This year’s sixteen movies that make up the World Cinema Documentary section of the festival were selected from the six hundred submitted pieces of work.The sixteen movies represent eight countries including Canada, New Zealand, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom.Here is a selection of movies to watch out for:

Alone In Four Walls

Alone in Four Walls is directed by Alexandra Westmeier and is set in Russia following a group of adolescent boys who struggle to grow up in a juvenile delinquents home.Westmeier gives the audience a close and intimate look of life behind bars at a group of boys whose crimes range from theft, rape and murder.The documentary follows the lives of the boys as they are educated, take part in sporting activities and are allowed to be children.

Be Like Others

Be Like Others is directed by Tanaz Eshanghian and looks at the homosexuality laws in the country of Iran.

According to Islamic law homosexuality is punishable by death; however sex-change operations are embraced by society.

Eshaghian follows the gender reassignment boom as a whole generation of Iranian men and women are forced to deny themselves and their true feelings they instead choose the only identity allowed – transsexuality.

The documentary visits Dr Bahram who is the country’s most high profile sex change surgeon.

Mahomoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, claims that there are no homosexuals in Iran and this picture shows why.

The Women of Brukman

The Women of Brukman, which is directed by Issac Biton, depicts the struggle of a group of women who have restarted a men’s suit factory.

Their plight came after the economic meltdown in Argentina which left nearly sixty per cent of the population living in poverty and the number of unemployed soared.

Biton followed the women’s story for many years as the women fought to gain control of their lives and improve their standard of living after the factory owners disappeared leaving everything behind except the money to pay the staff.

Stranded: I’ve Come from a Plane that Crashed in the Mountain

Stranded: I’ve Come from a Plane that Crashed in the Mountain is directed by Gonzalo Arigon and takes a look at the survival of sixteen aeroplane passengers after the aircraft crashed in the mountains.

In 1972 a rugby team from Uruguy never made it to their game when the plane they were travelling in crashed in the Andes.

Sixteen people survived the harsh, cold conditions of the mountains for seventy two days, but how they survived shocked the world. With re-enactments of events and details from the survivors Arigon’s film tries to look behind the cannibalism headlines that circulated the media to tell a remarkable tale of true human survival against impossible odds.

In Prison My Whole Life

In Prison My Whole Life is directed by Marc Evans and follows the story of Mumia Abu-Jamal who, in 1981, was arresed for murdering Daniel Faulkner, a serving police officer.

Now twenty six years later Jamal is still on death row.

However there is overwhelming evidence that has been incovered while Jamal has been in jail that should have, at least, secured him a re-trial.

In Prison My Whole Life tries to uncover what happened to this case and expose the truth about possible racism in the United States justice system that could be keeping a man behind bars who is in fact innocent.

Other documentaries in this category include:

The Art Star and the Sudenese twins

A Complex History of my Sexula Failures

Derek

Dinner with the President: A Nation's Journey

Durakovo: Village of Fools

Man On Wire

Puujee

Recycle

Triage: Dr James Orbinski's Humanitarian Dilemma

Up The Yangtze

Yasukuni

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw