Butterfly Disaster

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 political visual poem about the current situation on the island of Lampedusa. The sharp contrast between the wrecks of refugee boats and the “most beautiful beach in the world according to Tripadvisor.com” disappears in a foggy mist of associations, melancholy ironic narration, grainy lyrical images, and ambient music.

The overflowing waters of Venezuela's Lago de Valencia led to the evacuation of several families living nearby. They found refuge in motels that are often used for sexual encounters. The film's images, suffused with resignation, provide a silent witness to the oppressive atmosphere without any vocal complaints. A flock of birds circles over the swamp. On the dusty pavement, a person's leftover belongings fade away. Grass grows over the half-decrepit collapsed buildings, but a fresh breeze blows through them as well. In the motel, the day passes at the pace of waiting.

Technological innovations of the moving picture in the service of science – in this case, the atom bomb – as we watch preparations for an explosion from various points of view. The film is interesting in its origins: It was put together using solely publicly available footage from the online Prelinger Archives. The clock’s hand goes in a circle as it marks the time. Preparations complete. Cameras ready, the plane takes off, drums roll. A match is struck and burns, the bomb falls. The pressure wave, then close-up footage of flowing microorganisms.

There’s a helpline just for gay farmers. Through authentic recordings and reconstructed situations, the film offers a glimpse into the issue of British gay men from rural areas. For farmers it’s difficult enough to admit their orientation to themselves, let alone to their not-so-gay-friendly surroundings. 

Looking like a prince in his finely decorated outfit, the toreador's arrival in the arena has a magic effect on the thousands of impatiently waiting fans. The public's favourite is back after being seriously injured by a bull. Today, however, we will watch the corrida by observing the viewers and their kettle of emotions as it boils in static shots. A horn sounds and all goes silent. The toreador enters, and the public stands. Men and women, almost exactly 50-50. Then, sudden horror in the faces, screams, hands cover the eyes, tense expressions and nailbiting.

This sensitive portrait of the third sex in its hybrid form combines film and photographic techniques inspired by the motion photographs of Eadweard Muybridge, whose slow, close-up phases of the body in motion go well with the discovery of the unfocused physicality of an uncertain gender. The soul speaks through the narration. Blurry micro-movements of the body during the act of love, washing the hair, or putting on one’s underclothes in the dusk of a room with magenta walls. What is this body of austere vulgarity, discovered in all accepting openness?

The confusion surrounding the situation on the evening of November 29, 2012 forces the public to examine it in detail. This documentary looks back at the events that culminated in the fatal shooting of Melissa Williams and Timothy Russell. Irrationally induced mass hysteria led to their vehicle being following by over 100 policemen.

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.

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.

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.

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.