My God Never Dies

Four migrants from Mozambique provide eyewitness testimony about the racially motivated attacks that took place in Hoyerswerda, Saxony, in 1991. Their report is read to accompany archive shots, obtained directly in the streets of German city, which are shown in one half of the frame. The other half contains drone surveillance footage obtained by Frontex, the agency responsible for protecting the European Union’s borders.DETAIL:“They shouted ‘Blacks out of this country’. They threw stones at the windows. On this day there were three of us seriously injured. Two came from the fair, one was beaten up at the intersection.”

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.

In her autobiographical documentary, the young director uses cartoon impressions, photographic memories, and the various stages of baking a cake to draw the viewer into her own stream of consciousness, and using images full of kindness, tenderness, and playfulness, she deals with the sadness that began during a children's birthday party many years ago.     „Everything you experience could be a little exercise in storytelling and so the documentary filmmaking seems like a good way to learn how to interact with the world rather than with just the medium.“ F. Hasanbegović     Watch Short Joy films for free on DAFilms now and decide who will win the Audience Award. Voting ends on 29 October.

After a dam flooded a village in northern Iran, one island remained. There’s a grave on it. On a hill above the new lake, an old woman looks out at it. An intimate look at the daily routine of an Iranian woman who has survived modestly for twelve years alone in a house at the base of the mountain.  She waits for permission to visit the island.

Every corner of the world can have its taxi driver: A Chinese city, overgrown by a forest of skyscrapers, pulsating vibrantly and with unpredictable traffic – and a 100km-long beach in northern New Zealand where you’ll be hard-pressed to pass a car going in the other direction. Two different worlds brought together by a profession that can take on absurd forms. The sound of the ocean, whose high tide laps at tire tracks. This taxi driver doesn’t use the road. Cigar in hand, he hurtles towards the horizon, where the sky meets the land reflected in the wet sand. 

Lucyna and Krzysztof are a long-time married couple who operate a salvage yard in a socially excluded area of Łódź, Poland. Patrycja Polkowska’s observational documentary captures how the couple transforms the salvage yard every day into an eccentric microcosm where all those who are offended or humiliated can find help.

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.

A majestic mountain range rises over a Norwegian town engulfed in darkness. The stormy sea laps at its shores. A thick snow is falling. The town’s inhabitants, almost motionless in their existence, are like creatures in hibernation. The camera’s static shots resembling photographs are woven together into an experimental documentary on life in Skaland.

At the funeral of her grandmother, Yanlin, a young Chinese girl, learns that the deceased was a medium – and was possessed by a spirit named Gong. The film is Yanlin’s personal confessional – she never believed in the existence of miracles, but is now becoming interested in the world of spiritualism and finding out who Gong was in order to understand her grandmother better.

Vodka as the source of the Russian nation’s transcendental inspiration. A green serpent whose bite pulls us into landscapes of dusk, introspectively told by a poet, actor, theatre director and scientist, against a backdrop of images from the Russian winter. The fifth element of the world reveals its potential in an ode to passion. Darkness. And in it, blossoming streetlights. Tire tracks in the snow in which shiver dried flowers. On the ground beneath them, the flashes of small stars. “Vodka is like sex. Like perfume. It depends on your mood.”

Bosnia was divided by war in the 1990s. The older population stayed while the younger population left. The film’s two mediums, documentary and animation, fluctuate along the border of two worlds, which separated time and historical events but are united by a longing for home and family. People are like dogs: they never forget their way home.   „Motivation to tell this particular story is grounded in love, instinct and urgency. It speaks of family, loss and resilience, with points of access to the culture of Bosnia…“ D. Repas     Watch Short Joy films for free on DAFilms now and decide who will win the Audience Award. Voting ends on 29 October.