I Wish

The documentary captures a data cable from Chinese company Huawei being laid out onto the seabed floor. Two robot-like voiceovers – English and Mandarin – reflect on the nature of technology and how they overlap with business, war, politics and society. They are not given any explicit identity and it can be interpreted as a conversation of artificial intelligence or as a symbolic dialogue between the US and China in the midst of a Cold War for technology.

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.

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.

A compulsory stay in a Seoul facility known as Hanawon serves to prepare North Korean defectors for life under capitalism. Eight people tell of their experiences from their new lives, highlighting the challenges and prejudices that they must face in the completely different system. Their authentic testimonies are heard against the background of scenes of the bustling megalopolis.

The filmmaker tracks one aspect of life in a diverse Muslim community: prayer. This standard daily activity may take place even in the hustle and bustle of a busy street. This single-take short documentary focuses on people as they walk in front of the camera and uses details to classify them into different castes.

A personal documentary about writing two diaries and finding a lost childhood friend who once moved with her parents back to her native China. Static shots of the streets of a Chinese metropolis and its surrounding natural beauty alternate with retrospective scenes from the Argentine homeland, suggestively drawing the viewer into the girl's loneliness in an unfamiliar environment.

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.

This film about the life of Cubans without a roof over their heads shows how they go about their everyday activities: preparing food, discussing politics, singing songs, reading old texts by Fidel Castro, and sleeping off a hangover. Fourteen minutes of detailed observation of people overlooked by others. 

The camera enters an office. The receptionist answers the telephone, her co-workers drink coffee during their break and talk about their plans. Later, there is a meeting. The stiffness of the situation reveals a hidden story. What exactly took place from June 2015 to September 2016 in the government building in Amsterdam?

Contrary to popular belief, rape most often occurs among those who know each other and those who are close, all in a seemingly safe home environment. This documentary draws attention to the problem and reconstructs the memories of victims of sexual violence whose testimony manages to free a standard furnished apartment of its aura of innocence.

The Yiwu wholesale market in China is more than eight kilometres long. Short episodes follow buyers and the uncompromising negotiations between vendors. The observational documentary shows stalls so covered in goods they completely hide the vendors – and thus also the market’s other world, where their offspring spend their childhoods.

This conceptual work reconstructs the memories of a hotel room in the so-called red-light district in the city of Makati in the Philippines. The objects which dominate the author's perspective are pillows and blankets. However, extreme close-ups reveal other objects in the room and what is behind them.