Anything But My Pictures

The possibility of dialogue on the Ukrainian crisis, as seen from the West and from the East. A debating contest meets a telephone call by Vladimir Zhirinovsky to the Ukrainian minister of the interior. Stuck in the middle is man in all his nakedness.DETAIL:“Thank you for your openness, for having expressed a desire to meet. I wish all the best. Please come to the interview without orange juice. We’ll pour schnapps over ourselves.”

A group of men share a small space in a prison metal workshop in Botosani, Romania. When they’re not working, they animatedly discuss religion and hypocrisy, lament during tea that they don’t have onions for sausage, or joke and sing. The method of filming, in which the camera is only an non-intrusive observer, only reinforces the monotony of the actors’ movements and experiences.   Watch Short Joy films for free on DAFilms now and decide who will win the Audience Award. Voting ends on 29 October.

Intercut footage of the camera panning along two sides of Havana Bay. Every few seconds, our act of viewing is disturbed for several seconds as the camera shifts from one side to the other. The rhythm of this panoramic view is determined by the editing. The 12-minute film invites the viewer on an experimentally filmed journey by boat from Old Havana to Casa Blanca.DETAIL:The sound of waves. The camera’s gaze shifts from the dark-blue surface of the water to the shoreline. An abandoned industrial building and lazily floating boats along the shore represent tools for transforming the abandoned bay.

The film looks at the unlikely yet strong friendship between Mohamedou Ould Salahi, who was wrongly accused of involvement in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and imprisoned in Guantánamo for fourteen years, and Steve Wood, the warden who first believed in his innocence and pushed for an end to Salahi's isolation and torture.     „As a filmmaker and Guardian journalist, I've always been drawn to stories of human resilience, but it was Mohamedou who showed me how hope and friendship can emerge in the unlikeliest of places.“ L. Topham     Watch Short Joy films for free on DAFilms now and decide who will win the Audience Award. Voting ends on 29 October.

This studio experiment is a fictional excursion to Kijong-Dong, the city of spirits in the North Korean demilitarized zone, to which the director was refused entry. The town, built in 1950, is a Potemkin village, an empty film set. Here it is also depicted using white models with transparent models of empty houses. DETAIL: It gleams in the dark like the white tip of an iceberg in the dark mass of the ocean: a model composed of the perfect lines of the contours of the hills rising above the city. Birds sing, the loudspeakers broadcast voices. Not a sign of life anywhere.

Do the people you know talk only about the crisis or the bad weather? Kinoki will give you a guide to a better life. Why not try to function as a happy community in an unfamiliar village from the last century? Festivals meticulously organized by elected committees, the joint construction of a swimming pool, and the annual election of the mayor are just a fraction of the wealth of activities. And if you don’t like wine and entertainment, you are sure to find something else.  

Russian-speaking Katja was born in 1992 in the Estonian city of Narva, not far from the Russian border. She represents the entire generation of the 1990s, which sees itself as a house with no address or railway tracks leading nowhere. In the ruins of the Soviet Union, she searches for her national identity and learns to breathe freedom.     “We were officially born in Estonia, but we were actually born in the middle of ruins.” Experiment Katya     Watch Short Joy films for free on DAFilms now and decide who will win the Audience Award. Voting ends on 29 October.

This animated documentary revives the story of Rudolf Bělohoubek in the form of moving “comic” drawings with commentary. After the Second World War, the son of a Czech father and German mother witnessed the execution of his parents by the Revolutionary Guards, who even had some of the family’s neighbors amongst their ranks. 

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.

A raw statement on the life of a criminal unjustly accused of the murder of the son of a prominent Texas attorney, committed by his accomplice during a robbery. Through footage shot in prison, the film captures the desperation felt by a man a few hours before his scheduled execution.DETAIL:“Where you taking me to? I’ll probably give approval... if you tell me what you're doing. How you expect me to participate in something if you don’t tell me what you’re doing to me.”

For the past several months, the infamous refugee camp in Calais has been home for a young Afghani. His daily experiences and his feelings about life in the Jungle are reflected in his letters to his parents, which paint a picture of the inescapable situation of hopelessness. The young man keeps on repeating his mantra: “Soon I will be in England.”

Intimate Distance examines the topic of modern communication via Skype. Highlights of real, intimate conversations recorded over a period of several months by webcams give us a glimpse into three forms of international family relationships in digitally mediated closeness.DETAIL: Axel – Serpil; Berlin – Istanbul: 2,215 km. Patricia – Milena; Leipzig - Barranquilla: 8,861 km. Maija – Olga and Nina; Berlin – Moscow: 1,817 km. “Kiss me. Good night. I’ll be online all day at work tomorrow.”