The Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore and Alliance Francaise de Bangalore, in collaboration with the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Embassy of France and ARTE, are proud to present "The world through ARTE's eyes" - a Documentary Film Festival from November 2 to 6. This film festival will be inaugurated at 6.30 p.m. on November 2 at Alliance Française de Bangalore with the screening of the acclaimed German film: Comrades in Dreams (Leinwandfieber)

All films will be screened both at Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan and Alliance Française - except for the Inaugural film "Comrades in Dreams" which will be shown only at Alliance Française. Marcel Huraux, the Director of the film "A visit to Ali Farka Toure" will personally present his film at 6.15 p.m. on November 6 at Alliance Francaise.

The documentaries are on a host of different places such as Mali, China, North Korea, USA, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iran, India, Germany and France. The themes that are addressed include the effects of globalisation on people from vastly differing backgrounds, and their working conditions, migration in Europe, world music and cinema.
For further details, please contact Max Mueller Bhavan: info@bangalore.goethe.org or Alliance Française de Bangalore: accounts.afbangalore@afindia.org or check the websites: www.goethe.de/bangalore; www.afindia.org/bangalore

The following films will be screened at the documentary film festival:
*Leinwandfieber (Comrades in Dreams) Uli Gaulke, Germany, 2006, 106 min: This film is about people who have made the cinema the very substance of their lives. For one there is Han Jong Sil from North Korea. She wants to use her films to improve the lives of people.

Penny Tefertiller from Wyoming, USA has also dedicated her life to serving the community. Much like Anup, the Indian whose film roles blessed in the temple have made him the uncrowned king of travelling cinema. The binding power of dreams allows our heroes to find each other.

*Welcome Europa, Bruno Ulmer, France, 2006, 90 min: Economic refugees from across the world see Europe as the promised land of their dreams. But reality looks different. A tough struggle for survival begins once they have arrived in the imagined paradise. 
* Etre et avoir (To Be and to Have), Nicolas Philibert, France, 2002, 104 min: This award-winning documentary film portrays a simple village school in Auvergne that has only one class.  
* Ali Farka Toure - Le miel n'est jamais bon dans une seule bouche (A visit to Ali Farka Toure), Marc Huraux, France, 2000, 55 min:  Interspersed with the interviews and extracts from the concerts of a musician known in the west as "The Bluesman of the Desert", the film reveals Ali Farka Touré's lifestyle and his gift of music.
* Desert Blues, Michel Jaffrennou, France, 2006, 60 min:  This musical journey to the heart of contemporary Mali where four artistes from different ethnic backgrounds, illustrate the influence of the Sahara on the musical traditions of their people.
*Losers and Winners, Michael Loeken/Ulrike Franke, Germany, 2006, 90 min: In 2000, after just eight years in operation, the world's most modern coking plant is shut down in Dortmund, Germany and sold to China three years later. Four hundred Chinese workers spend 60 hours a week under extreme conditions to press ahead with the idea of "breaking up in the west - starting afresh in the east" and dismantle the entire plant in order to reinstall it in China. 
* Le profit et rien d'autre (Profit and Nothing But! Or Impolite Thoughts on the Class Struggle) Raoul Peck, France/Germany/Haiti, 2001, 57 min:  "Capital has won" says Raoul Peck ironically at the beginning of the film.
Profit and nothing but. At once a director and a political thinker, Peck, former Haitian Minister of Culture provides a political analysis of the economy and the present state of his country in the face of the Utopian declarations of the supporters of the new world order.
* 50 Stunden bis Kabul (Smiling in a War Zone - and the Art of Flying to Kabul) Simone Aaberg Kærn and Magnus Bejmar, Denmark, 2005, 80 min: After the fall of the Taliban, the young Danish artist, Simone Aaberg Kærn reads in the paper about a girl called Faryal in Kabul who dreams of flying.
She decides to help the girl realise this wish as she herself is passionate about flying. 
* I for India, Sandhya Suri, Germany/UK, 2005, 75 min: This is the story of a family of Indian immigrants in England and their relatives who have stayed back in India.