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.
When she was 16, Agata was told that she would most likely bleed to death within 2 years. On that day, she was born anew. 20 years and over 30 face surgeries later, she lives in London and works as an artist who turned her struggle with a lethal disease into art. Her disease and the pain caused by it continue to accompany her, but more and more promising treatment options are being developed. Nevertheless, the most important form of therapy is her art. Her face becomes even more deformed with recurring angiomas, which is the major theme explored by the protagonist in her art.
A Grave on the Border is an intimate account of war and flight by Syrian refugee Rose Alkhaled. Filmed in a small town in Germany, this atmospheric short immerses the viewer in the world of Rose's memories that surface at night. Rose tells her story through emotive sculptures made out of newspaper and performances of her poetry. Quiet night-time scenes are forcefully disrupted by Rose's nightmares as they burst to the surface of her mind. The film is underscored by a compelling clarinet composition. While Rose's story is deeply personal, this film also tells the story of millions of women who were forced to flee their homeland.
Director Maren Hahnfeld's films North of Eden and Winter in Eden were screened at the Ann Arbor Film Festival in Michigan, editor Alex Barratt's feature London Symphony was nominated for Best British Film at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and All the Colours of the World by composers Shrubshall and Kett was screened at the 2023 Berlinale.
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.
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?
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.
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.
When the West was still wild there was room there for gay love stories that are missing in today’s history books. A queer rewriting of U.S. pioneer tales.
At the dawn of the American West, two men – one a little-known Creole, the other a closeted historical icon – entered into a volatile relationship that spanned a continent. The Wages of John Pernia is their story: a gay Western romance that emerges from between the lines of official history.
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.