Projects
ABOUT A HERO
After Dorem Clery supposedly commits suicide in despair over losing his job to a machine, Werner Herzog travels to Getunkirchenburg to investigate his perplexing death. But Herzog, our narrator, is not who he seems, and the film, not what we expect.
"About a Hero" is an adaptation of a script written by a large language model custom trained on Herzog’s body of work. The ironically self-reflective fictional narrative is intertwined with a series of ‘real’ interviews with artists, philosophers and scientists reflecting on the notion of originality, authenticity, immortality and soul in the age of Artificial Intelligence.
BEFORE THE FIRE
Two hitmen kill a young Mapuche in a reclaimed community in Patagonia. "Before the Fire" follows the judicial process of the murder and the daily life of the community that is defending their land and the courageous search for the recovery of memory.
Sabina Asadova & Mira Oyetoro / Mira Oyetoro / Contemporary Ukrainian Cinema / Ukraine
BURNT EARTH
Firefighters from rural and small town Finland form a specialist brigade to prepare for the large wildfires of the future. They travel to Portugal to learn from their elite colleagues already fighting on the frontlines of our climate emergency.
CHILDREN OF HONEY
When you’re growing up in one of the oldest tribes on Earth and everything you know and love is under threat, what do you do? Three young friends open up their lives to us on a powerful and enduring journey into identity, deep in the natural world
Jigar Ganatra / Natalie Humphreys / Storyboard Studios / Tanzania & United Kingdom
CINDERELLA UNBOUND
In Romania's patriarchal society, an informal network of relentless women is battling against a justice system that harms and silences child victims of sexual abuse. Will they be able to create lasting change or will the status quo silence them too?
Ilinca Calugareanu / Ilinca Calugareanu & Anamaria Antoci / Seaweed Pictures / TANGAJ PRODUCTION / United Kingdom & Romania
ECHOES OF AVEY
After years of separation, a feeling of longing calls me back to Mount Avey, where I spent my carefree childhood years. Yet, upon my return, I witness the slow disappearance of the mountain, taking my childhood memories with each of its parts.
Atanur Nabiyeva / Durna Safarova / Etüd Film / Azerbaijan
FIRST WOMAN
Through the lens of an intimate story about the filmmaker’s journey to reconnect with her Ugandan roots, “First Woman” explores the search for belonging, identity and what connects us all.
Patricia Drati / Maria Stürup / Good Company Pictures / Denmark
FREEDOM (WT)
The synopsis will be shared at individual meetings.
Camilla Nielsson / Signe Byrge Sørensen / Final Cut for Real ApS / Denmark
HAITI – COLLAPSE
Confidential project. Haiti is in crisis and the capital is controlled by rivalling gangs. With special access to the leading gang, the decimated police force, UN and a journalist victimized by the violence, the film follows the struggle for the future of a state in collapse.
Martin Tamm Andersen / Andreas Dalsgaard / Elk Development Aps / Denmark
I AM AN OLIVE TREE
After an attack by Turkey, the Kurdish people of Afrin, Northern Syria, lose their homes and olive trees and take refuge in a camp. Being spiritually attached to the olive trees they are heavily traumatized, but maintain dignity through resistance.
I AM PIPPI
“I Am Pippi” takes on the beloved character Pippi Longstocking from a new perspective – through the actresses who portray her. Through Pippi's eyes, we get a view of our contemporary world and the importance of playfulness and wild imagination.
Love Martinsen & Maria Loohufvud / Love Martinsen & Maria Loohufvud / Pink Dolphin AB / Sweden
IF PIGEONS TURNED TO GOLD
A balancing act between love and hate, care and destruction in film that seeks to discover if family saves our life or – on the contrary – destroys it.
Pepa Lubojacki / Wanda Kaprálová & Klára Mamojková / CLAW AV / guča films / Czech Republic & Slovakia
IN PRAISE OF INVASIVE SPECIES
For some, hunting and destroying “invasive species” such as Burmese pythons or Japanese knotweed is a moral imperative. For others, the idea is pseudoscience and contrary to our concept of nature. This film probes the heated politics of the new wild.
Mila Aung-Thwin / Bob Moore / EyeSteelFilm / Canada
ISKRA (SPARK!)
Before Silicon Valley, Apple and Microsoft, there was Yugoslavia and ISKRA. Pioneering and avant-garde, overlooked and underrated, this “non aligned” tech giant allowed East to meet West… until one day, it suddenly disappeared.
Alenka Pavlin / Errol Morris, Cynthia Kane, Petra Vidmar & Geoffrey Smith / Lenka Limited Films / Gustav Film / Slovenia & United States
KARSAI VS HUNGARY
Constitutional lawyer Dániel Karsai was diagnosed with ALS in 2022 at the age of 45. The film follows his trial against Hungary at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, where he is fighting for the right to end his life with dignity.
LAND OF FAIRY TALES AND DREAMS (WT)
A light hearted story about Europe's smallest tourism industry, in a place known as Transnistria (PMR). A film about one man and his family, who are fighting to become the greatest tour guides in this worldwide unrecognized region, in Moldova.
LANGUAGE X
A young couple starts a social experiment - for nine years their child is the only student in class. This is the price for choosing the Belarusian language of education over Russian. Their values lead to persecution, exile, and true resilience.
Magda Grudniewska / Egor Efimov / EE Productions / Poland
MY ESTRANGED SISTER
A female documentary director, born in Russia and resident in Denmark, visits her estranged sister in Russia to investigate how her life could have been if instead of coming to Denmark as a 4-year-old, she had still been living in Russia.
Marina Vorobyeva / Julie Friis Walenciak / Paloma Productions / Denmark
Milton Guillen & Fiona Guy Hall / Zorana Mušikić & May Odeh / Solaris Films / Mayana Films & Odeh Films / United States, Germany & Nicaragua
NANA’S WINGS
A story of a woman changing the lives of people by creating art in post-war times and bringing hope to a desolate place.
Maradia Tsaava / Mariam Chachia / OpyoDoc / Georgia
NORTH SOUTH MAN WOMAN
With the divided Korean nation as her recruitment pool, businesswoman Han Yujin's unusual marriage agency matches women defectors from her native North with South Korean men, challenging society's perceptions of both groups in the process.
Sun Kim & Morten Traavik / Verona Meier / Studio Kozlovski / VFS / Uldis Cekulis & Mirror & Story / Gary Kam / Norway, Latvia & Republic of Korea (South Korea)
ORIENTE
Amid the threat of a resurgent horse virus, three gauchos journey 100 km on horseback across the Argentine pampas to sell their herd. In this poetic documentary, the gaucho’s quest becomes a tale of discovery and connection - to people, to a culture, and to a place.
OUR SISTER ANGELA – BLACK POWER IN THE GDR
In the 1970s, an enthusiastic solidarity movement for Black U.S. civil rights activist Angela Davis emerges in East Germany. Davis attracts hundreds of thousands of people during her visits to the GDR. But all this enthusiasm is deceptive…
Katharina Warda & Jascha Hannover / André Schäfer & Derren Lawford / Florianfilm GmbH & DARE Pictures / Germany & United Kingdom
PODIUM (YOU HAVE THREE MINUTES)
In the Knesset, Palestinian lawmakers have always served alongside Jewish ones. Were we to listen to their 3-minute speeches — delivered from the podium like a relay race across the generations and against the political odds — what would we hear?
Rachel Leah Jones / Philippe Bellaïche / Home Made Docs / Close Up Films, Filmoption International & Temps Noir / Israel, Canada, France & Switzerland
POWWOW PEOPLE
"Powwow People" is a cinematic invitation into Native American powwow culture.
Sky Hopinka / John Cardellino / Tangled Up In Lilac / future perfect ltd. / United States
PROJECT Z
Confidential project. The story of a female revolutionary, fighting against one of the world’s most misogynistic regimes. We follow “Z”, an exiled Iranian activist, as she builds a global coalition against Iran’s ruling Mullahs whilst trying to escape their deadly wrath.
Till Schauder & Sara Nodjoumi / Kat Mansoor, Sara Nodjoumi, Till Schauder & Lindsay Utz / Partner Pictures & Snowstorm Productions / United States & United Kingdom
SACRED SONGS
Four female singers live a monotonous life in their Georgian village, limited by religious dogmas. They discover happiness during their journey around international stages. All changes when the youngest singer puts on a hijab and leaves the group.
Nona Giunashvili / Mariam Bitsadze / 17/07 / Georgia
SHOWTIME IN HELSINKI
Pointless kabuki theatre or an essential step towards the fall of the Iron Curtain? "Showtime in Helsinki" is an immersive all-archival study of perhaps the most important, and simultaneously the most forgotten, Cold War event ever to take place.
THE BLUE SWEATER WITH A YELLOW HOLE
This mixed-media documentary follows the Ukrainian children Kira (10), Taisa (14), and Artem (15) as they paint their memories of Russian ‘re-education camps’. The animated scenes contour propaganda and information manipulations in the modern world.
Tetiana Khodakivska / Elena Saulich / Pronto Film / MOON MAN & Babylon'13 / Ukraine
THE BROKEN GREENHOUSE
As humanity's pipe dream to control the climate fails, the greenhouse gas genie escapes the bottle. Two artists and a climate scientist collaborate in an attempt to build an emotional bridge between a thawing Arctic and an urban botanical garden.
Mats Bigert & Lars Johan Bergström / Mats Bigert / Bigert&Bergström / Sweden
THE CALL: A POLITICAL ODYSSEY
"The Call" offers exclusive access, following seven politicians from young talents to established politicians (2017-2027). Behind closed doors, it exposes the systemic crises in Scandinavian democracies.
Lise Birk Pedersen / Sara Stockmann / Sonntag Pictures / Denmark
THE DIRTY DREAM
Inspired by the wild popularity of American WWE in India, two brothers create their own entertainment wrestling company. Assembling a band of aspiring wrestlers, they stake money, social acceptance and even love- in pursuit of a daring, dirty dream.
Rintu Thomas & Sushmit Ghosh / Sushmit Ghosh & Rintu Thomas / Black Ticket Films / India
THE FERRYMAN
16-year-old Danylo works as a ferryman in the shadow of a destroyed bridge 50 km from Kharkiv to earn money and continue his studies at a sports academy, but dreams of becoming a professional kayaker collide with the reality of wartime.
Pavlo Dorohoi / Olha Symonenko / eidos.productions LLC / Ukraine
THE INVISIBLE WORLD
Traveling from the Western Sahara through Mongolia's plains and mountains to the Amazon rainforests, I delve into the existence of invisible consciousness among us.
THE LISTENERS
When a new volunteer begins training as a listener at England's oldest LGBTQ+ phone helpline, they go on a moving, time-hopping animated journey through the extraordinary stories of the queer people who’ve called and answered during the past 50 years.
Lindsey Dryden / Lindsey Dryden, Samantha Steele & Nora Wilkinson / Little By Little Films / Hush River FR / United Kingdom, United States & France
THE SECOND WOMAN (WT)
"The Second Woman" is a radical documentary built around a legendary 24-hour play starring actor Ruth Wilson. Beyond a dazzling theatrical experience is an ambitious narrative about love, power, identity and the line between reality and performance.
Ursula Macfarlane / Mandy Chang / Fremantle / United Kingdom
TIMESTAMP
"Timestamp" is a film about the wartime school years 2023–2024, filmed and assembled as a mosaic of the everyday lives of teachers and children in Ukraine during martial law.
Kateryna Gornostai / Olha Beskhmelnytsina & Natalia Libet / 2Brave Productions / Rinkel Film & Docs / Ukraine & Netherlands
TOWARDS THE ABYSS
Two young men’s personal drama takes centre stage as the DR Congo responds to more than a century of Western colonialism and arrogance.
TREE PEOPLE
Trees are all around us, but their inner lives are unfathomable. They watch in silence as we push our shared world toward catastrophe. What would we learn from these ancient beings if we knew how to listen?
Regina Sobel / Julia de Guzman, Sarah Goodwin, Elliot Kirschner & Adam Bolt / The Wonder Collaborative / United States
UNDER THE DREAM
The first film to chart the rise of technology poised to transform the multiverse we all travel to every night: our dreams. The audience is the main character, guided by the Dream Doula on a nocturnal trip to the final frontier of the human mind.
Saelyx Finna / Laurie Polisky & Isabel Lopez Polanco / Dream Futures / Cinema Cantera / Mexico & United States
UNWELCOMED
Traversing the majestic Andean Highlands, Atacama Desert, and Coastal Cliffs, "Unwelcomed" unveils the harsh reality of the migration crisis in Latin America, alongside the cultural clash and radicalisation in northern Chile.
Amilcar Infante & Sebastian Gonzalez Mendez / Sebastian Gonzalez Mendez / Amilcar Films & Someday Productions / Chile
VICTOR
Five days after the accident that took her legs at 26, Stephani Victor chose to film her physical & emotional recovery. After she meets an unorthodox Swiss ski coach whose love helps her imagine a new life, she becomes a Paralympic champion.
Stephani Victor / Diane Becker, Melanie Miller & Matt Radecki / Fishbowl Films / United States
WHISPERS IN MAY
Qinghua, a Yi ethnic teen, sets out on a road trip with her two besties to find a skirt for the menarche rite of passage.
Dongnan Chen / Jia Zhao / Tail Bite Tail Films & Muyi Film / China & Netherlands