In the Israeli Negev desert lies the Bedouin village of El-Sayed. It has the largest percentage of deaf people in the world.

Still, no hearing aids can be seen because in El-Sayed deafness is not a handicap. Through the generations a unique sign language has evolved making it the most popular language in this rare society that accepts deafness as natural as life itself.

The village's tranquility is interrupted by Salim's decision to change his deaf son’s fate and make him a hearing person using the Cochlear Implant Operation.

Tino La Musica are a band based in Cape Town whose members are all refugees from the Congo. They have a regular regular weekly gig at a club and live and rehearse in a rundown block of flats. Suddenly they are evicted, a week before the nationwide xenophobic violence that is to scatter and displace approximately 30 000 refugees around the country. The double impact of these events causes the band to fall apart.

Ironically, the consequence for these particular refugees is to push people previously earning a living from music into the wider job market as a means to survive- where they compete more directly with native South Africans.

The film follows the story of Mohammed, the producer of the band, as he goes in search of the band members, hoping that they can reform and continue building a future together.

In Conakry (capital of Guinea), in the entrance hall of the People’s Palace, is an imposing mural of Fadouba Oularé. He is represented with his Djembe, his rifle, and surrounded by his people. He is the incarnation of the slogan sent out by the Sékou Touré government to mobilize the Guinean population: "The right man at the right place".

Fadouba Oularé’s music is formed by his environment and by the history of his country, and is considered both a vital ritual in all local celebrations and a fundamental element of the Guinean revolution. As complex as his music, Fadouba Oularé is first of all an artist, but also the head of a clan, a soldier, a thief hunter and a medicine man. Through this portrait of Fadouba Oularé’ and traditional Mandingue music, the history of a nation and the struggles encountered by its people are conveyed.

With So Much Wealth In the World, Why Is There So Much Poverty? Poverty is not an accident. 1492 marks the birth of modern times when the conquistadors violently extracted gold and other natural resources. Since then, our economic system has been financed by the poor by forcing them to give up their land and access to natural resources, then through unfair trade, debt repayment and unjust taxes on labour and consumption. This system was carefully built and maintained by the free market policies, resource monopolies and structural adjustment programs by the World Bank and the IMF.

The poor from the barrios of Latin America and the slums of Africa show us the consequences of this system on their lives while leading economists, experts, and politicians explain how 20% of the world’s population consumes more than 80% of the planet’s resources and what to do about it.

Piotr and Marek are two young Poles without work or qualifications who are convinced that leaving for England is the only way they can get rich. They are modest: opening a small bar at Victoria bus station will do for a start. Plans for a classy restaurant in London and a factory producing pharmaceutical packaging in Poland can wait until their first business is a success.

However, after arriving in London, it becomes clear that they have been conned by a labour agent and opportunities for decent work without English are as rare as friends willing to take them in. This zippy film, shot in a direct cinema style, documents the phenomenon of East European labour migration and its pitfalls.

A small kitchen alarm clock sets the time. She has exactly 10 minutes to finish a customer.

Through the reading of a witness declaration, 10 Min. narrates how a young Eastern European woman ends up against her will in the Brussels prostitution network.

"Let us bring to the attention of the presiding judge that we have ruled the working conditions of the prostitutes, investigated by our services throughout this inquiry, deserved to be revealed. They were particularly painful."

The video 10 Min was realized in the framework of the International Day against Traffic in Human Beings.

An insightful portrait of the everyday life of a Chinese border police station. Reinforced units try to fight crime, though the results are often confused or grotesque despite the diligence of the inexperienced young officers. A mentally ill man calls them out over a "corpse" he has found in his bed which turns out to be a crumpled duvet. Another man suspected of robbery cannot be made to answer questions, even under hard interrogation- he is probably dumb. Director Zhao Liang oversees these very human stories with a certain humour, but there is a chilly edge to his wit, as he shows how the social structure is affected by ominipresent police repression.

Screening of 3 short documentary films made by pupils from Jordanhill and Springburn Academies, organised by the Strathclyde University Applied Educational Research Centre as part of the Inspiring Enquiring Minds citizenship education programme.

Pupils are encouraged to engage with their local communities through the process of developing, shooting and editing short documentaries about community projects around Glasgow.

The screening will be followed by a workshop exploring the pupils’ experience of working with local projects in making documentaries and its relevance in an international context. This will be attended by pupils from both schools and other schools involved in the IEM programme.

For the past 30 years, millions of Afghans have fled war, misgovernment and poverty at home. Many have settled illegally in Iran and there married Iranian women, often despite broad cultural differences in a society that disapproves of such matches.

Director Mahvash Sheikholeslami interviews several Afghan-Irani couples who speak with candour about love and acceptance, personal and cultural identity, within the frame of a visually charged, compelling journey through contrasting landscapes.

On his return from Africa, Dr Stanislaw Szczepaniak founded The Centre for Alternative Medicine in Kuleszowka near Warsaw, where he sees dozens of patients every day.

It’s a great place for everyone to socialise and for the doctor to follow his dream, "to pull Polish people out of the 16th Century", using his own highly individual methods...

Marcin Grabowicz will introduce his work and lead a short Q & A afterwards.

With the recent attack in Lahore on the Sri Lankan cricket team, last year’s massive suicide bombing in Islamabad and assault on Mumbai, Pakistan’s radical Islamists are bringing violence to the major cities of Pakistan and beyond.

Award-winning Pakistani journalist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy investigates how the Taliban are recruiting younger and younger fighters for this campaign. She meets a 14-year-old boy in her home city of Karachi who is desperate to become a suicide bomber, determined to travel anywhere there are lots of infidels and blow himself up. She joins the elite unit of the anti-terror police squad who warn that the Taliban are hiding out in the city’s sprawling slums and recruiting children from small madrassas in deprived neighbourhoods. And she interviews the Taliban commander responsible for child recruitment, Qari Abdullah. A child recruit himself, he reveals that children as young as five are now being used by the Taliban

Sharmeen is shocked by what this all means for her country: "This new generation, brutalised and radicalised by poverty, indoctrination and war, are Pakistan’s future."

Pituba: an elite neighbourhood in Salvador de Bahía, Brazil. On the seafront of the city, just before the famous Itapuá beach, stands the sport complex of the Clube Português with its swimming pools, tennis courts, and football pitch

But the condition of the premises is pitiful: dirty water fills the pools. Grass grows between the tiles. Everything is covered in boards and canvas. Nonetheless, this rundown space has been adapted to meet the needs of its current residents: 85 families that belong to the Salvador homeless movement (MSTS).

In what was once a luxury club for white people, we are made aware of the origins of the homeless movement, and of the rules they have developed to make living together possible. In the former social halls, Dadinha and Shirley, inseparable neighbours, have their own cosy place. Rosa, however, prefers the intimacy of the terrace for her and her children, although it can be wet in the rainy season... Even the toilets became a home for Sandra and Lifael, and for the solitary Edjauma Dias.

A fairy tale about a hero of our time who would die for what he believes in, but doesn’t believe in anything anymore... A new documentary style featuring a ‘satirical-vérité narration’ and over 400 unique ‘satirical documentary shots’ filmed on a three-year, 50.000 km trip along Balkan side roads.

Close to the Pakistani border in the northwest of India lies the sprawling city of Vadodara. Each week in the poor district of Kalyan Nagar, a group of women gather under a tree to hold their own court.

They put beating husbands and mean mother-in-laws in their place. They go in as a "heavy squad" to help a poor widow, thrown out of the house with her little daughter after the death of her husband, to regain her belongings.

For women for whose plight the conventional legal system, the police and the courts seem indifferent, they provide the protection of their own law. They are the "Women for Justice".

Despite her muscular dystrophy, German dancer and choreographer Gerda König has toured the world uniting able and disabled dancers in performances. She engages the dancers by confronting well known Kenyan taboos and inviting them to use the parts of their bodies which have given them the most grief. This documentary shot in Nairobi, Kenya is a heart-warming example of how dance can heal and how dancers can effect social change. It also provides an unusual insight into the Kenyan way of life and East African culture.

Dance House is delighted to welcome film-maker Gerhard Schick for a post film discussion.