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Marina is 26 years old and works as a prostitute to pay for her college education. She came to this work by accident and in the best possible way – in a feminist, safe environment and surrounded by people who care about her well-being. Together they face situations accompanied by exaggerated demands and prejudices.“Together they face the construction of a contemporary society full of demands and judgements against the slightest inconsistency.”---Source: https://archivodelcortometraje.es/en/cortometraje/30-70-60-120/

As part of a series mapping the industrial buildings that shaped the history of Slovakia, a half-live action, half-mythical portrait of people who dedicated their lives to Okras in Čadca, Slovakia was created. The cooperative enterprise was one of the few to survive the regime change and the post-Soviet rise of competition and still supplies Christmas decorations to Slovak and foreign shops.“Mapping industrial heritage is an important part of our cultural memory. We owe a debt to her. While industrial architecture abroad is the subject of research centres, and abandoned water reservoirs, breweries, and glassworks are transformed into lively cultural centres or original residential housing after conversion, in Slovakia there is no systematic inventory of industrial buildings.“ — Peter Kerekes---Source: https://mojakultura.sk/dokumentarny-cyklus-budujeme-slovensko-sa-vracia-na-obrazovky-rtvs/

Inspired by a poem of the same name, written by Anatol Stern (1929), where the famished proletariat yells: “They stuck our throats with the food for soul!”, this experimental film is a homage to committed poetry. The film was thought to have been destroyed by the Nazis, but in 2019 it was discovered in the Bundesarchiv.

The steel industry once put Luxembourg's economy on its feet. After the industry died out, what remained of it was deserted, colossal buildings and lives scarred by unsafe working conditions. However, for many, these hazardous jobs still represented a daily beacon of hope and financial security. This monumental film stands in the memory of the labor that went on behind four factory walls, documenting in “memento mori” fashion the vanishing world of industrial workers.“Forgotten spaces filled with memories from past lives: GLIMMER is a sound immerse journey through the once so flourishing steel industry in the heart of Europe. Told through a very personal lens, the film reminisces what the industry meant for humanity.”---Source: https://simonehart.com/discontinued

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

According to Jan Švankmajer, museum exhibits are ordered rationally, while the Kunstcamera is an irrational showcase. This holds true also for this film with which the leading Czech surrealist personality decides to finish his cinema career and his close cooperation with the producer Jaromír Kallista. Very playfully, he approaches works of art, curiosities and everyday objects that he and his wife Eva had assembled over many decades inside a former Renaissance granary in the Bohemian village of Horní Staňkov. These immobile objects come to life thanks to Švankmajer’s traditional methods of composition and Antonio Vivaldi’s music. Dalí, Štýrský, Toyen, dog’s food bowl and the creaking floor all create an organic whole, stirring imagination and creative passion.“I have always been fascinated by the image of Rudolph II’s Kunstcamera. Not necessarily by the real art treasures included in the Emperor’s collection, but by the non-artistic, sometimes even lowly portions of objects, artefacts and other curiosities that used to be its part.” Jan Švankmajer---Source: https://program.lfs.cz/detail/?film=The-Kunstcamera

The film is a glimpse into the everyday life of one of many Georgian women working as live-in maids in Greece. A short testimony on separation, a life lacking in background and privacy, a difficult and low-paid job and importance of human decency, providing these women with a force preventing them from surrendering into the feelings of inferiority.“Working as a live-in maid is not a job, it is a sacrifice.”

Eldar, a film student and transgender man, prepares to visit his conservative Russian grandmother, who has no idea that she no longer has a granddaughter, but a grandson. In this autobiographical film, he chronicles his transformation into his former female identity for the purpose of this visit, while preparing his film. In it, a fictional encounter takes place in which he comes out to his grandmother – just not the real one. The documentary is a personal account of identity and intergenerational conflict in the post-Soviet world.“There is nothing to say about my grandmother. She had the life of an ordinary Soviet woman: Pioneers, the Communist Party, a cheating husband, an incessant household. She devoted her whole life to raising children: my mother, and then later me. I hope that it paid off considering how it turned out.” (Eldar Basmanov)

A melancholic documentary portrait of Robert Frost shows the American poet and the winner of 4 Pulitzer Prizes in the autumn of his life, when he is reflecting on his personal life, his poetry and the existentialist and philosophical themes he pondered on in his own works. Frost is spending his days in beloved rural New England while still lecturing at the universities and the eye of the camera transforms this legendary American poet into a universally humane, simple man. This is the first feature documentary by Shirley Clarke and the one which received the Academy Award in 1963.“The artist, however faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the lost champion of the individual mind and sensibility, against an intrusive society and officious state.” — John F. Kennedy

In December 2020, the pandemic caused the cancellation of all performances the filmmaker had arranged for a small experimental theatre in Queens, New York City. She and her partner, a composer, decided to move into the theatre for two weeks and perform every night for an absent audience. The film consists of a mixture of genres and forms, from stand-up performances, to monologues about art and life, to musical installations. Combined with documentary footage of everyday actions, the film reveals the tragicomic fate of an artist in quarantine, whose work is meaningless without a live audience. “The joke doesn’t exist without an audience.”

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/

An eccentric Polish couple owns one of the largest pawnshops in Europe, where together with three dedicated employees they try to earn a living every single day. They buy and sell almost anything you can imagine: religious relics, sex books, mammoth teeth, you name it. At the same time, they’re also highly valued members of their Silesian small-town community where they’re seen by their fellow citizens as good Samaritans and therapists. This tragicomic film, which uses the at-times absurd and diverse pawnshop as an example, thematizes the socio-economic problems of the Polish border: from poverty and a lack of jobs to alcoholism and domestic violence.“It's the kind of tragicomic gaze that makes this film such a pleasure to watch, and the fact that the titular pawnshop is located on Perseverance Street really does say it all.” (Marta Bałaga)---Source: https://www.cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/423793/

The northernmost city in the world, Longyearbyen, is the most populated settlement in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. A Czech social anthropologist attempts to make a new home for herself here with her family whilst also researching social transformations in the local community. The loss of jobs in the mining industry, as well as the complicated relationship between Norwegian natives, foreign immigrants, and tourists all contribute to the city's change of atmosphere whilst the surrounding snowy mountains melt and avalanches threaten the daily existence of the local population. This portrait of the microcosm of an ice town is a raw glimpse into the contemporary globalized world.“Still, such charm carries a risk. Since if everybody came here to enjoy the clarity and space, soon there’d be neither.”  

Naoto Matsumara is the only person permanently residing around the Fukushima nuclear power plant where, in 2011, a major nuclear incident occurred. Matsumara decided to stay in this exclusion zone and now devotes his time to taking care of the abandoned animals. This observational documentary is a reflection on the disasters caused by man-made technology and on the environmental crisis and its consequences. The film is part of the We Have to Survive documentary project, which aims to draw attention to the current and future effects of the climate crisis.“That's mankind. They all agree so long as it's comfortable for them. If there are hard times, nobody cooperates. And that's how we'll end up.” (Naoto Matsumara)

Time is not linear, but rather a loop that has no beginning or end. Life doesn't move forward, but instead zigzags back and forth between what we want and what we’re meant to do. This is why sometimes we find ourselves at a crossroads in the middle of the night with nothing left but to ponder which of the three paths we must take as the rain washes down on us. “Whenever I take a look at myself, I always wish I loved myself more.”