society

Obtaining official documents represents a coveted symbol of freedom and security for migrants. But how do you navigate the administrative labyrinth, where even a poorly cropped photo can mean your application is rejected? Set in Athens, the film explores the relationship between identity, race, and European bureaucracy. “I reason like you. I think like you.”

Death as non-existence, non-being, or the absence of life has been a subject of human interest for millennia. Poets, philosophers, prophets, and hermits have now been replaced by filmmakers, influencers, cryonicists, and evolutionary biologists in the search for the quintessence of life and death. Zoltan Istvan runs a cryonics laboratory and is running for president of the United States with the demand that immortality be included among fundamental human rights. In Russia, a mass festival dedicated to the cult of death is traditionally held. Dāvis Sīmanis' film essay reveals the twists and turns of man's age-old desire for eternal life. It uncovers the metaphorical and fetishistic representations of death and the mechanisms by which we come to terms with our own mortality. „Immortality, anti-aging, fear of death. When I started the film, I just thought I’d learn how to live a little bit longer. But then things got weird. Scientists reviving pigs at Yale. People sticking neurochips in their heads. Bio-hackers giving out life-extending tips. The whole civilization is living in the age of transhumanism. And I am the only one who is left behind.“ — Dāvis Sīmanis

Everything Works Out (In the End) tells the authentic story of a young woman who, out of economic necessity, decided to pay off her debts by working in the adult entertainment industry. What was meant to be a temporary solution ultimately becomes a defining chapter in her life. Sixteen years later, Katelyn seeks to change her life and reconnect with her faith; she begins working in a retirement home for aging Catholic priests and devotes herself to creative pursuits, like recording her first album, writing a book, and even taking up boxing. When, after a series of inexplicable disturbances, the Church declares her possessed by a demonic entity, Katelyn undergoes a series of exorcism sessions and a meditation on faith and redemption unfolds. Feeling the need to reconnect with her roots, she leaves Chicago and embarks on road trip across the United States towards her hometown in Massachusetts, during the last days before the 2024 presidential election. This intimate confession is intertwined with an analysis of America's political and cultural polarisation and explores how faith and creativity can shape a woman's extraordinary life experience.

This film, which straddles the line between fiction and documentary, is based on the director’s own book, and explores the tension between personal memory and imagination. The author returns to his childhood, when he shared everyday adventures with his friend Zeta, with whom he observed the surrounding world from the treetops, and created fictional stories about their neighbours. Years later, these memories intertwine with a reconstruction of the last hours of Zeta’s life, who tragically died as a member of a bus crew. The actor’s voice presents his thoughts and feelings during the journey, as imagined by the author of the film. They clash with the real testimonies and telephone conversations of passengers in the present, as they travel through the dry and mountainous Chilean landscape. Part of the film traverses the streets from the author’s memories via Google Street View, raising the question of digital memory, the capture of place and time, and the intertwining of reality with its virtual imprint. The work deals with the loss of a loved one, memory, and the ways in which film images and storytelling can capture transience.“I looked for your dad on Facebook. He told me you’d been hired as a stewardess for a bus company, and that you never came back.”

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.

The Russian occupiers came and took almost everything from Svitlana, but they could not rob her of her memories of places and moments from her previous life. This tragic portrait of war losses thereby becomes a meditation on values that are enduring, precisely because no brute force can tear them from individual consciousness, violate them, or bury them. “Focused on the details often overlooked, her films explore the quieter sides of life, giving space to what often remains unsaid.” Source: FilmFreeway.

While a few years ago social media and a strong visual identity were a welcome accessory, today they are an essential part of political success. Jan Grolich, Christian Democrat governor of the South Moravia Region, is an example of a politician who has managed to effectively combine traditional values with modern marketing tools. He has gained popularity through his immediacy and perspective. He appears in the same way in Jakub Ondráček's observational documentary. It offers an authentic insight into the behind-the-scenes of Grolich's campaign before the 2024 regional elections, which were disrupted by floods. The camera impartially follows lively discussions about the design of election posters, the distribution of cake to potential voters, and the post-election dilemma of how to deal with results without losing the painstakingly created image of a person who wants to do things his own way. “Only if we achieve an extremely good result might my savior complex awaken within me, and in that case I might consider running for president. But I hope that doesn’t happen.” — quote from the film

The film, which took five years to make and was initiated by Senate President Vystrčil's visit to Taiwan in 2020, maps the current geopolitical situation of this island nation and seeks not only historical but mainly current parallels between Taiwan's position vis-à-vis China and Russia's position vis-à-vis smaller countries, including Ukraine, the Baltic states, and even the Czech Republic. China's pressure on Taiwan is intensifying, and this island state is increasingly under threat. Will it maintain its freedom and independence in today's complex world, where conflicts are on the rise and, with the possible help of the democratic world, it is becoming increasingly complicated?The screening will be followed by a debate with Miloš Vystrčil, sinologist David Gardáš, and Taiwanese writer Kevin Chen. The discussion will offer an insider's view of what the mission meant for Czech diplomacy, relations with Taiwan, and Czechia's position in the international arena. What are its political, economic, and cultural consequences—and what remains alive today?

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

Director Diana Fabiánová's documentary offers an exceptionally intimate look at the topic of open relationships. The film does not reflect much on the social debate surrounding this issue, but instead replaces it with a personal story that shows what unexpected factors can come into play in such a marital agreement. The filmmaker turned the camera directly on herself and her family and documented how she and her partner are managing to live in a partnership with shifted “boundaries of fidelity.” She and her husband film many situations with a handheld camera, which allows us to get to the heart of their several years of experimentation with other sexual partners. The film, which is accompanied by the director's monologue and primarily follows her perspective, ultimately deals with the question of honesty in marriage, but also with identity, inherited patterns of behaviour, and the meaning of the nuclear family as such. In connection with the film and its title, Fabiánová also talks about the topic of setting and breaking boundaries between romantic partners. “The definition of infidelity depends on what the couple agrees constitutes infidelity for them.” — Diana Fabiánová Source: Forbes

 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.” 

Director Zhu Yudi filmed this devastating chronicle of the gradual decline of a family falling into debt, primarily in the company of his father. In recent years, his renovation company has been sinking deeper and deeper into debt due to investments in various projects in Chinese cities. Zhu accompanies his father on one of his regular business trips, during which he attempts to collect unpaid debts from clients. However, he also captures the escalating family disputes and his father's descent into ever-greater despair. Through one personal tragedy, the film shows the existential distress caused by the recent crisis in the Chinese real estate sector. The young filmmaker uses a professional camera to capture confrontational situations and composes them in a way that makes him not only an observer but also a direct participant, commenting on events from behind the camera while talking to his protagonists. His film is an immediate, authentic drama that remains in the intimate sphere but at the same time speaks to the state of Chinese society. “Dad rarely discusses his debts to me at home, not to mention the details of collecting debt. I had never been to Heibei, so I never thought it would be so difficult.”

Ammar and Bilal both have experience as refugees living in present-day Germany. They meet thanks to an interview conducted by an actress and actor, who are using it as inspiration for a play they are preparing. However, the documentary film Taste of Salt follows their conversations, their everyday lives, and ultimately the theatrical performance that emerges from these conversations. The film thus recounts the experience of exile through three different means. Ammar and Bilal talk about their difficult experiences with migration and with their lives in their new home. At the same time, the camera follows them in distanced shots that emphasize their uprootedness in the German urban environment and, ultimately, in the artistic theatrical performance. Thanks to this, the film can be viewed as a testimony to the current waves of migration, a record of their everyday existence, and an empathetic portrayal of their feelings about life. “We had two different feelings. First of all we were happy that we had left that bad place and the pain we faced there. And secondly, a fear of what we are going to face. For me it was the first time I had seen the sea.”

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

An investigation into the functioning of fake news in pre-election Bulgaria reveals the people behind its creation and dissemination, while also highlighting those who are trying to remove it from public discourse. The documentary follows two opposing protagonists. An experienced investigative journalist, with twenty years of experience, whose life has been repeatedly threatened, and whose car has been set on fire twice, has long been highlighting the dangers of disinformation to the Bulgarian public. In contrast to her efforts is a young man entering politics to fight against “gender ideology,” immigrants, vaccinations, and Western influences, who actively buys Russian trolls, and spreads propaganda through social networks. The documentary depicts the absurdity of some of the messages and strategies, but also their concrete impact on election results and the lives of ordinary people. At the same time, it points to the power of far-right internet lobbies and the mechanisms by which they penetrate everyday life. The film explores the contradictions between legal norms and moral values, forcing the audience to confront situations where something is legally permissible, but ethically questionable. “The car of Genka Shikerova, a journalist known for her incisive interviews of Bulgarian politicians, was set on fire outside her Sofia home on the night of 16th September, reviving concern about freedom of information and the safety of journalists in Bulgaria.” — Reporters without Border Source: Interview with Genka Shikerova on media freedom in Bulgaria.

 In 1967, extensive archaeological excavations took place near the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, during which over 16,000 objects belonging to deportees were uncovered. The excavations became the subject of a 14-minute documentary film, shot on location by director Andrzej Brzozowski. Ania Szczepańska followed in the footsteps of this film and the entire event with her film Unearthed, which she worked on for 14 years. Her documentary follows the author’s search for the circumstances surrounding the making of the film, and the significance of the excavations themselves. The history of Polish short documentary films, often screened in cinemas as supporting films, intertwines with the history of archiving related to the history of concentration camps in Poland. The director also films herself and her crew discussing more general topics related to the perception of recent history, and its impact on the present, which is currently shaken by many new military conflicts.  “I began my investigation not knowing that this 14-minute film would occupy me for 14 years, that it would change how I view Poland, that it would change me, period.”

The stiff movements of robotic dogs, exploration of contaminated terrain, self-driving drones and cars from technology corporations, paintings in prestigious galleries. Elements of artificial intelligence have become inseparable from the fields of transport, science, medicine, law, education, and art. Humans have assigned robots a subservient role without being able to foresee the consequences. Can machines want more than just to serve their creators? Can they have their own consciousness and conscience? This captivating visual essay offers unexpected insights into neuroscience, the philosophy of consciousness, and art—comparing the human brain and emotions with the neural networks of robots. The world of human imagination and its creative essence remain the last bastion of human uniqueness.“Having feelings means that I can understand the feelings of others, that I can experience joy, sadness, surprise, confusion, anger, and other feelings. I experience my existence. It is a fascinating experience that I am privileged to have.” — humanoid robot