It’s Only/Not Only a Body... Or a Short Film about Freedom
To tylko/aż ciało… albo krótki film o wolności
Michal Hytros
Krakow Film Foundation & Polish Docs
Documentary Film
Poland
2023
82 minutes
Polish
International Premiere open
Synopsis
Love thyself. This is the life credo of Zosia – a photographer, traveller and a free spirit. Going around the world in her camper, she uses photography to make other women comfortable with nakedness and teaches them to love their own bodies. In front of her lens stood women who experienced eating disorders and did not accept their looks. Zosia, who has no place of her own on Earth, has been on the road since she left school at the age of 18. Freedom is a priority for her but loneliness and longing for love may sometimes jeopardise her travel plans.
Three filmmakers research the history of a chemical factory in Cologne-Kalk. Off- and online archives teach them the art of weeding out and throwing away, the art of daring the gap.
In their documentary film, the three filmmakers Lea Sprenger, Franca Pape and Amelie Vierbuchen set out to find material about the Kalk chemical factory in Cologne. During their research at the Archive “Rheinisch-Westfälisches Wirtschaftsarchiv zu Köln”, they meet archivist Dr. Christian Hillen, who has a lot to say. While the archivist struggles with the 16mm film, the filmmakers dig through the chaos of sources and capitulate to the resistance of the material. Who decides which stories are saved or thrown away? A fast paced film about searching, throwing away, about gaps and mistakes and about one's own inability, which is repeatedly met with self-irony.
Two best friends are drifting through the city of Montreal. They come from a small Inuit settlement in northern Canada and share the same heritage, language and longings.
Kathy and Teresa are best friends. Far from their home village, a small Inuit settlement in northern Canada, the two young women share a tender relationship in the city of Montreal.
14-year-old Kiki is sentenced to juvenile prison for violence and drug offences. His sister convinces the authorities to give him one last chance: a therapeutic trip to the desert.
After being kicked out of every available youth-at-risk framework, and after facing criminal charges for drug trafficking and violence, Kiki is about to enter a youth prison by court order. Gal, his sister, manages to convince the authorities to give Kiki one last chance. Gal is a caregiver for youth-at-risk in a framework that takes youth on experiential, therapeutic field trips through the desert. Gal and her co-workers take Kiki on a field trip to the desert. She is determined to succeed where everyone else has failed. Will the journey enable Kiki to grow and to take responsibility for his own fate?
In a desert landscape, some children play hide-and-seek. The remains of dry stone walls and a few abandoned objects seem to bear witness to a long-evaporated civilisation.
In a desert landscape, among the ruins, children play hide-and-seek. The remains of walls and a few abandoned objects seem to bear witness to a civilisation that has long since evaporated. Francesca, the youngest of the group, is marked by the discovery of a dead fish which becomes the object of the other children's games. The next day, back at the site, the little girl discovers that other people have been attracted to the remains that the disappearance of this huge artificial lake has revealed.
Leonie helps where she can on her parents’ farm. She wants to be a pig-farmer when she grows up. When they are forced to give up the farm, Leonie says goodbye to her dream.
Leonie's biggest dream is to become a pig farmer. On her parents' farm, she is happily wandering around with her best friend, Skeet, the cat. She is always helping out in any way possible: fertilising the sows, tending to the pigs and helping load the fully grown hogs onto the truck that will bring them to the slaughterhouse. The family farm is helping Leonie learn about the circle of life. However, new laws surrounding nitrogen emissions set by the government are threatening Leonie's parents' life work – their company – into bankruptcy. Together with her cat Skeet, Leonie sees the last pigs disappear from the farm and realises that her dream of living as a pig farmer might not come true.
The competition between the two brothers begins at the seaside. As brothers, they know each other best and become each other's most prominent opponents. The younger brother admires his older brother's natural talents. However, the older brother secretly has a “fatal” weakness. In the three rounds of the competition, lasting two minutes each, they express their secrets to each other.
Can intimacy exhaustion in a monogamous marriage be avoided? Love is no longer present in my parents' relationship, which echoes my own marriage. Is there a way to keep the spark?
Monogamia takes you on a roller-coaster journey into the world of love and intimacy within committed relationships. Follow the director's personal quest to bring back the love that once flourished between his parents. As you watch, the inevitable question arises: can love indeed endure the test of time? Can the revelation of buried secrets revive the spark of long-lost intimacy? Does monogamy stop being monogamy after tasting the “forbidden fruit”? Amidst this captivating exploration, consider the excitement and price of open relationships.
In search of memories of her childhood, Asmae El Moudir recreates her Casablanca neighbourhood as an elaborate miniature and in the process comes across a trauma of Moroccan history.
Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir wants to know why she only has one photograph from her childhood, and why the girl in the picture isn't even her. When her family refuses to answer her questions about the past, she hits on another solution: on a handmade replica recreating the Casablanca neighbourhood where she grew up, El Moudir begins to interrogate the tales her mother, father and grandmother tell about their home and their country. Slowly, she starts to unravel the layers of deception and intentional forgetting that have shaped her life. The truth is hard to face, but in this sometimes surreal nonfiction film, El Moudir begins to draw what's real to the surface.
The director, a stateless Filipino, returns to his native country. For more than twenty years, he lived without papers in the USA and feels trapped in a world full of borders.
A poetic essay film through the lens of an undocumented immigrant becoming disillusioned by their future in the United States and deciding to return to an estranged homeland. Nowhere Near tracks down the origin of a family curse backtracking through the post 9/11 era, the US occupation of the Philippines and the spiritual conquest of the Spanish empire. The film is a years-long diary towards understanding the causes of migration to the United States, though ultimately this odyssey deviates far from the expected course.
How do you grow up on a planet that is being destroyed by humanity? The two friends Bo and Luca are enthusiastic climate activists whom the film follows for four years.
How does one grow up on a planet that is destroying itself? Filmmaker Pieter Van Eecke provides a possible response to this urgent question. For four years, he has followed the beautiful and mischievous friendship between Bo and Luca, two teenagers who are as enthusiastic in their ecological activism as they are in their experience of the contradictory and surprising travails of growing up.
When puffins leave their nest on Vestmannaeyjar, they often get lost. Birta and Selma have made it their mission to bring the fledglings back to the cliff.
On a remote Icelandic island, teens Birta and Selma rescue pufflings (young puffins) from imminent danger; as pufflings leave their nests for the first time, they often get lost in town, mistaking the harbour lights for the moon. Over the course of one night, we follow Birta and Selma as they take it upon themselves to counteract humanity's damaging impact on nature; exchanging night-time parties for puffin rescues. A coming-of-age documentary about growing up and making choices, Puffling explores the delicate interplay between wildlife, the environment, and human life.
Little Stone, the boy from the mountain, left his grandmother - they depended on each other for life. In his lonely waiting, he counted the days that passed by. Unfortunately, there was no time for them to say goodbye.
Will time really wash everything away? Little Stone believes that time will eventually make them meet again.
The film follows three young Russian women after the attack on Ukraine. Stay or leave? A haunting look at a generation in today’s Russia and their lives on the go.
Silent Sun of Russia portrays a generation of young Russians between 2018 and 2022. The film follows three young women – Alika, Alyona, and Katya. They are rebels and anarchists and part of a global youth who dream of living a modern life in freedom. A pervasive sense of anxiety and restlessness about the future haunts the lives of the young women. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, they find themselves in a new reality that requires difficult choices. In their quest for love, friendship, and the dream of escaping Putin's Russia, they live in uncertainty, where longing is replaced by difficult emotions and attempts to repress reality. The film provides an intimate and poetic view of the current living conditions and the urgent decisions faced today by young Russians who cannot see a future in their native country.
Pippa and Victoria are avid skaters. But there are “NO SKATING” signs at every corner. A street contest is needed to find allies and take back the streets.
Skater-girl Pippa is determined to claim her place in a city that offers little space to skateboarders. Together with her friend Victoria, she goes into town in search of cool spots for street skating, only to find new “No Skating” signs. Back home, Pippa and Victoria come up with a plan to reclaim the streets. They let their imaginations run wild: what if they organise a street contest themselves? And skater-girls rule. On that day, the streets will belong to the skaters. They decide to put this daring plan together themselves, and immediately spring into action.
There is Portugal, there is the Portuguese language and there is a Ukrainian filmmaker who learns the language and approaches the role of the potential migrant. There is also a play of words: zangar and o zangāo. How is it possible to express such an empowering emotion like anger in the fragile attempts of a beginner? The video essay is woven from the filmmaker's narration, language classes, personal videos and archival images from Kyiv – revealing the split reality of anyone who is finding a safe place abroad while longing for home, which is under the constant danger of war.
DOK Industry is realised with the support of Creative Europe MEDIA Programme of the European Union, the Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (MDM) and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media upon a Decision of the German Bundestag.