Testimonies

Since ancient times, the people of the Faroe Islands have benefited tremendously from the abundance of resources that the surrounding sea offers them. Over the years, the hunting of pilot whales (a species closely related to dolphins) has become not only an important source of their livelihood, but also a national tradition. However, activists defending animal rights consider the hunts to be inhumane and needlessly cruel. They believe that the Faroe Islanders' argument for preserving traditions is unwarranted and unnatural because the Faroese now hunt marine mammals using modern technology, such as walkie-talkies and motorboats. According to them, a nation's culture mustn’t be dependent on the extermination of an endangered species. But if the Faroese way of obtaining meat is seen as barbaric from today's point of view, then why do we still have modern meat factories that slaughter millions of animals each day?“If you aren´t able to kill the animal, you are not allowed to eat it. Quite a lot of people wouldn´t have food today.”

The Sidi Bouzid beach near the Moroccan port city of El Jadida is famed for its crystal-clear sear and extraordinary biodiversity. There are dozens of species of algae. However, some of them are used by pharmaceutic and food companies to produce agar powder. The nearby factories producing canned fish and phosphate fertilizer pollute water and air. This documentary uses performative interventions which erase the distinction between the human and the natural to explore the multilayered relationship of the locals to the ecosystem which is a source of both awe and their livelihood. “He is the one who subjected the sea for you to eat tender flesh from it and to extract from it ornaments which you wear.” ---Source: An inscription on a Shafei emblem quoted in the film

In the #MeToo era, Hollywood is portrayed as a toxic environment that uses various forms of coercion to get actresses to strip on camera. In her interview series with Jane Fonda and other stars, Kristy Guevara-Flanagan gives women an active role. She gives them a face, a voice, and the feelings that were denied them. Through a wealth of archival material, it also explores the forms of representation of the female body in the American film industry. We follow the work of sex choreographers and coaches who master the techniques of simulating a sexual act or creating the illusion of intimacy during filming. Women are both victims and co-creators of an environment that fetishizes their bodies and turns them into erotic objects.“Body Parts looks at the making of Hollywood ‘sex’ scenes from a kaleidoscopic range of perspectives, and traces how a cinematic legacy of exploitation and ingenuity has shaped the entertainment industry and its audiences.”---Source: https://womenandhollywood.com/tribeca-2022-women-directors-meet-kristy-guevara-flanagan-body-parts/

A few years ago, Argentine novelist Félix Bruzzone bought a house near the sprawling Campo de Mayo military base near Buenos Aires. It was not a random choice: his mother was kidnapped and held there during the military junta’s rule in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The aim of the writer’s self-therapeutic mission is also to uncover the other dark secrets of the location. The idyllic countryside provides a stark contrast to the atrocities committed by the Argentine government, as recounted by local witnesses. From their accounts, Bruzzone composes a picture of a place that contributed significantly to the disruption of his family and the nation.„The film is like a poem in the sense that it is not a movie that dwells on meticulous detail. It unfolds gradually, using symbolism to find ways, if one can, to overcome the grief. It is not direct like a history book.“ — Jonathan Perel---Source: https://www.latinolife.co.uk/articles/camuflaje-camouflage-2022-jonathan-perel

Snow-capped mountain tops, picturesque villages, wholesome towns… this is the Austria we know from travel books and travelogues. And it’s the same Austria whose small-town morals have been taking a beating from the critical sting of writer and playwright Elfriede Jelinek since the 1960s. However, Müller's documentary-portrait doesn't rely solely on the tropes of a biopic about this (in)famous literary figure. Instead, the film searches for reasons why the author's assertion of past unfinished business enraged the people of Austria so much that they turned their backs on the provocative Nobel Prize winner. Personal confessions become political. A language experiment becomes a political tool. And history becomes a shadow that will forever hover over distraught Austrian citizens until they choose to confront it head-on. “I have the feeling that since my childhood I haven´t truly experienced anything anymore or anything that would somehow be of importance. I think that in general the artist tanks up so much frustration and pain in childhood that it´s enough for the rest of his life.”

František Fajtl and Filip Jánský were among the few Czechoslovak airmen who actively fought on all major European battlefronts during World War II and lived to tell the tale. This unique documentary edit, which combines authentic eyewitness accounts of historic events with little-known archival footage, examines various fates and places as well as the journeys associated with them. The resulting amalgam of images, speeches, and music/sound files is far from your typical historical illustration. A suggestive portrayal of life under bleak conditions, far away from home and on the cusp of death, unfolds before our very eyes.“The moment I saw these two Czechoslovak airmen flash onscreen at the National Film Archive in a series of raw footage shot by director Jiří Weiss, I found that this wartime footage had an interesting way of tying in with the books written about both airmen.”---Source: https://protisedi.cz/trailer-good-old-czechs/

This documentary film by Jennifer Baichwal tells the story behind the Johnson v. Monsanto Co. lawsuit filed by Dewayne “Lee” Johnson, who sued the agrochemical corporation Monsanto for exposing him to the Roundup herbicide product that gave him cancer. Johnson's case was the first of thousands of lawsuits filed against the company and its herbicide glyphosate, which at one point was among the best-selling herbicides in the world. The film not only covers Johnson's story, but also exposes the greed of a large corporation that puts profit over people's health and manipulates scientific studies to its advantage. The film also serves as an environmental and humanistic call to action and avoids focusing solely on one specific court case. “In telling Johnson’s story, Into the Weeds asks whether this kind of David versus Goliath fight can effect substantial and lasting change.”---Source: https://www.cbc.ca/passionateeye/episodes/into-the-weeds

Over the last quarter century, Josef Koudelka, a prominent Czech photographer and member of the international agency Magnum Photos, has travelled many times in the footsteps of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus and visited more than two hundred Hellenistic and ancient Roman cities. And this became the subject of his last big project Ruins. Turkish documentary filmmaker Coskun Asar captures the artist's epic journey across the Mediterranean and the individual photographs taken along the way, portraying with respect and humility an artist who seeks the absolute in his life, work, and philosophy as such.“Everywhere you go, you are in a beautiful place. Contemporary people have built terrible things next to it, but to see it – quelle chance, quelle chance! I have to see all this beauty in the world.” (Josef Koudelka)

Since time immemorial, people have been trying to understand, describe and imitate birdsong and translate it to their own language, perhaps hoping to learn to communicate with birds. This film which is told from the perspective of a future era after the sixth mass extinction of species is conceived as an ironic overview of the history of the attempts to establish this kind of interspecific communication. Through a series of encounters with musicians and music theorists, the film poses the question whether birdsong only serves a biological purpose or whether it has any poetic qualities and/or fixed rules. However, the often absurd effort to discover the secret of the bird language is motivated not only by curiosity but also by an unsettling desire to dominate.“The main idea of the film is that of translation. I do not believe in an immediate relationship with the animal, our relationship is always mediated by third parties, technical agents.” — Érik Bullot---Source: https://blogs.mediapart.fr/cinema-du-reel/blog/110322/entretien-avec-erik-bullot-realisateur-de-langue-des-oiseaux

At first glance, from afar and from a distance, we see a charming view of the sea bay, — only in close-ups do we see that the coastline is covered in washed-up plastic bottles. In slow, contrasting still images, the conceptual documentary traces the Sisyphean effort to get waste to its designated place. The inadequacy inherent in the film's title is most evident in the giant Asian garbage dump, a seemingly bottomless pit designed to bury whatever people have left behind. We create waste even in the most unlikely places, like mountain peaks or the surface of the sea, and our efforts to bury it somewhere, to hide it, to make it invisible, seem absurd.“The places we see are fascinating. But we can't stop to look at just the surface. We have to go further. Everything we produce or use ends up to be trash at some point. Once we throw it away, it's not gone. The process starts just then.”---Source: https://www.cineuropa.org/en/interview/428745/

Two icons of world religion and the struggle for freedom meet for the first time after many years apart to discuss the search for joy in today's complicated world. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, a Buddhist and the spiritual leader of Tibet, and Desmond Tutu, a South African archbishop and fighter against apartheid, are long-standing friends who tackle wickedness with a wicked sense of humor. The film reconstructs their lives and the political events that shaped them as political and spiritual leaders. In this unique footage of their conversation, they lead a mission in search for joy, finding support along the way from the findings of modern scientists' and the ideas of literary figures.“You are made for perfection. You are not yet perfect, you are a masterpiece in the making.”

The Islamic State is usually presented as an elusive, disembodied evil, materializing only during terrorist attacks. Director Zaynê Akyol decided to look the vague threat in the face and give it a concrete form. She gained unique access to dozens of detained jihadists from around the world, interviewing their wives as well. Instead of the interrogations they’re used to, she lets them talk freely about their childhoods, their faith, their dreams and experiences, and the history of the feared organization. She juxtaposes their chilling vision of a worldwide caliphate—which they refuse to give up even after the fall of ISIS—with aerial footage of Syria, decimated by fanatics like them who put ideology above human life.“It was a very emotional film for me to make. That is why I went to meet the Other, this enemy of the world, to listen and try to understand him. Of course, such a tête-à-tête would never have been possible were it not for the pretext of filmmaking.”---Source: https://womenandhollywood.com/hot-docs-2022-women-directors-meet-zayne-akyol-rojek/

CEO salaries are skyrocketing. The wages of ordinary employees have increased only slightly. According to one survey, a fifth of workers view their bosses as rivals. Most of them aren’t happy in their jobs and don’t find them fulfilling. To better understand this dynamic, John Webster takes the ideas of anthropologist David Graeber and returns to early factory models. Today’s employees describe the reality behind the glossy corporate facade: stress, incompetent management, and burnout syndrome. A black-humored analysis of capitalist work seeks to answer the question of whether it is possible to be happy at work today. „I do hope it encourages people to talk in the workplace about what is going on – probably half to two thirds of the people [in offices] feel the same – and to question the way things are done.“ — John Webster ---Source: https://businessdoceurope.com/cphdox-interview-the-happy-worker-or-how-bullshit-took-over-the-workplace-by-john-webster/

In this documentary film inspired by Winfried Georg Sebald’s book of essays of the same name, Sergei Loznitsa addresses whether it’s ethical to use civilians as targets for achieving one’s warfare aims and whether their use as a means of mass destruction can at all be morally justified. The montage of archival footage depicts German cities being bombed out by Allied air raids during World War II and offers a horrific testimony to the destruction and its cataclysmic consequences that have in many circles remained a taboo topic.“If we look at my current film, it looks at a principle that has become acceptable, almost standard, since the Second World War. Targeting the civilian population is now practically a rule of war strategy. At the moment, this principle is on display in Ukraine, but before, the same thing was happening in Syria, and the world seemed to just look on disinterested. I think this idea, this principle, of mass destruction needs to be analyzed and reflected upon, not just by the politicians, but by philosophers, by anthropologists, by sociologists, by all those who study human society.” — Sergei Loznitsa---Source: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/ukrainian-director-sergei-loznitsa-history-destruction-cannes-2022-1235151641/

In an international panel discussion on climate change in 2018, scientists reached a consensus that society must undergo radical changes by the year 2030 in order to prevent climate catastrophe. These changes must first be made in high politics. Documentary filmmaker Rachel Lears follows the thrilling story of four female activists of color who blocked all the entrances to the White House, hoping to get Joe Biden’s attention, and embarked on a passionate struggle to save our future. After a three-year effort, architects of the Green New Deal Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Rhiana Gunn-Wright, co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, Varshini Prakash, and executive director of the Justice Democrats, Alexandra Rojas, have succeeded in getting Congress to approve the largest carbon dioxide emissions reduction investment plan in history.“The film presents this compelling and urgent narrative in a cinematic style that plays with tropes of dystopian science fiction and the utopian visioning that activists and organizers must do to imagine and build alternative futures.”---Source: https://womenandhollywood.com/sundance-2022-women-directors-meet-rachel-lears-to-the-end/