Marionette master U Sein Aye Myint has practised his art for more than forty years, continuing the traditional skills passed down from his father. But the Covid pandemic and the military coup have prevented him and his puppets from performing. When the roof of his small workshop in Yangon’s North Dagon starts leaking in the monsoon, he has to clamber up to fix it himself to ensure his beloved puppets do not get wet. Observing him with age-old wisdom in their eyes, his puppets seem to sense all the things that are weighing heavily on his mind: his lack of income, his precarious future – and just how much he misses his audience.
Vasyl is a former ski jumper who now works as a coach at the ski jumping school for children in the Carpathians. He is a loner, and sports is his whole life. Zhenya is Vasyl's favourite trainee. In the last 5 years, he spends a lot of energy making her a champion. With her success, his dreams can come true. When the girl grows up, she decides to try in another area of life not connected to sports. Vasyl's work seems to no longer make sense. But he finds the strength to start all over again.
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.
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.
The story of the friendship between Ania and her mother-in-law, Lidka. Ania is strong-minded and determined. Lidka, who has just left her abusive husband, is her opposite – shy and reserved. As they meet inside the newsstand kiosk run by Ania, the two women work on a divorce petition that would enable Lidka to begin a new life free of fear and violence. Despite many harsh words and continuing challenges, they slowly develop a bond that gives them courage and strength.
The Kiosk is a highly emotional film about female solidarity in the face of abuse. As we enter their limited space, we feel that the characters are within our reach. Each gesture, look and tear become incredibly powerful when seen up close.
Built in the 19th century, this Tamil Hindu temple in Thanlyin, across the Bago River from Yangon, is unique in the largely Buddhist Myanmar: this is a place where people from different religious backgrounds come to pray in the hope that their wishes will be fulfilled. Fortune-teller “Yellow Mother” is one of four inhabitants of Pilikan village who – in between lively spectacles of leaping cows and cow-catching – explain what the temple and its rituals mean to them.
The Lisu people's bond with nature is a profoundly spiritual one. The harvest season may have come to an end but the souls of villagers have a habit of lingering in the fields.
The Lisu people's bond with nature is a profoundly spiritual one. Theirs is a world that is filled with the spirits of the forests and mountains where they live and farm. The harvest season may have come to an end but the souls of many a villager have a habit of lingering in the fields of the uplands where they can cause all kinds of mischief. This richly atmospheric exploration of Lisu animism brings us closer to the mellifluous-voiced shaman Byar Wu, whose job it is to summon these lost souls back into the bodies of his community in Chaung Gyi village in Shan State and by doing so prevent sickness and disease.
The film is a recording of the fascinating and tumultuous journey reported from off-screen by the Polish jazz vocalist Urszula Dudziak, who was a remarkable story teller.
“This is the cradle of our beloved music. We need to verify our skills there”, said Michał Urbaniak to Polish jazz vocalist Urszula Dudziak to convince her to go and conquer the US with him. The film is a recording of the fascinating and tumultuous journey reported from off-screen by the artist herself, who was a remarkable story teller. The materials used include archival footage from the 1960s communist Poland, New York of the 1970s and the 1980s as well as the music itself. Listening to scat singing, we discover Dudziak as a woman, immigrant and, above all, an extraordinary artist working with the greatest jazz musicians.
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.
DJ Vika is 84 and a star of Warsaw’s nightclubs. She refuses to grow old and sit at home. Instead, she wants to celebrate life, enjoy herself and music.
84-year-old Vika is a star of the Warsaw clubbing scene. A charismatic DJ and a colourful bird she surrounds herself with young people, repeating that age is just a number. But when her health suddenly begins to deteriorate, Vika can no longer deny the passing of time. Will she find meaning in sharing the joy of life with other seniors by encouraging them to live their lives to the fullest?
Vika! is a bittersweet portrait of a woman who intends to celebrate life to the very end, a true inspiration for both the silver generation and our future selves.
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.