Global Voices

My Perestroika follows five ordinary Russians living in extraordinary times — from their structured Soviet childhood, to the collapse of the Soviet Union during their teenage years, to the constantly shifting political landscape in the new Russia. Together, these childhood classmates paint a complex picture of the dreams and disillusionments of those raised behind the Iron Curtain.

Two spirited daughters from China's last remaining matrilineal ethnic minority lose the only jobs they've ever known. Determined to keep their family out of poverty, one sister sacrifices her dream of an education to farm, while the other tries her luck in the city, where rich Chinese businessmen, lecherous gangsters, Tibetan monks, and fledgling pop stars lead her on a precarious path.

In this video extra from the documentary The Mosuo Sisters, one of the sisters — Juma — visits her Tibetan boyfriend’s family back home. She finds herself caught between his parents’ wishes (in a culture where sons frequently live at home with their family and where daughters live with their mothers) and those of her own family’s.

The Oath is the story of Abu Jandal, Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard, and Salim Hamdan, a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay Prison and the first man to face the controversial military tribunals. Filmed in Yemen and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the film captures a fateful encounter in 1996 set them on a journey that would lead to Osama bin Laden, 9/11, Guantanamo Bay Prison, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Filmed before, during, and after the Egyptian revolution, Before the Spring, After the Fall is the story of remarkable young people seeking the freedom to define themselves. In 2008, a film crew began documenting a group of young heavy metal musicians in Egypt. Oppressed by massive social forces beyond their control, the kids saw music as their outlet. Then everything burst wide open.

Meet three young boxers — two men and one woman — from Bukom, Ghana, a unique town with a unique boxing culture. The Fighting Spirit follows their extraordinary journeys to triumph and defeat, in and out of the glittering prizefighting rings of Europe and America, and intimately portrays what home, culture, love, and loyalty mean to modern Africans.

May 2009: Rodrigo Rosenberg, a wealthy Guatemalan lawyer, went cycling, and was murdered. Even more extraordinary: He’d left behind a video on YouTube accusing the president of his murder. For a government on public trial, a special prosecutor began an investigation: a journey into Rosenberg's soul and Guatemala's hell that, after multiple twists and turns, reached a stunning conclusion.

In the 1960s, a South Korean orphanage switched the identities of two orphans when an American family adopted one of them. Filmmaker Deann Borshay Liem goes on a quest to search for her “double” — a girl named Cha Jung Hee — in an attempt to resolve a case of mistaken identity, in the process exploring the complexities of international transracial adoptions.

If you think it's hard making it as an all-girl band, try being the first to do it with a military dictatorship breathing down your neck.