Constellations

A film about the decay of a house and a family, reminiscent of Poe's Ushers, is a bleak journey into a place where all the colours and light of life disappear. When the director returns to her Irish homeland after many years, she is once again exposed to memories of life before everything began to fall apart. Before her mother completely succumbed to alcoholism and dragged everyone around her down with her. A tangible monument to this downfall is the family home, once a cosy dwelling, now a ruin slowly being consumed by urban wilderness. And it is here that the final episode of this sad story unfolds. “The locus was the house, and the footage was going to be the sort of cinéma vérité footage, the observational stuff with my family, and then some more visceral, abstract sequences that brought the character of the house and the landscapes to life.” — Myrid Carten

Between images and words, on the borderline between the subjective and the objective, the present and the past, debutante Celeste Rojas Mugica searches for the truth. Photographs from her father's archive, taken between 1970 and 1989 during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and eleven years of exile in Ecuador, are like puzzles, blank historical maps whose empty spaces the author fills with various versions of the past. She works with the reality of the time as raw material and transforms it into a stylized intergenerational collage of appropriated images, whose authenticity springs from artistic shorthand, flickering between reality and fiction, light and shadow. “By the oscillation of light and shadow the flash of lightning appears, a space that emerges and takes place in the middle of the ‘archive’ and the ‘Now’.” — Celeste Rojas Mugica

André Ricciardi is an idiot because he didn't go for his scheduled colonoscopy. If he had, he wouldn't be dying of colon cancer now. But he takes his mistake in stride. Just like everything else. Even the documentary in which he comes to terms with his premature end is not a heart- wrenching celebration of the fragility of life, but a wild parade of irreverent jokes, absurd anecdotes, and imaginative stop-motion animation. The eccentric advertising agent approaches death with the curiosity of a child and the courage of an adult. André may be an idiot, but with every action he takes, he brings to life the idea that there is no single right way to face life's turning points. “This film is for anyone who has an anus.” — Tony Benna

Malena Szlam (born 1979) is a Chilean filmmaker living in Montreal, Canada. Her audiovisual work is permeated by a sensitivity to the geopolitical and geological layers of the landscapes she explores, and an emphasis on the affective dimension of film processes. Her works have been shown at festivals and exhibitions; in 2024, for example, she participated in the exhibition femmes volcans forêts torrents at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. The Ji.hlava IDFF, which discovered her for the Central European region, has screened her films Beneath Your Skin of Deep Hollow (2010), Lunar Almanac (2013), and Morphology of a Dream (2018).

Since 2018, women in Saudi Arabia have been legally allowed to drive. For Azza, who refuses to submit to the patriarchal regime, driving represents a welcome moment of independence. The documentary offers insight into everyday life in Saudi Arabia, but above all, it is an empathetic testimony to the difficult fate of a woman who is determined to fight for personal freedom in a country ruled by men. Detailed shots of Azza in the enclosed interior of the car contrast with visually striking images of the vast desert, where Azza finds a sense of harmony with the local landscape. Both environments become a place for painful reflections on the past, but also an opportunity to discover her own identity and an uncertain promise of freedom.

Between Mount Vesuvius and the Gulf of Naples, the ground shakes periodically and the fumaroles of the Phlegraean Fields taint the air. From the traces of history, memories of the subterranean world, and the concerns of the present, in black and white, a lesser-known Naples emerges and fills with voices, with lives. Below the clouds lies a territory crisscrossed by locals, worshippers, tourists, and archaeologists excavating a past that in museums will give new life and meaning to statues, fragments, and ruins. The train that rings Vesuvius makes its rounds as racehorses train along the shore. A teacher runs a makeshift afterschool for children and adolescents. Firemen in their command center calm the fears of the locals who call in, law enforcement tracks down tomb robbers, while in the port of Torre Annunziata, Syrian tankers unload Ukrainian grain. The land that skirts the gulf is a vast time machine.

This monumental audiovisual essay categorises the world of beings, organisms and objects into three parts, following the model of medieval encyclopaedias. Bestiaries returns to the basics of humanity and explores the relationship between humans and animals, Herbaria continues with a therapeutic walk through a botanical garden, and Lapidaries delves into the world of minerals and collective catastrophes. Deposed from the anthropocentric throne, humans become exhibits, subjects of scientific experiments. Under the supervision of a supernatural biologist, they self- reflectively turn the camera lens on themselves, transforming observers into the observed, hunters into the hunted. “The world we inhabit isn’t our world, but one we share with animals and plants.” — William Stottor

The media are both the weapon and the terror of modern extremists. When Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol in January 2021, they did not forget to stream their rampage. Director Javier Horcajada used their footage and social media posts to create a collage of voices and texts that is as frenetic as endless scrolling, in which facts and fiction merge into a single stream. This symphony of misinformation is interspersed with excerpts from propaganda films from the Dwight D. Eisenhower era, explaining the same concepts that the attackers bandy about - justice, law, democracy. This alarming report on how easy it is in the online age to change the meaning of words and control the masses is the second part of the director’s trilogy on contemporary America.   “I believe that without the assault on the Capitol, Trump could not have won four years later. Many will describe that assault as a failure, but I believe it served to further reinforce the participants’ perception that the election had been stolen from them, and that in order to win again, they needed to organize better and go all out, and unfortunately, the result has proven them right.” — Javier Horcajada (Source: Deadline)

American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and many other awards, certainly knows how to ask questions. In the past, this has enabled him to uncover the circumstances surrounding the massacre of Vietnamese civilians in My Lai, the Watergate scandal, and the torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib. In Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus’ documentary, however, he finds himself in the position of being questioned. Although he answers questions about his work and personal life with the caution of someone who has learned to protect his sources, his narrative is full of disturbing details from behind the scenes of his laborious search for the truth, which has made him enemies among the most powerful men in America. A chronological overview of his 60-year career is complemented by testimonies from colleagues and documents from Hersch’s extensive archive.    “Obviously, I think that someone like Sy is essential to a flourishing democracy. However, I think that the kind of work that he’s done historically is perhaps more difficult, or it is not rewarded or trusted in the way it once was.” — Mark Obenhaus (Source: Deadline) Image captions: 1 - Seymour Hersh in his office at the Washington bureau of The New York Times, 1975 - The New York Times/Redux 2 - Seymour Hersh at work in North Vietnam, in 1972, three years after he broke the massacre story - Courtesy Seymour Hersh 3 - Seymour Hersh in his office, 2009 - Courtesy of Mark Mahaney

Spanish director Eva Libertad captures the fears, disillusionment and communication barriers in the life of Ángela, a deaf woman preparing for motherhood in a hearing world. In addition to the personal experiences of her sister Miriam Garlo, who plays the lead role, the filmmaker was also inspired by the stories of other deaf mothers. This intimate drama was shot in real settings with non-actors and natural lighting. The carefully composed sound design and shots attentive to the gestures and facial expressions of the sign language characters respect the perspective of the deaf. The authentic, unsentimental narrative allows us to better understand the everyday reality of people whom mainstream society mostly neither sees nor hears.“I wanted to explore how relationships function across communication barriers. It’s not just about language. It’s about trust, identity and compromise. For Ángela, becoming a mother raises the terrifying question: what if my child isn’t like me?” — Eva Libertad (Source: Irish Times)

Louise is a young woman with a rich imagination who fills her diaries with fragments of thoughts. When a young man named Thomas discovers one of her notebooks, he becomes part of her ghostly world. Together, they find themselves in a dark forest, where light and laughter penetrate only through narrow cracks. This space, shaped by memories and unconscious forces, is both a refuge and a portal to another reality for the young lovers. In her documentary dream, Isabel Pagliai explores the fragile inner universe of the heroine as she processes her deepest fears and desires. Reality and illusion, fantasy and emotion merge into a single hypnotic composition. “I had a strong desire to hold together two things that might seem contradictory: what happens in the moment, and what belongs to the realm of the uncanny, to the world of dreams.” — Isabel Pagliai

Johannesburg is not one of the safest cities on Earth. Security agencies have built their business on this fact. Across South Africa, there are many times more private security guards than soldiers or police officers. However, only those who can afford it can acquire security. These are mainly wealthy white men and women. The film follows the daily routine of armed men who are supposed to protect others, but are themselves full of uncertainty. Watching them raises the question of whether the commercialization of fear really solves the problem of ubiquitous violence, or rather reinforces social inequality, which is one of its main causes.

After World War I, the northern Croatian port city of Fiume experienced one of the most bizarre military campaigns in history. It lasted sixteen months and was led by Italian poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, who occupied present-day Rijeka with three hundred soldiers in September 1919. He founded his own state there and ruled it until the army of his native Italy rose up against him. The poet-dictator, who inspired Benito Mussolini, immortalized his reign in ten thousand period photographs. Rijeka native Igor Brezinović subversively revives them and, in a tangle of historical facts and exaggeration, in the gap between history and the present, discovers the roots of fascism. “D’Annunzio treated his occupation of Fiume with the same romanticism as his writing, even going so far as to obsessively have him and his men filmed and photographed to project a propagandistic ideal.” — Igor Brezinović

One in ten children in the United States lives below the poverty line. Among them is twelve-year-old Mikel, who lives with his parents Jason and Tonya in a one-room apartment in a cheap motel. His story is exceptional in that he was born into extreme poverty and alcohol addiction and knows no other life, even though he longs for one. This empathetic family portrait, free of prejudice and with an unusual understanding of the characters' situation, tells a story of love and pain, hopelessness and hope, and points to a flaw in the system that excludes low-income households from the regular real estate market and creates socially conditioned generational trauma.“It’s a comment on the U.S. as an institution and as a society, where people are ‘collected’ only because they need to exist next to each other, not necessarily with each other.” — Monica StrømdahlSource: International Documentary Association.

An animated Hitler descends to Earth and recites the evocative lyrics of Jimi Hendrix's song Up from the Skies with a sly smile. “I can already smell the world that has burned,” he remarks. A film collage of disasters and violence—composed of found footage from newsreels, animated films, and hand-painted film material—has something to offer his hungry gaze. Verses by Hendrix, Sade, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, and Sting are recited by the dictator's voice-over, created by artificial intelligence. “When I heard Up from the Skies again, I found it remarkable how topical this text from 1967 is and Sting’s History Will Teach Us Nothing (1987) came to mind – as well as the image that so-called evil is returning with the rise of right-wing populism.” — Jan Rehwinkel

In January 2009, viewers witnessed the most dramatic live broadcast in the history of Israeli television. In a phone call from Gaza, Palestinian doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish could be heard crying after the Israeli army had just killed his three daughters in a bombing raid on his home. The father's despair moved history, and immediately after the tragedy was publicized, the Israeli prime minister declared a ceasefire between Israel and Palestine. However, this did not last long, so Abuelaish, known as the Nelson Mandela of the Middle East and nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize, set himself the goal of ending the conflict between the two countries. Only then would the deaths of his daughters have meaning, says the doctor, who rejects hatred and treats both Palestinians and Israelis. This straightforward and emotional portrait, whose title refers to Abuelaish's book I Shall Not Hate, shows how to heal an entire society. “We need courageous leaders with moral courage. Risktakers who think of the human goal and future, not of staying in power. Because history will never forget them.” — quote from the movie

Kakadu Koki was the favourite parrot of Yugoslav dictator Josip Broz Tito. He can talk, and his vocabulary is quite unrefined. But what is even more incredible is that he is still alive! He is shown as an animal curiosity to tourists visiting the Brijuni Islands, the site of Tito's former luxury residence. Koki's statements and sayings, which the director recorded over four years, form the basis of the film's soundtrack. Unknown or lesser-known visual material is inserted into the comic contrast, showing Koki and Tito meeting dignitaries and celebrities of bygone times – Khrushchev, Ceaușescu, and Sophia Loren. “I’ve had a lifelong fascination with stories told from the point of view of animals.” — Quenton Miller

Jerada is a Moroccan town with a rich history of coal mining. However, even after the mines were officially closed in 2001, the extraction of this black rock did not cease. Local residents venture underground on their own initiative to secure a livelihood for themselves and their families through illegal mining. This stylized documentary, featuring staged scenes with the residents of Jerada, offers an imaginary yet very concrete cross-section of the local landscape and society. In a long, dynamic shot, we descend into the mine, observe the self-proclaimed miners at work, facing danger, and then, with their precious cargo, return to the surface, where cars wait to transport the coal to dealers. “With L’Mina, I wanted to bear witness to a contemporary social reality: a working-class group takes action in the midst of our current crisis.” — Randa Maroufi

Ben Rivers has made another film about the end of civilization as we know it. This time, it is loosely based on Don DeLillo's one-act play The Word for Snow. While DeLillo does not specify the age of the characters, Rivers' characters are children. All adults have been wiped out as a result of an unspecified catastrophe. Nine-year-old Moon travels through this dystopian landscape. Her mystical odyssey unfolds in impressionistic images captured in colour and black-and-white 16mm format. But Rivers doesn't just talk about survival, planetary crisis, and the limits of language. He also reflects on whether, as a society, we still have enough (childlike) imagination to imagine a new beginning and a better world. “I was trying to strike a balance between a very disturbing situation and a more hopeful one.” — Ben Rivers

Wars are won by teachers, Putin declared when, after 2022, he turned Russian schools into recruitment centres designed to educate future soldiers. Educational institutions are required to send recordings of their lessons to the Ministry of Education to prove that their interpretation of the invasion of Ukraine is in line with pro-Kremlin policy. Pavel “Pasha” Talankin, a teacher at an elementary school in the provincial Ural town of Karabash, took Putin's statement to heart, and the camera in his hands turned from a propaganda tool into an instrument of resistance. In addition to videos from his lessons, he also films everyday situations, and after two years, he flees into exile with his recordings. Documentary filmmaker David Borenstein takes them and compiles a picture of the militarization of education and a highly personal portrait of contemporary Russia. “I tried to understand the way Pasha sees Russia and I think that helped me avoid an overly black-and-white perspective on what was going on there.” — David Borenstein

There was no other choice for her. She had to go and fight the evil that had taken over her country. An evil she had experienced first-hand in 2014, when she spent four days in Russian captivity in Donbas. She was so determined that she was able to leave her young son behind for an extended period of time. Now she composes letters to him in her head as helicopters fly overhead and mortar shells explode nearby. This evocative documentary portrait of life in close proximity to the front lines builds on the contrast between an incredible will to live and the duty to risk one's life for a higher cause. Not for the nation, not for the homeland, but for the free future of one's own children. “My camera has been with me since the first day of the full-scale war.” — Alisa Kovalenko

1949. George Orwell finishes what will be his last but most important novel, 1984. Orwell: 2+2=5 delves deep into Orwell’s final months and visionary works to explore the roots of the vital and troubling concepts he revealed to the world in his dystopian masterpiece… Doublethink, Thoughtcrime, Newspeak, the omnipresent spectre of Big Brother… disturbing socio-political truths which resonate ever-more powerfully today.

In another of his portraits of everyday life in Ukraine during the Russian occupation, Sergei Loznitsa takes us on an excursion to the National Museum of Natural History in Kiev, one of the largest in the world. Together with a school class, we attend a lecture on palaeontology between two air raid sirens. The teacher talks enthusiastically about dinosaurs and spiny fish, and the children listen to him with curiosity and amusement. For a moment, the lively commentary transports us along with them to a world millions of years away, where Russian missiles have not crossed the sky, but in many ways was as ruthless as the current reality of war.

A young man named Paul suffers from depression and social anxiety. As part of his self- therapy, he discovers that cleaning his apartment improves his mental state. He starts with his own apartment, and after a while he offers his services to other people, specifically female dominatrixes who in return are able to satisfy his submissive needs. He records his progress on his Instagram channel, but it gains new followers too quickly, which causes Paul to feel anxious again… This unconventional personality portrait offers us a new perspective on depression, a disability that must first be accepted and then learned to live with in one's own way. “It worked right away. He started cleaning – badly – and began having new, intimate relationships with women.” — Benjamin Hollis, Documentary Weekly

The incomprehensible clamour of loudspeakers, the honking of cars, the backs of boys gazing into the distance, fires, trash, deserted houses, and a group of soldiers inhabit a sensually saturated landscape dominated by functional chaos. The mosaic of micro-events with several visual planes is reminiscent of the paintings of Pieter Bruegel, with the difference that this is not a genre scene painted by the Dutch master. A single-shot testimony in real time, piece by piece, reveals the violent clash between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers on the West Bank. It depicts the mechanism of occupation, which cyclically closes in on itself and begins where it ends. “By reframing, invoking the off-screen or playing with cuts or the duration of shots, the artist seeks to create spaces that allow us to regain mobility and critical spirit.” Source: https://juliettelemonnyer.com/about

A captivating insight into the private estate of Leni Riefenstahl, who became world-famous with her nazi propaganda film "Triumph of the Will" but kept denying any closer ties to the regime.

The Sandia Mountains in New Mexico, located on the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains, combine steep snow-capped cliffs with the aridity of the desert at their base. This visual portrait of the landscape, in which the mountains come alive, pulsate, and transform, is accompanied by an audio mix of extreme temperatures and songs of the Pueblo tribes who have lived here since time immemorial. Techniques based on the tradition of experimental film, such as frame by frame copying, painting, collage, and engraving into the material, draw the digital image into a visual trance. “Mélissa Faivre’s work is immersive, hallucinatory or even vertigo-inducing, depending on your reception, or possibly your viewing experience. They are rich in colour, movement and associations. The films are based on camera images, and on photographs reproduced frame by frame and layered with video images via compositing and montage creating new imaginations. […] The montage reaches a level of multi-dispersion that seems to be pure fantasy; at the same time it has a potential to trigger your individual memories and associations.” — Walden Kunstausstellungen Source: http://www.galerie-walden.de/INFECTED%20REALITY-english.pdf

In the northern Vietnamese province of Bắc Ninh, there is a complex of electronics factories that employs nearly 100,000 people. About 80% of them are women. During their 12-hour shifts, they must adhere to strict rules and an unchanging rhythm. The slightest technical error, unauthorized break, or even a brief conversation can result in severe punishment. For many of them, physically demanding work under constant supervision leads to chronic fatigue, isolation, and frustration that their bodies have been reduced to easily replaceable means of production. The dehumanizing conditions in the factory and their impact on the personal lives of female employees are illustrated not only by anonymous testimonies but also by theatrical reconstructions of real situations. “I came from a working-class family. I think when you are part of the same class, even if you speak a different language, you have the same feeling.” — Parsifal Reparato

It took sixty-seven milliseconds for the bullet from a police gun to hit an Arab youth in the face. This surgically precise reconstruction of a real event in a Paris suburb uses security camera footage, digitally generated images, and the early cinematographic technique of chronophotography to stylistically decompose the trajectory of the bullet and the body. Time and space collide at the boundary between the modern world and algorithms, the old and the new, the cybernetic and the physical, merging into a meditation on the illegitimacy of racially motivated police violence directed against a marginalized group of people.“The theory of knowledge, allied to that of Capital, is expressed here through the metaphor of liquidity, a fantasy shared by teenagers, engineers and preachers of a world without losses and without borders that is constantly being regenerated.” — Harddiskmuseum

Giuseppe Polerà chose an excerpt from a poem by Italian lyricist Sandro Penna as the title for his short film. However, he transposed the verse from its lyrical context into the harsh material reality of the Cuban countryside, where Leonardo and Mercedes coexist with farm animals. The middle-aged couple lives in extreme poverty, but not in sadness. Their private world, in contrast to their unchanging work routine, is imbued with warmth and joyful sensuality. Although they have almost nothing, they never cease to desire. This intimate portrait does not shy away from even the most physical expressions of love, which are also the most authentic expressions of the self in otherwise bleak social conditions. “It's the time when sleepy children are kissed on warm knees. But I, on long roads, with my eyes uselessly. Me, a worthless monster.” — Sandro Penna

For several minutes, the camera circles above a city that has been reduced to ruins. But not all life has been wiped out. A procession of people dressed in black walks through the devastated streets, carrying coffins on their shoulders. The new film by acclaimed director Abbas Fahdel is a testimony to the destruction caused by the Israeli bombing of southern Lebanon at the end of 2024, but also to the resilience of the civilian population. The community is shaken, gripped by grief. Nevertheless, the locals are determined to preserve their culture and rebuild their destroyed homes. The mosaic of everyday scenes is interspersed with the director's poems, which become a symbol of resistance against hopelessness. The same is true of the shots of Fahdel's daughter. Her laughter and games among the ruins are reminders of the spark of life. “This was not meant to be a film about the war, but from the war, within the war, and about what it leaves behind: the rubble, of course, but also invisible fractures, tightened bonds, acts of solidarity, and the personal wounds carried deep inside, often left unspoken.” — Abbas Fahdel

We are entering a paradise of digital pleasures. The deep dreaming of artificial intelligence, in harmony with analogue video synthesizers and signal mixing, creates window blinds, hazes, and fractal structures that vibrate the image of the water surface and consciousness itself. Video signals intertwine with sound impulses – similar to how Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights intertwines human, plant, and fantastical elements into a pulsating whole. “Somehow, I see with my ears and hear with my eyes.” — Billy Roisz Source: Billy Roisz Interview

A documentary investigation into the fate of two Amazonian natives who were brought to European civilization at the beginning of the 20th century turns into a sensory travelogue through a landscape of archival and contemporary footage. Images of the old and new worlds pile up on top of each other, colliding or slowly flowing by like the Amazon River. In fleeting moments, in photographs, in diary entries, Aredomi and Omarino rise to the surface of history before disappearing again, perhaps forever. The shameful history of inhumane treatment of indigenous tribes is also a painful chapter in the story of the director's family. This is one of the reasons she embarks on this journey. “I didn’t want to repair this history, because I don’t think it’s possible to repair anything, but I do think it is possible to transform.” — Tatiana Fuentes Sadowsky

A digitally animated glitch composition layers, abstracts, and mutates technological traces of remnants—Pompeian relics, torsos, X-ray images, shots of animals—into a rhythmic whole. The field alternately fills and empties, while the sound purrs and hums; the minimalist audiovisual composition achieves absolute, albeit elusive, precision. “Like a creation myth, [the film] represents the potential to create and release something new, like a pixel primordial soup. It emphasizes the act of watching, observing, perceiving, and receiving images. It shows the relationship between photographic technology, the apparatus itself, ‘the machine,’ and the complex distortions of perception and imagination. Made with a malfunctioning 1990s special effects device.” — accompanying material for the film

The town of Hasankeyf, located in southeast Turkey, has been inhabited for over 12,000 years. However, due to the construction of a dam, it will be flooded. The filmmakers depict the demise of the traditional way of life and community ties from the perspective of two families, one Kurdish and one Arab. Filmed over six years, this chronicle of destruction and uprooting largely dispenses with dialogue. Instead, it speaks through images of the harsh desert landscape and demolished old houses, contrasting with the artificiality of the soulless settlements where the original population is to be resettled. Although the people will gain modern housing, they will lose their jobs and become dependent on government assistance. The accompanying effect of this large-scale development project is thus the elimination of Kurdish and Arab culture in the region. “Our observational narrative style immerses the audience in Hasankeyf's atmosphere by showing ‘how it happens’ rather than ‘what is happening,’ avoiding interviews and focusing on visual storytelling.” — Natalia Pietsch, Grzegorz Piekarski

The camera pans several times across the empty apartment. It seems spacious, unused, neglected. In this autobiographical film, the director returns to the places where her family lived before they were forced to flee the country. With its transformation into an authoritarian theocracy after 1979, Iran became a regime that oppressed many groups of the population—primarily women, but also advocates of liberal values and secularization. It was as if, almost overnight, the Middle Eastern country had become a different society. In the film, we cross this invisible boundary between the old and new worlds several times and, together with its author, try to catch the vanishing point on the horizon of both the past and the future. “My work is one concerned with the labour of memory, an attempt to make a placeholder for more to come forward, and an invitation to reflect together and participate in the archive.” — Bani Khoshnoudi

This cinematic poem tells an epic tale of being in a woman's body – that of a woman born into a fiercely patriarchal Middle Eastern society. The poetic language of this staged documentary accumulates culturally and politically charged meanings through literary and visual metaphors. The narrative voice in the collective plural becomes an expression of the experiences of countless different women. It speaks of the constant, persistent definition of relationships in relation to men. Of physicality, which brings a moment of identity, sensuality, and a feeling of impurity in the eyes of others. But above all, it speaks of the insistent need to be oneself, in one's own body and world. “It is inescapable to wonder: were we conceived in love and lust? Or are we daughters of guilt and disgust?” — Tijana Mamula, NERO

This cinematic epiphany, shot on 16mm film with lightness and gentle humour, pierces the crust of everyday life to reveal the miracle of existence. A web of tactile images and slightly surreal scenes braided around a girl's body is interwoven with verses by the late Latvian poet Imants Ziedoņis. “Each day catches fire. If you have walked all day and not seen it, wait. Don’t blink; it might happen that instant. One morning there was dew on the grass. But no sunlight, and the dew was red-grey, the rose didn’t speak. The next day there was dew and sun, but the rose had shed its petals. There must be a triad. A flower and myself are not enough, there must be sun. A birch and myself are not enough; the birch needs wind, or a thrush, or frost.” — Imants Ziedoņis

Marion Guillard is an ornithologist and filmmaker who has been capturing wild nature since her youth. Images of nature also dominate her autobiographical essays. However, the author's voiceover tells a story that is different from the journey across the United States she once embarked on with her family—it tells of her complex relationship with her own body and sexuality. Parallels gradually emerge between seemingly unrelated topics. The bulimia Guillard suffered from as a teenager was not limited to fast food. Similarly, she did not limit herself in collecting footage of the landscape, which helped her divert her attention from her own physicality. With the passage of time, she realizes how much she was determined by culture and society in both cases – in her view of herself and the outside world. “A succession of sequences illustrating various forms of representation of nature, such as wildlife films, natural parks and zoos, are set in motion around my personal experience as a wildlife filmmaker, visual artist, ornithologist, woman and body.” — Marion Guillard

At first glance, what could be more inanimate – and therefore anti-cinematic – than the mineral kingdom? Nora Štrbová challenges this declaration, turning it on its head and making stones into a highly kinetic subject. In this humorous essay film shot in 35 mm, stones are finally given a voice as they observe us, judge us and, above all… put up with us.

Gaza is the largest prison in the world, at least according to the director, who returned here in 2001 to search for Abdel Rahim, with whom he had been imprisoned in Israel seventeen years earlier for anti-state activities. Another quarter of a century passed before he remembered the three videotapes he had made with his guide Hasan, but the Gaza he captured on them no longer exists. Nominated for the Golden Leopard in Locarno, this poetically poignant poem nostalgically presents forgotten images, implicitly interwoven with the events of October 2023. Vanished landscapes, streets, buildings, and human faces tell a story of memory, loss, and searching. “At first I found myself reliving the feelings of adolescence. Then I suddenly lost the ability to imagine and images disappeared. Life became a prison.” — quote from the movie

Since the 1970s, the books of French writer and Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux have described rape, motherhood, and love life with shocking directness. However, the heroine of this film portrait is not her, but high school students and their fascinating interpretations of the author's texts. This absorbing series of interviews, conducted in classrooms in the capital of French Guiana and the suburbs of Paris, presents a metatext, a gateway in time, where autobiographical literary stories meet the reality of the current young generation. „Film Claire Simon plynule dokazuje, proč by nemělo být pochyb o hodnotě umění pro společnost.“ — DOK Leipzig

Ten years ago, Volodymyr Zelensky was just one of the many faces on Ukrainian television screens. He became a star thanks to the 2015 satirical series Servant of the People, in which he played a history teacher who becomes president. Four years later, what began as fiction became a reality. This French documentary follows the transformation of a popular TV comedian into a statesman on the front lines of the Russian invasion. Archival footage, family photos, television appearances, and interviews with Zelensky and those closest to him create a multi-layered portrait of a man who always longed for a large audience. At the same time, the film places his personal development in the broader context of post-Soviet Ukraine, which is also searching for its own identity. “It is the portrait of a man who becomes president and leader of a country at war, even though nothing in his life had prepared him for it. It is the portrait of a man, but also, implicitly, of his generation and of a country—Ukraine.” — Lisa Vapné