RYOT Films

Recounted mostly through animation to protect his identity, Amin looks back over his past as a child refugee from Afghanistan as he grapples with a secret he’s kept hidden for 20 years.

Zed, a young British rapper, is about to start his first world tour, when a crippling illness strikes him down, forcing him to move back in with his family. He tries to find himself between an international music career and Pakistani family traditions.

Two sisters are abruptly separated, the eldest, Hasna, struggles to find her identity and place in the world.

This is the tale of a young woman, growing up in the age of the internet and turning the search for oneself into a public spectacle, allowing kids from all over the world to live their life through hers. Through her fragmented personalities you see the emergence of a new generation, in which the concept of a fixed identity has grown old.

Routine is the enemy of time. Jedidiah Jenkins rides his bicycle from Oregon to Patagonia, the southern tip of South America, while expounding upon ideas that made him leave a job he loved for the open road.

A room-scale VR creative documentary that uses multi-narrative and volumetric live capture to take the viewer on a journey into the mind of Lisa as she remembers her lost love, Erik. Within an empty void, fragments of past memories appear of their life together.

Now unconstrained by an official post, Steve Bannon is free to peddle influence as a perceived kingmaker, who some say still has a direct line to the White House. After anointing himself leader of the “populist movement,” he travels around the North America and Europe spreading his hard-line anti-immigration message.

Nadia Murad, a 23-year-old Yazidi, survived genocide and sexual slavery committed by ISIS. Repeating her story to politicians and media, this ordinary girl finds herself thrust onto the world stage as the voice of her people. Away from the podium, she must navigate bureaucracy, fame and people's good intentions.

Aging fashion model Benedetta Barzini strives to escape the world of images and disappear for good, but her son’s determination to make a final film about her sparks an unexpected collaboration and confrontation with the camera’s gaze.

What would it be like if your last name was Hitler? Director Matt Ogens seeks that answer by intimately portraying a diverse group of individuals with that same unfortunate name.

Body Team 12 is tasked with collecting the dead at the height of the Ebola outbreak. These body collectors have arguably the most dangerous and gruesome job in the world. Yet despite the strain they emerge as heroes while the film explores their philosophy and strength.

Volunteers from a German non-profit risk the waves of the Mediterranean to pluck refugees from sinking rafts pushing off from Libya in the middle of the night.

Music and politics collide when international music star, Pras Michel of the Fugees, returns to his homeland of Haiti following the devastating earthquake of 2010 to mobilize a presidential campaign for Haiti's most controversial musician: Michel Martelly aka Sweet Micky. The politically inexperienced pair set out against a corrupted government, civil unrest, and a fixed election. When Pras's former bandmate, superstar Wyclef Jean, also enters the presidential race, their chances seem further doomed. But with the help of a few friends, including Ben Stiller and former president Bill Clinton, they never give up on their honest dream of changing the course of Haiti's future forever

Filmed from inside two of the most active therapeutic feeding centers in Yemen, HUNGER WARD documents two female health care workers fighting to thwart the spread of starvation against the backdrop of a forgotten war. The film provides an unflinching portrait of Dr. Aida Alsadeeq and Nurse Mekkia Mahdi as they try to save the lives of hunger-stricken children within a population on the brink of famine.

One was a demon on guitar; the other was fresh out of school and no slouch on harmonica. SATAN & ADAM is a celebration of friendship and the blues comprised of documentary footage shot over the course of two decades.

The film tells the story of one citizen from Jalouzi, one of the largest slums in Haiti, who is determined to bring color to the impoverished area by helping paint the entire town, literally. Believing that color has the power to transform his community, he’s helping to paint everywhere – on houses, on buses, and the entire hillside. Armed with brushes of bright blues, pastel pinks, and sunshine yellows, he’s helping to mobilize citizens of all ages, determined to turn the grey town into a rainbow full of color to lead the way to a brighter Haiti.

A VR film about the Betty and Barnet abduction

As a Cholera epidemic rages in Haiti, the United Nations denies it is responsible for introducing the disease despite glaring evidence suggesting Nepalese peacekeepers are to blame. Baseball in the Time of Cholera is the story of a young Haitian boy who plays in Haiti's first little league baseball team and the Haitian Lawyer seeking justice against the UN. As the epidemic spreads, the two stories intersect in the struggle for survival and justice.

Sailing a Sinking Sea is a feature-length experimental documentary exploring the culture of the Moken people of Burma and Thailand. The Moken are seafaring people and one of the smallest ethnic minority groups in Asia. Wholly reliant upon the sea, their entire belief system, education, and economic and physical development revolve around water. Sailing a Sinking Sea illuminates the Moken lifestyle through recorded traditional music, folklore and conversations with the Moken people. Through intimate and dynamic cinematography and audio recordings, Sailing a Sinking Sea weaves a visual and aural tapestry of Moken mythologies and present-day practices.

Peter Stefan, owner of Graham Putnam & Mahoney funeral parlor in Worcester, Mass., found himself thrust into the national spotlight in the spring of 2013 amid a damning controversy. With implications that still linger to this day, Stefan and his team faced the question of where to draw the line on who deserves a burial.