Staffan Julén

For several years, Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich traveled around in Russia and Belarus to investigate the relationship to love of the Russian people. One, as Svetlana means, is an acute shortage in today's society.

Four war-veterans, from different sides, step onto a boat at the mouth of the Kwando river, deep within the African interior. They are on a journey back to the battlefield, the site of the last "great" battle of the Cold War - its inconclusive and a very secret Armageddon, where they as youngsters, once tried to kill each other. But now, twenty years later, they've come together as former enemies, a new unit of disparate souls joined together not only by the common haunting of war trauma, but also by their need to understand, to reconcile, to forgive.

For three years, filmmaker Staffan Julén has traveled with Svetlana Alexievich in Belarus and Russia to document her working method when her reportage books are created. At first, filmmaker Staffan Julén wanted to make a traditional writer portrait on Nobel Prize laureate Svetlana Alexievich which she was not interested in. Her suggestion was instead that he would tag along with her in her ongoing projects and follow her when she talks to people about love.

Twelve-year-old Bazarbai is unlike other Nomad boys his age. He dreams of leaving behind the green pastures of his native Western Mongolian province, lured instead by the call of the urban jungle: Ulan Bator. But Bazarbai's father has his own aspirations: One day, the young boy will make him proud by following the famed eagle hunter's own footsteps. When Bazarbai's brother, Khan, is forced to leave home for Ulan Bator, Bazarbai feels deeply hurt and betrayed; he should have been the one sent into the big city. In an attempt to cheer him up, Bazarbai's father takes him to the great Eagle Festival; but the young boy is inconsolable.

“Twin” and “Happy,” two prisoners at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, experience, during their long sentences, an encounter with culture that forever changes their lives. They are reluctantly cast in the prison’s theatrical production of Waiting for Godot. With the backdrop of daily violence and complete deprivation of freedom, the yearlong rehearsal becomes an isolated space for contemplation and self-reflection. The leap to the theater stage is not as far as Twin and Happy imagine; afterall, their upbringing in a gang environment has already laid the groundwork for a form of acting—roles that they did not choose themselves, but that have led to the crimes that landed them each with a thirty-year sentence.

A documentary of the Inughuit people of Greenland. Qaanaaq a community of 450 people in Thule, the northernmost municipality of the world far up north in the west side of Greenland.

The Swedish elementary and secondary school is one of the world's most market liberal. How did we get there? Who took those decisions? This is the story of how parts of the Swedish school system got outsourced.

Love is everything! A documentary about love in Sweden, a journey through everyday life from Karesuando in the north to Ystad in the south over ages, genders and nationalities.

Three men and their life-long attempts to reconcile the opposing cultural ties within them. The story unfolds in the tension between Robert E. Peary, the American who spent 23 years among the polar Eskimos in order to conquer the North Pole, and Minik, the sole survivor out of six Eskimos, who were put on the New York exhibition in 1897 by Peary. In the film's contemporary scenes, the young polar Eskimo Robert E. Peary II, a great-grandchild of the Arctic explorer, goes on an expedition into his ancestors' past, which takes him from Greenland to America. It changes Robert's view on himself and his family history forever.

14-year old Em likes to hang around in her old play house. One day a boy, Jakob, sets fire to it, and Em catches a brief glimpse of him before he disappears. They meet again a few days later. For the first time in her life, Em falls in love.

Nine-year-old Aligermaa and her family live on the Mongolian steppes where they breed horses, in harmony with the harsh nature surrounding them. Aligermaa adores and dreams of horses, and is happily surprised when her family enroll her in the annual horse race during the national festival of Naadam. Aligermaa is proud, but also a little nervous, especially when she learns that she will train with the famous horse trainer Sodnom – and that she will be riding the white stallion. But on a stormy night before the race Aligermaa's horse is attacked and wounded, and suddenly nothing seems certain. The Adventures of Aligermaa is a vivid and thrilling documentary. The filmmakers seemingly had close contact with the main characters and their culture, and the result is a heartfelt film with breathtaking panoramas and a captivating storyline.