Kuhle Wampe takes place in early-1930s Berlin. The film begins with a montage of newspaper headlines describing steadily-rising unemployment figures. This is followed by scenes of a young man looking for work in the city and the family discussing the unpaid back rent. The young man, brother of the protagonist Anni, removes his wristwatch and throws himself from a window out of despair. Shortly thereafter his family is evicted from their apartment. Now homeless, the family moves into a garden colony of sorts with the name “Kuhle Wampe.”

A young police woman is faced with the difficulties between her responsibilities at work and her personal responsibilities.

Catherine and Mack and their close friends Chris and Madge graduate from a West Coast college and fly to New York City to find work.

Yeong-shin and Dong-hyuk graduate from college with a cause. They plan to bring education and modernization to farmers living in the rural area of their hometown. When they arrive, the pair immediately get to work, Dong-hyuk builds a village hall and starts aiding the farmers while Yeong-shin tries to gather the children to form a school. However, the villagers at first resent and resist the pair. It is not until one child, Ok-bun, takes the initiative and and learns to read under Yeong-shin’s care that the villages trust the pair and allow their children to be taken from the fields and taught reading, writing and math.

Unemployed Antonio is elated when he finally finds work hanging posters around war-torn Rome. However on his first day, his bicycle—essential to his work—gets stolen. His job is doomed unless he can find the thief. With the help of his son, Antonio combs the city, becoming desperate for justice.

Alicia is an unattractive woman who is transformed into a beauty by a plastic surgeon. She soon realizes that beauty is not all that matters in this world.

A nurse from Ukraine searches for a better life in the West, while an unemployed security guard from Austria heads East for the same reason. Both are looking for work, a new beginning, an existence, struggling to believe in themselves, to find a meaning in life...

Old Mr. Cohen (Paul Graetz) simply walks away from his London department store, leaving his sons to run it.

A teenaged girl witnesses her widowed mother's attempt to sustain her family.

A touching mother-daughter relationship that reflects the modern South Africa.

A group of kids in a poverty-stricken Puerto Rican rural town need money to purchase baseball uniforms for little league.

In Soviet Azerbaijan, a divorced Armenian couple fights over the custody of their daughter, Ashen. Stolen from one parent to another, Ashen's guardians are tragically killed in the bloody war surrounding them. Will the arrival of a new savior finally bring Ashen freedom? Official selection of the Global Lens Collection presented by the Global Film Initiative.