Slovenia, Austria, Poland, Italy, Serbia 2024 — Directed by: Maja Doroteja Prelog — 87 min — Spoken language: Slovenian — Subtitles: English — Production Company: Cvinger Film — Coproduction Companies: Zena Film, Agresywna Banda, Wake Up Films
After surviving a terminal illness diagnosis, Blaž sets off to a grueling celebratory Giro d’Italia. With him is his partner, filmmaker Maja Doroteja Prelog, tasked with capturing the triumphant biking tour. What was initially planned as a ride from the Dolomites to Sicily to reclaim control of one’s own life and celebrate overcoming their greatest fear, soon becomes a journey of self-discovery for the couple. The focus shifted and now Maja’s experience and needs hold the lens. While the lens of the camera turns inward, the relationship unravels, revealing a brave examination of self and what it truly means to be together. An unfiltered testament to love and change in the midst of beautiful natural sceneries.
North Macedonia 2024 — Directed by: Bojan Tanturovski — 74 min — Spoken language: Macedonian — Subtitles: English — Production Company: OXO Production — Producer: Ilija Tiričovski
After 35 years of gardening on an uninhabited public land near the river Vardar, the last urban guerilla gardeners in Skopje are faced with eviction. As the city expands, they are forced to seek another land.
MANHOOD — Germany 2024 — Directed by: Tobit Kochanek — 71 min — Spoken language: German — Subtitles: English — Producers: Tobit Kochanek, Britt Abrecht — Production Company: Filmakademie Baden Württemberg — Script: Tobit Kochanek — Photography: Dennis Banemann — Editing: Tim Kraushaar — Sound: Rachel Oker — Music: Philipp Lust
A group of keen football players looking for fellowship meet every Monday evening on a pitch in Görlitzer Park, the drug dealers’ mecca. The “pack of men with the same mindset” reflect on masculinity, heartbreak and midlife crisis and seem so likeable that you want to go and cheer them on from the side-lines yourself.
I WOULD RATHER BE A STONE — Croatia 2024 — Directed by: Ana Hušman — 24 min — Spoken language: Croatian — Subtitles: English — Producer: Ana Hušman
Lika is a neglected and sparsely populated region in western Croatia, which was heavily affected during during World War II and was characterized by poverty and emigration. Today, 75 thousand tons of cement are being pressed into the landscape to build a reservoir. Through the voice of Little Jela, the film tells the story of the events that marked a generation and shaped the future of the landscape of Lika. The difficult living conditions impacted the personal lives of the people who lived there, their solitude, relationships, opportunities, apprehensions and hopes.
THE GROUND WHERE WE STAND — Croatia 2024 — Directed by: Karla Crnčević — 64 min — Spoken language: Croatian — Subtitles: English — Production Company: Zagreb film — Producer: Vinko Brešan
In the interior of the island, a group of women coming from different ex-Yugoslavia countries live in an unusual community trying to create safe space for them and for generations to come. The islanders call them Witches of Brač. They do not believe in private property or hierarchy, and manage the community by direct democracy. They share the land and together try to build their own small self-sustaining oasis. Interpersonal relations and challenges brought by coexistence in nature, bring the survival of the community into question.
Austria 2023 — Directed by: Matteo Sanders — 16 min — Spoken languages: German, Italian — Subtitles: English — Producer: Matteo Sanders — Production Company: Filmakademie Wien — Script: Matteo Sanders — Photography: Konrad Milan — Editing: Lisa Isabella Grabner — Sound: Andreas Moser — Music: Ornella Vanoni, Lucio Dalla, Niklas Paschburg
The 33-year-old director uses the portrait of his 66-year-old father as an opportunity to talk about the past and the differences between the two generations, until a shared experience arises that has had a decisive influence on their relationship.
Germany, Serbia 2023 — Directed by: Dragana Jovanovic — 61 min — Production Company: DOK 33 — Producer: Dragana Jovanovic
What happens when beauty falls asleep? Aurora’s Dream explores the collective unconscious during a period of contemporary crisis. Individual participants share their most vivid and personal dreams. The subconscious narratives visually intertwine with the turbulence of our present era, bringing archetypes and motifs from the Sleeping Beauty fairytale to the fore.
CAPTURES — Romania 2023 — Directed by: Ana Gurdiș — 22 min — Spoken language: Romanian — Subtitles: English — Producer: Larisa Crunțeanu
An incomplete family album and a series of street-found photographs lead the author on an introspective journey, unveiling the way her passion for cinematography is passed down from father to daughter.
Switzerland 2023 — Directed by: Nathalie Berger — 62 min — Spoken language: English — Subtitles: English — Production: ZHDK Zürich — Producer: Filippo Bonacci
The sun shines every day in Chagrin Valley, USA. Frozen in a 1950s-inspired artificial decor, this assisted living facility for people who suffer from dementia is home to fragile and ageing residents. Here, everyday life drags on slowly. Florence and her companions dream of an elusive elsewhere during their days punctuated by confusion, fleeting conflicts and overdue family visits. The caregivers – as kind as they are exhausted – run the show in this pastel-coloured, sanitised social theatre. Between two shifts, they confess their desire for a better future; one that is not so different from that of the residents, after all.
France, Lebanon 2023 — Directed by: Diala Al Hindaoui — 15 min — Spoken language: French — Subtitles: English — Production Company: La cinéfabrique — Producer: Timothé Perrier — Script: Diala Al Hindaoui — Photography: Maïssa Elydja Olivier, Cléo Miquel Delhon — Editing: Hugo Pichon-Martin, Lili Cazals — Sound: Plume Languille And Margot Delaunay — Music: Plume Languille
Fatmé, 11 years old, lives in Lebanon with her family, in a tent by the side of a country road. Her disheveled hair, dirty clothes, and love for fighting are subjects of discussion among those around her. Her mother wonders: Is she a girl or a boy? To this question, Fatmé responds with laughter, "I just want to be the strongest."
Serbia 2023 — Directed by: Eluned Zoë Aiano, Alesandra Tatić — 77 min — Production Companies: Servia Film, Wild Pear Arts — Producers: Greta Rauleac, Miloš Ljubomirović
In Eastern Serbia, in a town with a dual identity divided between magic and industry, a family whose destiny is intrinsically linked with both does their best to ensure the survival of their traditions and their future generations. Desa is the widow of the union leader who is trying to continue his legacy by ensuring the rights of fellow mine-worker families. Meanwhile, her brother Dragan Markovic is the last in a line of dragon hunters, but it’s hard to continue now even the dragons are being driven away.
LIGHT OF LIGHT — Greece 2023 — Directed by: Neritan Zinxhiria — 13 min — Production Company: Reconstructing Memories — Producer: Efijeni Kokedhima
Before his death in 1932, a monk created his own camera in one of the most isolated places in the world. Nearly a century later, a filmmaker discovers and reconstructs the 3000 preserved photographic plates, blending them with his own evocative Super 8, crafting a cinematic pilgrimage, where the past interlaces seamlessly with the present, in a spellbinding visual narrative that defies the constraints of time itself.
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