Alexiiva had to flee in the middle of the night under the bombs. In extremis, they take with them their bronze medals, won in Tokyo a year earlier in synchronized swimming. They took refuge in Italy for six months, then decided to return to Ukraine to reunite with their team. From then on, they were obsessed with a single goal: to win the gold medal in Paris in 2024.

My Flesh and Blood(en)

My Flesh and Blood is a 2003 documentary film by Jonathan Karsh chronicling a year in the life of the Tom family. The Tom family is notable as the mother, Susan, adopted eleven children, most of whom had serious disabilities or diseases. The film itself is notable for handling the sensitive subject matter in an unsentimental way that is more uplifting than one might expect.

The Lost Years(ne)

Around 1990, a young boy from Jhapa (Eastern Nepal) came to Kathmandu to weave Nepali carpets. After spending some time in Kathmandu, given that he is underage, the boy is laid off from his job. Some people from the Northern Gorkha found him. Assuring him a job as a cowherd, he was taken to Tsum Valley after a two-week walk. From there on, he never returned home from the Mountain.

A 3 Minute Hug(es)

As daylight breaks between the border cities of El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico, undocumented migrants and their relatives, divided by a wall, prepare to participate in an activist event. For three minutes, they’ll embrace in no man’s land for the briefest and sweetest of reunions.

Lily Topples The World(en)

Follow 20-year-old Lily Hevesh — the world’s greatest domino toppler and the only woman in her field — in a coming-of-age story of artistry, passion, and unlikely triumph.

Three Identical Strangers(en)

New York, 1980. Three complete strangers accidentally discover that they're identical triplets, separated at birth. The 19-year-olds' joyous reunion catapults them to international fame, but also unlocks an extraordinary and disturbing secret that goes beyond their own lives – and could transform our understanding of human nature forever.

Misha and the Wolves(en)

A woman’s Holocaust memoir takes the world by storm, but a fallout with her publisher-turned-detective reveals her story as an audacious deception created to hide a darker truth.

Twinsters(en)

Adopted from South Korea, raised on different continents & connected through social media, Samantha & Anaïs believe that they are twin sisters separated at birth.

Kidnapped: Elizabeth Smart(en)

Elizabeth Smart's harrowing abduction at 14 from her family's Utah home unfolds through her own words and never-before-seen material in this documentary.

Tell Me Who I Am(en)

In this documentary, Alex trusts his twin, Marcus, to tell him about his past after he loses his memory. But Marcus is hiding a dark family secret.

The Wolfpack(en)

Locked away from society in an apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the Angulo brothers learn about the outside world through the films that they watch. Nicknamed ‘The Wolfpack’, the brothers spend their childhood reenacting their favorite films using elaborate home-made props and costumes. Their world is shaken up when one of the brothers escapes and everything changes.

Seven Up!(en)

A group of British children aged 7 from widely ranging backgrounds are interviewed about a range of subjects. The filmmakers plan to re-interview them at 7 year intervals to track how their lives and attitudes change as they age.

Strong Island(en)

Examining the violent death of the filmmaker’s brother and the judicial system that allowed his killer to go free, this documentary interrogates murderous fear and racialized perception, and re-imagines the wreckage in catastrophe’s wake, challenging us to change.

Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story(en)

Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.

Abducted in Plain Sight(en)

A family falls prey to the manipulative charms of a neighbor, who abducts their adolescent daughter. Twice.

The Imposter(en)

In 1994, a 13-year-old boy disappeared without a trace from his home in San Antonio, Texas. Three-and-a-half years later, he is found alive in a village in southern Spain with a horrifying story of kidnap and torture. His family is overjoyed to bring him home. But all is not quite as it seems.

Chimpanzee(en)

A nature documentary centered on a family of chimps living in the Ivory Coast and Ugandan rain forests. Through Oscar, a little chimpanzee, we discover learning about life in the heart of the African tropical forest and follow his first steps in this world with humor, emotion and anguish. Following a tragedy, he finds himself separated from his mother and left alone to face the hostility of the jungle. Until he is picked up by an older chimpanzee, who will take him under her protection.

My Mom Jayne(en)

Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.

Stories We Tell(en)

Canadian actress and filmmaker Sarah Polley investigates certain secrets related to her mother, interviewing a group of family members and friends whose reliability varies depending of their implication in the events, which are remembered in different ways; so a trail of questions remains to be answered, because memory is always changing and the discovery of truth often depends on who is telling the tale.

Catfish(en)

Nev, a 24-year-old New York-based photographer, has no idea what he's in for when Abby, an eight-year-old girl from rural Michigan, contacts him on Facebook, seeking permission to paint one of his photographs. When he receives her remarkable painting, Nev begins a friendship and correspondence with Abby's family. But things really get interesting when he develops a cyber-romance with Abby's attractive older sister, Megan, a musician and model. Prompted by some startling revelations about Megan, Nev and his buddies embark on a road trip in search of the truth.

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father(en)

In 2001, Andrew Bagby, a medical resident, is murdered not long after breaking up with his girlfriend. Soon after, when she announces she's pregnant, one of Andrew's many close friends, Kurt Kuenne, begins this film, a gift to the child.

The Captains(en)

The Captains is a feature-length documentary film written and directed by William Shatner. The film follows Shatner as he interviews the other actors who have portrayed starship captains in the Star Trek franchise.

Tarnation(en)

Filmmaker Jonathan Caouette's documentary on growing up with his schizophrenic mother -- a mixture of snapshots, Super-8, answering machine messages, video diaries, early short films, and more -- culled from 19 years of his life.

Maria by Callas(en)

Told through performances, TV interviews, home movies, family photographs, private letters and unpublished memoirs, the film reveals the essence of an extraordinary woman who rose from humble beginnings in New York City to become a glamorous international superstar and one of the greatest artists of all time.

Monkey Kingdom(en)

A newborn monkey and its mother struggle to survive within the competitive social hierarchy of the Temple Troop, a dynamic group of monkeys who live in ancient ruins found deep in the storied jungles of South Asia.