Ten Meter Tower

Juan Medina’s photograph from 2006 shows a man crawling along a Mediterranean beach shortly after being washed ashore. The film further develops the scene, loosely inspired by the moment captured in the picture. Like frozen puppets, the people remain unaware of their callousness towards someone who is taking his first steps towards a better life.

The director revises a TV report which a local TV station shot with him and his family on the Rosh hashanah holiday in 1974. In the footage which seemed as an expression of interest in the Jewish culture at the time it was created, the author discovers antisemitic and racist tendencies. The title refers to a zoo where domesticated and tame animals can be fed and petted by the visitors.

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.

The only things they left behind were their personal belongings. They speak volumes about what kind of people they were. What they liked. Who was close to them. What hobbies they had. A film without words. Footage of objects belonging to people who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of the island of Lampedusa in 2013 and 2015 - people whose lives were extinguished for good.

They are happy together, but she gets a job offer in another country and he doesn’t want to go. He tries to sway her decision in his favour by offering to marry her… In its format, the film perhaps most closely resembles a music video, but besides music it also uses poetry and dance to tell its story. Shot on an iPhone 7 Plus. 

The Memory Atlas refers to the unfinished work of Aby Warburg, a mentally ill German art historian. A surrealistic flow of ideas from his authentic writings from his stay in the Bellevue psychiatric hospital in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland commingles with the medical records of his psychotic states, tracing the border between madness and genius in one zoom out.

An observational look at the interaction between two elderly women: 100-year-old Ema and her six years younger sister Zosie. The camera sensitively documents how these two once famous hostesses try to bake a cake at their advanced age. In so doing, it offers a perceptive portrait of their personalities and their relationships.  

Nomads in the seas of Indonesia say that when a women gives birth to a child, she also gives birth to its twin in the form of an octopus. A look at a cultural environment shaped by traditional folk beliefs. The camera follows a man swimming with his face submerged in the sea in a ritual honouring the octopus. Dishonouring your aquatic brother can lead to misfortune.

Two elderly gays spice up their relationship with a series of sex games that include a quirky game of father and son. The protagonists not only talk about their sexual habits, but also even demonstrate them for the dispassionate camera. Depictions of intimacy in film are once again pushed to their limits.

This documentary combines interviews with participants in ethnographic research led by the filmmaker personally with footage of his own personal reflections and insights. The recordings, gathered during the three years prior to the end of the authoritarian regime of Zimbabwean president Mugabe, is accompanied by 8mm footage of Rhodesia.

An open conflict plays out in the Kosacks’ backyard between the pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian soldiers. This short documentary follows the life of the couple, who have refused to leave their home, and their new neighbors on the front line. Only Anatoly’s bees can fly freely from one side to the other.

What happens to women who mysteriously disappear? Are they ever seen again? Do state authorities investigate as they should, or are the only ones truly searching for the women the ones they left behind? A compilation film that reveals several periods in history during which scores of women disappeared without a trace under various circumstances.