What if from one day to the next, you’re no longer seen but instead, you're stared at? The leading characters in All You See have ended up in a new world where suddenly nothing seems to align. In their new lives in the Netherlands, they unintentionally provoke reactions on a daily basis. Even after many years, they still hear the same questions over and over again: Where are you from? Do you speak Dutch? Do you tan in the sun?
A ghostly search for traces, based on the 1965 U.S. embargo against “communist” real hair wigs from Asia. Is every wig inhabited by a ghost from the imperial past?
This film is about the haunting memories of Asia’s late-20th-century modernisation. The story departs from a 1965 United States embargo on the hair trade, known as the “Communist Hair Ban”. In every wig resides a ghost from the imperial past.
The most profound memories are sometimes the most deceptive. That’s what Brett Allen Smith finds out as he keeps replaying the funeral of the family dogs. A baffling confrontation.
Recasting his newborn son and dog as himself and his childhood pets, a filmmaker confronts his own false memories through a collage of film, digital and video game footage.
A construction site in the Central African Republic, two career dreams: The double portrait of a native day labourer and a Chinese construction manager becomes a parable of globalisation.
Luan, a Chinese immigrant, is in Bangui, Central African Republic, facing his greatest professional challenge to date: he must oversee the construction of a bank headquarters that is expected to be inaugurated soon by the President of the nation himself. At the opposite end of the same labour chain, Thomas, a local, must dive into the river to get the sand that Luan needs for his building. Both share the same goal: to progress in their careers and give their families a better life. Meanwhile, the erratic and difficult lives of their families manifest themselves at a distance in various ways. Luan receives phone calls from his wife who, living thousands of kilometres away, is feeling abandoned and attempts to commit suicide; while Thomas' wife and girlfriend have both abandoned him, leaving him in charge of all his children. Eat Bitter fluidly and honestly articulates the daily life of both men, revealing the traces of the presence of the large Chinese community in the region, as well as the scars of a country devastated by the experience of a long civil war and poverty for which no one seems to have any answers.
While buying an apartment, a pair of siblings meet a woman who looks exactly like their dead sister. An intriguing true crime story unfolds bit by bit.
A divine premonition leads two sisters to buy an apartment in the small Swedish town of Gullspång. To their surprise, the seller looks identical to their older sister who committed suicide 30 years earlier. What begins as an eerie story of family reunification soon becomes a Pandora's Box as all three women's lives spiral out of control.
The cutting down of a cherry tree becomes the starting point of an intimate dialogue about transgenerational trauma between a mother and a daughter. The line between the need for investigation and the desire for healing becomes blurry when a persistent camera depicts the felling of the tree. The short documentary is an attempt to find a shared language for the unspeakable consequences of child sexual abuse within my own family. Content warning: The film contains descriptions of experiences of sexual violence.
In Denmark the police offer voluntary boot camps for girls. 12-year-old Tatheer from Copenhagen takes part. Far away from home, she will have grown a few centimetres before the end.
12-year-old Tatheer embarks on a week-long police boot camp for girls from a social housing estate in Copenhagen. Far from home, deep in the woods, she navigates gruelling rituals, elusive social dynamics, and personal setbacks to find her place in this tender and revealing coming-of-age story.
Twenty years ago, the filmmaker fled from Bagdad with his family – why has always been a taboo. For his son, he breaks his silence in this filmic family therapy.
Twenty years ago, filmmaker Wiam Al-Zabari and his family fled Baghdad in the middle of the night. His father was waiting for them in the Netherlands. Since then, no one in the family has spoken about it. Now that Wiam is a father himself, he is confronted with his past life in Iraq. This raises questions. Why did they have to flee in the first place? And what are the repercussions of the escape from Iraq and their arrival in the Netherlands? To find out, Wiam breaks the silence for the first time and starts talking to his family. Can he let go of the past to embrace a future in the Netherlands?
The life of 18-year-old Johana revolves around her sister’s mental disability. In her last year of high school she must face her inner conflicts and choose between love for her sister and love for herself.
Eighteen-year-old Johana enters the critical year of her teenage life. She wants to leave her small Czech hometown – but there’s more than high school graduation that stands between her and her aspirations. Johana’s life is largely defined by her younger sister’s atypical autism and mental disability which shape the everyday life for the whole family. Her decision to leave the town slowly crumbles under the feeling of guilt and responsibility. Can her sister understand, given Johana is her only friend? Can Mum and Dad manage without her help? Johana must figure out how to leave so she can return with love. A coming-of-age documentary about responsibility, sisterhood, and loving not only others, but also yourself.
When the war starts, 12-year-old Niki finds refuge in a Kharkiv underground station. Monotonous, oppressive days – until Vika enters his life. The tender connection gives new courage.
On a cold February morning, 12-year-old Niki and his family arrive at the Kharkiv metro station to take shelter from the terrifying war raging outside. For Niki's family, daylight is synonymous with mortal danger, and the boy is not allowed to leave the station premises, living under the constant glow of their neon lights. While aimlessly wandering around the abandoned cars and full platforms, Niki meets Vika (11), and a new world opens up to him. As their bond strengthens, the children find the courage once again to feel the sun on their faces.
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.
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.
A high-rise in Kyiv, an apartment on the 15th floor. A zoom out of a still image. On the telephone, Mariia shares her memories of this place, of coming-of-age and community – before the war.
Three windows on the southwest and a balcony on the southeast is what you can see on the facade of Mariia's apartment. In three conversations, Mariia reflects on her experiences related to the place of her upbringing in Kyiv and attempts to claim back the image of her home.
Evolutionary biologist Toby Kiers takes us along on her epic quest to map the world's fungi networks and understand their behaviour before it's too late.
Beneath our feet lies a mystery. A complex underground network of mycorrhizal fungi keeps our ecosystem alive by exchanging nutrients and carbon with almost all plants on Earth. Remarkably, no one knows exactly how these sophisticated and ancient systems operate, or how they are affected by climate change.
The Underground Astronaut follows evolutionary biologist Toby Kiers, named one of the 2022 TIME100 Next Innovators, on her quest to map the world's fungi networks and understand their behaviour before it's too late. A fragrant and high-stakes journey into the soil. “No fungi, no future.”
The Underground Astronaut is part of Ammodo Docs, a series of short documentaries about original minds in arts and science.
Jiri, a Czech physicist and a visionary handyman, has an idea of how to save the planet. But no one will listen to him. His daughter, Marta, a musician and mother of two, is annoyed at this. She takes her camera and goes “out into the world” with her dad. She wants to see if the world could work just as Jiri had envisioned it. Humour is brought to the film as they showcase their combined and inventive strategies on how they should present their idea and to whom. They meet with ecologists, activists, experts, and politicians to get to the World Climate Summit as they attempt to infiltrate public structures and expose the characters behind the powers that decide who can enter where and with what issues. Although those who were addressed agree that Jiri's vision of the world would be the most ideal, after four years of wandering around with his idea of a Uniform Global Carbon Tax and Dividend for all, they find themselves in an anti-everyone situation. Had they come up with the idea much too late? Or too soon?
A strong personal story: Jiri's humour and charisma, Marta's original songs, raw film material, and an inspiring idea to save the planet will make for an unmissable film with the potential for planetary social impact.
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.