work

The name Axomama refers to the Inca goddess of potatoes. In the mountainous regions of Peru, her place of origin, this food permeates various spheres of the lives of the local people. This anthropologically conceived documentary attempts to capture the inseparable connection between potatoes and Peru’s famous colonial history, culture, and traditional beliefs. “Central to her research are the questions; how can we better understand ownership and agency in space through the experience of the body? … How do we form identities in relation to places where we don’t have histories?” — Tracy Valcárcel’s website Source: Tracy Valcárcel’s website

The Menominee tribe is connected to nature through their shared wisdom of caring for trees and forests. The revival of traditional logging methods and efforts to preserve permaculture freedom clash with the prevailing approaches of extensive logging for human needs. The complex topic of the relationship between human communities and forests is viewed from many perspectives – architects, loggers, teachers, economists, and activists explain our essential civilizational connection to trees as guardians of the landscape and memory. This educational documentary offers hope in the form of examples of natural recultivation and sensitive care. “When I talk about the environment, I am not talking just about dirty rivers or climate change or acid rain. I mean the people as well. Therefore, I am very interested in rural communities and how they live with their environment and what they gain from it. So it took me naturally to how we deal with the world’s forests.” — Fred Pearce, environmental journalist

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

 A building on the outskirts of Tunis, built by Italians in 1905, was transformed into a special refuge during the COVID-19 pandemic. Eight residents of various origins have taken shelter here, living in isolation from their loved ones and the rest of the city, from which they are also culturally distant. The filmmakers capture their nomadic existence not only in interviews, revealing the peculiarities of these unique personalities, but also in poetically stylized sequences that give the house an almost magical dimension of a transitional, mystical space. The result is an impressionistic mosaic themed around loneliness and life within physical and symbolic barriers that become a source of melancholy, frustration, and uncertainty. At the same time, however, isolation and the breakdown of concepts of time and social norms become an opportunity to build islands of freedom and self-discovery that could never happen under normal social circumstances.  “Let your mind concentrate on the body. Let your mind concentrate on emotions. Your mind goes to another place. Let it go. But try to be an observer. An observer in all situations.” 

90% of everything we consume is shipped to us by boat. Seablindness explores the interstitial space of ports where land meets the sea and capital circulates. On a journey along the varied edges, we intercept a radio call from stranded seafarers. This documentary poem explores ecological anxiety. It is not, however, about those who feel it, but for them.

Claustrophobic war training as a gruelling routine, yet constantly permeated with terrifying tension. This is what training on the Louise-Marie NATO combat ship looks like in the documentary Standby. The observational film follows the crew of new and experienced sailors, as well as several female sailors, as they go through a series of simulated enemy attacks, lectures, evenings in the gym, and casual conversations over dinner. Everything is just for show, but it is clear from the many comments made by the commanding officers that the same situation could very soon arise in real life. The film does not have a central character, but focuses on several personalities, which it does not examine very closely as individuals; it is more interested in how they fit into the overall dynamics of the team. Concentrated in the space-time of a single war machine, the film seems to suggest that, despite all the military drill, it is impossible to fully prepare for real war – and this awareness is constantly present in the gestures and behaviour of the unit. “I see a lot of people, a lot of faces that I know, but I see at least as many faces I don’t know, a lot of young people. A lot of experience and little experience, together, adds up to enough experience to do the very thing for which you’re here today.”

The life of a small coastal community is changing beyond recognition. At least that’s how it seems to an old fisherman, as he watches the dire consequences of climate change on his long-standing source of livelihood. For the filmmaker, the disappearance of the seahorse – nature’s litmus test for clean water – becomes a symbol of humanity’s destructive activity. “Documentary-making is like shifting lenses for me, shaping both my craft and my humanity.” — Carmen Tofeni

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 Sadowski

When humans learned how to make fire, they began their journey toward inventions and industrial revolutions. The director of the film observes the constant presence of this primal spark in the work of Greek dockworkers, who unload tons of material from ships, material that is used to make objects we encounter in our everyday lives. “With a direct reference to the exact meaning of Tonnage, a word describing the weight in tons, especially of cargo or freight, the film traces the vexed semantics and archives of such a weight, historically and symbolically.” — Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival