Excision is an ancient custom that survives to this day. An excruciating operation on the female body, which is mainly encountered in African countries.

Across the world, 140.000 girls and women have already suffered genital mutilation (FGM). Six girls are being mutilated every passing moment.

In Mali the percentage of sexually mutilated women reaches up to 85%! Little girls that are being kept captive by tradition and superstition are being submitted to the cruel custom in a defenseless manner, experiencing awful consequences throughout their life.

Both the government and activist organizations in Mali are struggling against the practice these past few years. Will they be able to beat a deeply rooted tradition?


Written & Directed by Yorgos Avgeropoulos / Produced by Georgia Anagnou / Director of Photography:Yorgos Alexopoulos / Production Manager: Anastasia Skoubri /Research Coordinator: Aggelos Athanasopoulos / Original Music by Yiannis Paxevanis / Editing by Yiannis Biliris & Anna Prokou / Website Coordinator: Apostolis Kaparoudakis / Graphics: Sakis Palpanas / A Small Planet Production for © ERT Greek National Television 2008-2009

0tJKwYoou1c

ZERU ZERU THE GHOSTS
A crazy manhunt has broken out in peaceful Tanzania. Bounty hunters murder and mutilate Albinos so that they can take their limbs. According to the paranoid superstition streak that has been initiated by 161.000 Tanzanian witch doctors, the limbs of the bodies of those who were born without melanin in their skin bring good fortune and wealth. A horror trade of human limbs has been set up and is spreading like fire in the neighboring countries. The Albinos are being slaughtered like animals. They are the Zeru Zeru, the Nobodies, the Ghosts.

Written & Directed by Yorgos Avgeropoulos / Produced by Nina Maria Pashalidou /Director of Photography: Yiannis Avgeropoulos / Production Manager: Anastasia Skoubri /Research Coordinator: Aggelos Athanasopoulos / Original Music by Yiannis Paxevanis / Editing by Yiannis Biliris & Anna Prokou / Website Coordinator: Apostolis Kaparoudakis / Graphics: Sakis Palpanas / A Small Planet Production for © ERT Greek National Television 2008 - 2009

4DVkGz-6tFo

DEATH IN THE LAND OF THE FUR
Since 2003 Arab paramilitaries known as Janjaweed, along with the Sudanese army, have been regularly conducting raids against revolted African tribes in the Darfur province, in the west part of Sudan.
So far more than 2.2 million people have been dislocated from their villages and have become refugees and more than 300.000 people have been murdered.
Yorgos Avgeropoulos records - in some cases legally, in others illegally- death and persecution in the context of a relentless civil war. A war that began in the form of a small scale conflict over some land and water, as a consequence of climate change. Aided by the countrys dictator, President Bashir, it has turned out to be one of the most savage of todays wars; a tragedy that, while unfolding right before the eyes of the international community, seems to be well hidden behind the desert dust.Written, Produced & Directed by YORGOS AVGEROPOULOS
Director of Photography / Sound : YIANNIS AVGEROPOULOSResearch Coordinator: AGGELOS ATHANASOPOULOS
Production Manager: ANASTASIA SKOUBRI
Research conducted by ACHILLEAS KOUREMENOS
Editing: YIANNIS BILIRIS, ANNA PROKOU
Original Music by: YIANNIS PAXEVANIS
Graphics: SAKIS PALPANAS
Translations: NASIM AL ATRAS
English Version by DANAE LIVADA
Executive Producer for ΕRΤ: DIMITRIS KONTOSIS
Executive Producer for SMALL PLANET: ANASTASIA SKOUBRI
Small Planet Productions
www.smallplanet.gr
ERT (Greek Public Television)
www.ert.gr© 2008 2009
World Sales:
Small Planet Productions
Contact Person: Anastasia Skoubri
askoubri@smallplanet.gr
info@smallplanet.gr
+302109515295
ERT
Contact Person: Yiannis Kollias
ykollias@ert.gr
+302106066000

8turgQZ5RuU

What could urge housewives, students, workers, people of religion, scientists, farmers, natives and non-natives, unemployed, enraged teenagers and peaceable elders to stand together behind the same barricade with stones in their hands?

What could lead them to seizing their town and discussing, altogether, in open assemblies, the creation of the Constitution and of the laws which will rule their lives? Hundreds of thousands of citizens managed to unite in a movement with no leaders, no commanders and no guidance from political parties. History has known very few popular uprisings as the one that took place in the South of Mexico in May, 2006.

63 MINUTES, AVAILABLE VERSIONS: Greek, English.

5S0HNpvesOU

According to myth, God entrusted San Vicente with a difficult task. On his back he carried a sack full of Muxes, and had to leave one in every town of the Zapotec kingdom.?

But when the Saint reached Juchitan he tripped, and all the Muxes he carried in his sack fell out. Since then, this town in the South-East of Mexico has experienced an unexpected - not only for Mexico but for the entire world -? sexual liberation. Homosexual men who wish to dress as women freely do so, and live a more or less similar life as their heterosexual fellow citizens. Not only do the Muxes not hide their difference on the streets of Juchitan, they actually project it in every way. Their fellow citizens simply go on their way, not impressed, provoked or angered by the sight of a man in women's clothes, hairdos and make-up. The Muxes claim they belong to the community of the "intrepid", of "those who do not fear death", and celebrate their desire and joy to be women every year in a festivity attended by the whole community.

In Juchitan, the dream of tolerance and the acceptance of difference has been a reality for years. Without announcements and declarations, without social movements having to fight long and bloody social and political struggles, without conflict and quarrel...

A documentary on the joy of life and love which prevailed effortlessly because San Vicente tripped...

72 MINUTES, LANGUAGE: SPANISH, SUBTITLES: ENGLISH, GREEK

bz-NL1HcGaA

A voyage to the hermetically closed vaults of our modern, civilized world. One of the first documentaries to be made on this subject reveals the bleak reality of thousands of slaves who, at the dawn of the 21st century, live in Niger.

The government of Niger claims that there are no slaves, the United Nations Organization has no evidence, the major non-governmental organizations are unaware of the issue... The camera, however, after roaming the deserts of the Sahara and Tenere, has recorded the faces, the words, the thoughts and the dreams of these "non-existent" slaves. The phenomenon has its roots in the customs of the tribes of the Tuareg, the Fulani, the Manga and the Hausa who live there. It was nurtured by the practices of the Europeans who, in the 16th century, imported to their mines and plantations 11 million African slaves. Today, this practice thrives on the indifference of "civilized countries" while the poverty of Niger perpetuates the phenomenon.

55 MINUTES, AVAILABLE VERSIONS: Greek, English.

T534iDIBQvs