In the early 1990s, young Finnish archeology student, Laura, escapes an enigmatic love affair in Moscow, by boarding a train to Murmansk in Russia’s far north in order to look at some ancient rocks. Forced to share the long ride in a tiny sleeping cabin with a rough, vodka-swilling Russian miner.
Sasha is a seven-year-old girl, who always knew she was a girl even though she was born in the body of a boy. Although society has failed to treat her like other children of the same age, in her daily life – from training, dancing to children’s birthdays, her family is fighting a great battle to ensure that her diversity is accepted and understood by people around her.
The Good Grief community in New Jersey focuses on a holistic approach to mourning, where children can give in to rage in ‘the volcano room’ or say goodbye to a dying teddy bear patient in ‘the hospital room.’ Over the course of a year, we follow the weekly meetings and get close to Kimmy, Nicky, Peter, Nora, Nolan and Mikayla along with their constant companion: grief, as they attend their weekly group meetings at Good Grief, practice small rituals to remember their loved ones, and go about the daily work of living.
Poland, 1983. The country is shaken by the case of Grzegorz Przemyk – a high school student beaten to death by militia. Based on true events, the film follows the story of Jurek – the only witness of the beating, who overnight became the number one enemy of the state. The oppressive regime used its whole apparatus – the secret service, militia, the media and the courts – to squeeze Jurek and other people close to the case, including his parents and Przemyk’s mother, Barbara.
The documentary The Self Portrait is a portrait of an artist and a portrait of a deadly disease. Lene Marie Fossen was a gifted photographer who suffered from severe anorexia. For many years she was hiding from the Norwegian Health Care System and in this period, she taught herself the art of photography. The Self Portrait is a film about the power of art, but it also raises important questions about what treatment one who suffers from severe anorexia needs.
Leïla and Damien love each other deeply. Despite his bipolarity, he tries to continue life with her, knowing that he may never be able to give her what she desires.
This fantastic documentary introduces us to the world of autism in the most amazing and deeply emotional way. Based on Naoki Higashida’s bestseller, The Reason I Jump is … an immersive cinematic exploration of neuro-diversity through the experiences of non-speaking autistic people from around the world. The film blends Higashida’s revelatory insights into autism, written when he was just 13, with intimate portraits of five remarkable young people.
What would Jesus preach in the 21st century? Who would his apostles be? The filmmaker and his team return to the origins of the gospel and stage it as a passion play for an entire population. Together with Yvan Sagnet, a former farmworker and activist from Cameroon, Milo Rau creates a new gospel for the 21st century: A manifesto of solidarity for the poorest, a cinematic uprising for a fairer, more humane world.
A Machine to Live In is a feature-length documentary about the imaginative and material processes of building one’s utopia. The film documents the history of highly controlled modernist planning in Brazil alongside radical projects in cult and mystical architecture. The film’s attention radiates outward from Niemeyer and Costa’s capital, Brasília, to the flourishing landscape of UFO cults, pyramids, monuments, and futurist projects. The film unfolds through Clarice Lispector’s writings on the inauguration of Brasília and subsequent interviews with Oscar Niemeyer.
The district of Yarmouk (Damascus, Syria) sheltered the biggest Palestinian refugee camp in the world from 1957 to 2018. When the Syrian revolution broke out, the regime of Bashar Al-Assad saw Yarmouk as a refuge of rebels and resistance and set up a siege from 2013 on. Gradually deprived of food, medicine and electricity, Yarmouk was cut off from the rest of the world. Abdallah Al-Khatib was born in Yarmouk and lived there until his expulsion by Daesh in 2015.
An ominous documentary viewing a global theme from the perspective of a small Hungarian community. A ‘landguard’ and his son go on patrol in the border area near Serbia, where an invisible danger looms. Figures sneak across the fields, unknown cars are spotted, dogs in yards behave strangely, and children are scared when it gets dark.
All Andrei wants is to leave for summer camp, together with his friends, once the school year is over. Meanwhile, his parents are caught up with their divorce.
A middle-aged lady observes the world of an Athenian neighbourhood from her balcony, getting mixed reactions from those she constantly watches; until she is no longer there and that world changes forever.
Most of the 10 000 inhabitants of Yelnya feel nostalgic about the former USSR and its army. They’re raising the town’s children to be military trained national patriots. Yelnya misses the days when things were different, when society was stable, even when that meant living under strict rules. Svetlana, an ex-military, lost her job when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, ruining all her plans and dreams. The army has increasingly become her ‘island of stability’ in the turbulent and changing environment of Russia since the collapse.
Tereza (Lana Barić) lives in a patriarchal Dalmatian city Split and while her husband Leon is sailing, she is re-examining her own life. Doctor’s joke shakes up her monotonous marriage and steers her life in a totally new, unexpected direction. Written by the outstanding Croatian actress Lana Barić, the story is rooted in the macho Dalmatian culture, yet it is universal and appealing to many. Brilliant performances of the main actors and the subtle directing earned the film prizes and awards at home as well as abroad from Spain, Sweden, Poland etc.
