Hanawon

The reform of the Austrian postal service opened up the burning issue of employees who cannot be fired before retirement. The presented data forces us to think about the dangerous but socially acceptable measures taken by large companies that result in employees with nothing to do, apathy, surfing the web, and contempt for human dignity. The working rhythm is determined by the rapid movement of the sorting equipment. Package after package. In the office on the table is an abandoned computer mouse wrapped in an electrical cord. A man takes off a postal uniform; he has one artificial leg.

Two Swedish directors set off for Greece to find out how the local residents feel about the media images of the crisis. On the basis of ten selected myths, they create a film essay in which they take the dangers presented by the media through to their conclusions using audio-visual counterpoint, warning against the threat of fascism.DETAIL:„We are leaving Sweden to see what a crisis looks like. This is the first image we see. The public service has shut down and there’s only white noise.“

An unusual animated documentary of the experiences of young Vietnamese who have spent their entire lives in the Czech Republic, living between two cultures. The drawn animation style allows the filmmaker to give the film a natural emotionality, intimacy and poetic stylization.

A three-hundred-kilometer unmaintained dirt road is the only way to reach the nearest hospital from a remote African village. Through naturalistic observational camerawork, the film captures the journey of an ambulance driver in southern Ethiopia struggling to overcome all possible obstacles in order to safely deliver a laboring woman to the doctors.

A grassy area fills with arriving cars. The passengers are given bread and wine and a programme for the religious service. All they have to do is tune in their radio to the right station, and the Sunday service begins. In Daytona Beach, Florida, the concept of drive-in theatres has been adapted for an unusual purpose. DeFilippo’s observational documentary takes a look at this modern church.

This short accompaniment to the intermedia project Serial Narratives reveals the real price of cheap goods from China. The testimony of an anonymous worker harmonized with hypnotic images draws attention to the frighteningly elaborate choreography as all phases of manufacturing process undergo rigorous mechanization.

A group of five school-aged youths spend their free time in front of a graffiti-covered wall. In the rough area near the train tracks we observe the process of rap being created. The free way the youths speak and off-the-cuff texts accompanied by music emanating from their mobile phones say a great deal about way they perceive the world.DETAIL:“We’re glad we’ve got each other. We’ll always be together. We are gypsies. We love each other. Bro, you gotta understand, this is no fairy tale. Spit it out. I’m standing here in front of the camera and have no idea what to do.”

This unconventional, musically conceived human rights documentary looks at the period African-American revolt in the 1950s and '60s. Full of energy, it resounds with the song The Devil by the French band Boogers, which forms a counterpoint to the archival footage of the struggle against racial segregation and discrimination.Images of dug-up streets, black children, their faces. Slowly, the guitars start playing a wild electro-pop: "If you look upon my face, you are watching now the devil." And the children's faces are replaced by their fathers'.

This experimental film shows natural phenomena in their raw form. Views of the sea are a multifaceted metaphor for birth, loss, madness, and death. Archetypal sequences accompanied by a cacophony of sound blend with the filmmaker’s intimate shots. The mysteries of life are presented in nineteen minutes.

The biggest train station in the Balkans was built during the peak of the socialist era, but today is a place that many people try to avoid. This surreal meditation showing the wanderings of a conifer, an empty hotel, a shuttered café and snippets from the lives of the station’s inhabitants provides a portrait of the current state of an entire country. Birds fight over a piece of bread. A radio announcement. Nobody at the hotel, a bored receptionist, disgruntled rail workers forbidden from watching television – for even in the half-life of decay there must be a clear sense of order.

This silent portrait of a multipurpose compound that serves as a storage site, maximum security space, and luxury showroom slowly turns into a bizarre black-and-white science-fiction movie with the building as the main character. Despite its abstract nature, the meticulously composed rhythmic combination of austere, carefully framed shots lacking any other context is a fitting architectural commentary on the spirit of our era.

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.