Through the unrelenting winter in the north of Japan, a small group of workers must brave unusual working conditions to bring to life a 2,000-year-old tradition known as sake. A cinematic documentary, The Birth of Sake is a visually immersive experience of an almost-secret world in which large sacrifices must be made for the survival of a time-honored brew.
In 150 years, twice marked by total destruction —a terrible earthquake in 1923 and incendiary bombings in 1945— followed by a spectacular rebirth, Tokyo, the old city of Edo, has become the largest and most futuristic capital in the world in a transformation process fueled by the exceptional resilience of its inhabitants, and nourished by a unique phenomenon of cultural hybridization.
Every winter in a cemetery near Stockholm, activists gather to keep the memory of Fadime Sahindal alive. A Kurdish immigrant to Sweden who was murdered by her father in 2002, Fadime has become an international symbol of the debate over cultural traditions that accept the use of violence to control women's behaviour. In Crimes Without Honour, four extraordinary activists risk everything to publicly challenge these traditions and tell their own stories of physical and emotional violence. While they practice different faiths, hail from different parts of the world and have immigrated to different countries, all make it crystal clear that the justification for these crimes is an entrenched family power structure of male supremacy—one that crosses borders, cultures and religions. Raymonde Provencher has crafted a vital addition to a growing body of films about crimes related to patriarchal traditions of family honour.
