time and love and I

This minimalist six-minute film looks at the creation of animal life through time-lapse footage of an embryo’s development – a process universal to all animals, including people. The film follows, in microscopic detail, the development of an alpine newt in its translucent egg all the way from first cell division to moment of hatching.

Twenty years ago, a family fell apart. Twenty years later, four independent testimonies by various family members reconstruct this sad time. As voiceovers to the film, their memories illustrate fictional visual material while at the same time embodying the hazy picture of how things were. Even 20 years later, the husband and wife laugh when remembering the beginning of their love, and cry when describing their separation. Tone of voice becomes the sole dramatic element in this otherwise impersonal Norwegian documentary.

A humorous conceptual game based on a simple idea – filming amateur swimmers as they get ready to jump from a 10-meter platform. The short scenes are a mixture of slapstick, miniature psychological portraits, and aesthetic studies of physical and verbal expressions and courage.

By tradition, the head of state addresses his citizens on state holidays. Over the many decades of his reign, the former King of Spain, Juan Carlos I, gave many such speeches. A political study in the form of a short archival film, Ojalá reveals a persistent consistency in the well-wishes and promises of a monarchy far removed from real life.

Three mythical stories as told by the inhabitants of the Melanesian island state of Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean, set against a backdrop of black-and-white footage of the place of the stories' origin. They reveal the mysteries behind the creation of man and woman, the reasons why pigs walk on all fours, and how volcanoes were made. A domesticated wild pig rests on the ground. Nearby, laundry is drying on a woven mat. Children look curiously and distrustfully into the camera. The pig lets itself be nuzzled and grunts contentedly.

A four-minute reconstruction of the last things that American soldier R.J. Bowman saw and heard in the moments before he was shot and then photographed in a house in Leipzig. The photographer behind the celebrated photographs, published in Life magazine, which became a symbol of the end of the war in 1945, was Robert Capa.DETAIL:Gunshot. The cracked door bursts open and a camera – I – run inside to explore the demolished space. Quick! Up. To the second floor. The clattering of hurrying feet and curt orders where to go. To death.

Dawson City in Canada’s Yukon Territory abounds in goldmines and lack of sunshine. This portrait of the town is an audiovisual collage on the search for the sun and gold, history, and the everyday realities of its inhabitants. The atmosphere of cold, snowy Canada infuses the film with a dark mood reminiscent of Twin Peaks.

In a single take lasting several minutes, the film shows the village of Hladivode (whose names means “Cooling Waters”) near Sarajevo. After a slow tracking shot across an orchard, the camera zooms out to show a group of men engaged in conversation. They are filling in the bullet holes on a ruined building – a reminder of the recent events in the Balkan peninsula’s turbulent history.

Director Zaina Erhaim has decided to explore her Syrian hometown of Idlib, which is controlled by anti-regime forces. Original footage captures familiar neighborhoods in ruins, where Erhaim leaves what is perhaps the last human footprint. This secretly-filmed documentary presents a visual experience of the loss of home and of meeting loved ones in a new reality.

FilmSTRUGGLE is a monolog in which Catholic priest Vojtěch Kodet recounts his experiences with souls in the clutches of evil forces. The film, which frequently quotes from the writings of Raul Salvucci, is based on a sermon focused exclusively on the taboo subject of exorcism. The only thing connecting the priest with the outside world is a walk among the trees, which for a moment brings about a sense of calm free from temptation and obsession.

A meditative exploration of the violent struggle for independence in southeast Asia is framed by excerpts from Sylvia Plath’s poem “Tulips”. The central theme is combined in a double exposure with scenes of butterfly metamorphosis. The entire meditation on the year 1965 is accompanied by Bartók’s Solo for Violin 3.DETAIL:As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions. The Tulips, Sylvia Plath

Intercut footage of the camera panning along two sides of Havana Bay. Every few seconds, our act of viewing is disturbed for several seconds as the camera shifts from one side to the other. The rhythm of this panoramic view is determined by the editing. The 12-minute film invites the viewer on an experimentally filmed journey by boat from Old Havana to Casa Blanca.DETAIL:The sound of waves. The camera’s gaze shifts from the dark-blue surface of the water to the shoreline. An abandoned industrial building and lazily floating boats along the shore represent tools for transforming the abandoned bay.