Documentaries

In Nepal, there are days of the month when a woman cannot sleep at home. She is considered "unclean" and the only place she can stay in is a shed that she needs to share with animals. Yet, the shed is full of dangers - at night, the temperature drops below zero, and additionally, women can be attacked there by poisonous snakes or drunk men.Guilty of being a woman, they redeem the curse of "menstruation" imposed by the cruel Chhaupadi tradition. Even though the custom has been officially illegal since 2005, in Nepal's northwestern districts, it is still stronger than the law.

There are countries where children who are thought to be witches are abandoned, tortured or even murdered. “Accused of Witchcraft” shows how such practices are followed by the Bariba group, the primary inhabitants of the northeast Benin. Members of this ethnic group believe that “wrongly born” children – for instance, those born in the breech position, with their head down or with tooth buds ¬ are witches who might possess evil magic powers. The practices followed by the Bariba people are at times ruthless; such children are often excluded from society and are sometimes even sentenced to death.

Dominika Kulczyk, together with the Kulczyk Foundation, travels to the Nyabihu Demonstration School for the Deaf in Rwanda. Here deaf and hearing-impaired children learn sign language, study, and also acquire skills that will be crucial in their everyday lives. Not only are they given a chance to have the life that they dream of, but more importantly they are given a chance to have dreams at all.

It’s a story full of suffering, but also love. The film is about the life of Bella Galhos, an activist from East Timor. She fought for the freedom of her homeland, and now for women's rights. Her life perfectly illustrates the problems that people of East Timor face every day. In 1975, just nine days after gaining independence from Portugal, East Timor was attacked by Indonesia. The brutal 24-year occupation completely destroyed the country, and its every fourth inhabitant lost their life. The world looked away while the Timorians were brutally murdered, starving to death, and Timorese women were massively forced to sterilize. Dominika Kulczyk reaches Bella Galhos, who experienced all the suffering associated with the occupation. The woman never gave up and already as a teenager began to fight for the freedom of her country. Today, she is also trying to make her home a better place, especially for the most disadvantaged - women and children.

“We would rummage through the rubbish for any raw materials, any waste that could be sold. I smuggled goods for sale across the border, sold sweets, lollipops. We were hungry, we slept anywhere and everywhere, on bare ground. We had no money, we had to beg.” This is the testimony of one victim from the exodus of refugees out of Venezuela, a country that, as a result of dictatorship, has been plunged into a critical humanitarian and economic crisis. In this documentary Dominika Kulczyk, together with the Kulczyk Foundation, hears the stories of Venezuelans crossing the infamous Simón Bolívar Bridge, on the border between Venezuela and Colombia, that is known locally as “the bridge of desperation”.

Every third woman in the world married as a child lives in India. From an early age, they are taught meekness and obedience. This is to prepare them for marriage. They often become wives long before they reach the age of maturity. They become pregnant almost immediately after they get married, which poses a serious threat to their health and life. Also, underage wives have no chance to continue their education. They remain completely dependent on their husbands and in-laws for the rest of their lives. About 23% of girls from India experience this fate every year.

In just one country there are more contemporary victims of sorcery-related accusations and violence than there were in Medieval Europe. In September 2017, Dominika Kulczyk undertook a difficult journey to one of the least studied or explored parts of the world – the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. She documented the issue of sorcery-related violence, finding the survivors, and meeting the perpetrators. In Papua New Guinea, she witnessed new victims of sorcery-related violence on a daily basis. Every week brings more "witch killings”, where, as a result of ancient beliefs and rituals, children, women and men are tortured and killed.

Pregnant girls at the age of 13 or a grandmother by the age of 26 are scenarios that are not surprising in Colombian slums. In the poorest social classes, violence against women is especially striking: rape, sexual abuse or sex trafficking of minors take place on an everyday basis. Teenage pregnancies are especially prevalent. Colombia is a country that has experienced a brutal 50-year long civil war alongside ruthless drug cartel activity; this long escalation of violence has caused millions of Colombian people to suffer in extreme poverty. The situation in Colombia has forced over seven million people to flee their homes and most of them now live in slums. The situation is most difficult for women, who are additionally victims of violence and stigmatization resulting from the machismo culture not uncommon in Latin America. Dominika Kulczyk, the President of the Kulczyk Foundation, together with Catalina Escobar, reaches out to the inhabitants of slums that are most in need, offering them a chance to change their lives.