Panorama: Central and Eastern Europe

The filmmaker’s father has mutated into a grumpy man. She begins a confrontation at the family table – and discovers a substantial depression. Is a new beginning possible?

On 9 February 2022, four friends in Kyiv discuss the situation: There are 120,000 Russian soldiers at the borders – what will happen? An equally historical and private moment.

A river of headlines flowing through the city, an eclipse flickers purple. The images glide by weightlessly, with no fixed order, opening up entire worlds.

A bathhouse in Georgian Akhtala specializes in mud treatments whose material is produced by the nearby mud volcano. A mysterious place, even for five-year-old Tako.

The fluid stop-motion images, navigating fantasies and memories, play on the dilemma of unfulfillable parental expectations. Sometimes bittersweet and macabre, sometimes artfully intertwined.