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?
Anxious in Beirut is a personal diary that documents the events of the last two years in Lebanon – revolution, post-war, explosions, demonstrations. Living with constant anxiety, Zakaria, the film’s young director, narrates his own life while trying, on numerous occasions, to leave his country.
A trip to the beach expands to a family observation over two generations. This captivating minimalist stretching exercise does not need much: black and white and the deep blue of the sea.
Blue is a story in which time stretches. A mother and a daughter are trying to find their place after the father leaves. They spend time idly on a metaphorical empty beach. They fight their uncertainty and longing. The image of the sea comes back rhythmically. It is a promise of freedom but also a scary different world, far from the warm sand.
Rodica (40) and her children, Maria (14) and Patrick (18), struggle to find each other's coordinates in order to have a balanced family life. Blue is a film about love, fear, anxiety, and the emotions that emerge at their intersection.
A box of film material from Tito-era Yugoslavia becomes a narrative engine. With dry wit and philosophical verve, this essay burrows through family and contemporary history.
The sixties and the seventies of the 20th century in our former country, a country that ceased to be. A young family moves from a rural environment to a small Slovenian town, where factories are being built and the need for a workforce is increasing. The brothers are growing up in that shaky but magical in-between, soaked in the everyday rhythms of the community, infused with the ideology of the time. Then, it happens: the sudden spectrum of film; the mystique of time itself.
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.
Els is in her late forties, divorced and in love again. For her, falling in love was not easy: it meant that she had to accept, that she has a life even if her twenty-year-old daughter wants to die and has already asked for psychiatric euthanasia which her mother can do nothing about. In the storm of her own emotions, mixed with guilt, anger, fear and hope, love is what teaches Els to try stepping forward even if it seems impossible.
Falling is a lyrical, found-footage-based testimony from a mother who faces not only the taboos surrounding motherhood but also the most difficult situation in her life.
In Eastern Serbia, in a town with a dual identity divided between magic and industry, a family whose destiny is intrinsically linked with both does their best to ensure the survival of their traditions and their future generations. Lifelong miner Dragan Markovic is the last in a line of dragon hunters, while his sister Desa is the widow of the union leader who is trying to continue his legacy by ensuring the rights of fellow mine-worker families.
In Burkina Faso, in the gold-digging site of Bantara, 16-year-old Rasmané descends more than 100 meters deep in artisanal mines to extract gold. Anxious about accidents, Rasmané makes his way in this world of fierce adults in the hope of one day becoming emancipated…
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.
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.
A documentary film about the development of relations between the majority of society and the non-heteronormative part of the population in Poland during the last decade.
Polish Rainbow is a documentary film about the 10-year development of relations between the majority of society and the non-heteronormative part of the population in Poland. It captures the far-right scene in the public space, which gradually transforms into the main political influence in the country. The effort of the LGBT community to equalise same-sex relationships is becoming an active political tool of conservative and far-right parties for the polarisation of opinion and culture in society. Dehumanisation and the spread of hatred cause traumatic experiences that often end tragically for people from rainbow communities. Against the backdrop of the fight for basic human rights of the LGBTIQA+ community, we get to know Bart Staszewski. As an LGBT activist, Bart travels to Polish cities and towns that have declared themselves "LGBT-free" zones in order to change this dehumanising homophobic campaign.
Abkhazia, a place of memory and at the same time a blind spot for the director. Almost impossible to enter from Georgia, she chooses an associative and personal approach to the split-off territory.
An abandoned house opens the door to revisit the past by bringing to life a unique, nearly destroyed image archive from the unrecognised territory on the border of the Black Sea: Abkhazia. A place normally inaccessible for Georgians because of the ethnic conflict that happened between Georgia and Abkhazia back in 1993. Combining voice, archive and recent footage, the film examines a lost and split identity stuck between the margins. The audio-visual fragments of this archive are intricately woven together to create a personal and political biography which recalls the complicated and controversial historical past of Georgian-Abkhaz relationships.
The highly personal narration delves into the complexities of nationalism and identity in times of war and global displacement. Ultimately, these reflections on recent history become a potential manual for what can come next, once the wars are over.
What are the costs of the half-truths that politicians tell? In 2012, the Georgian president wanted to make the nation smile. In the race for reelection, the incumbent's party was promising subsidised dental care to the country's least well-off. Across the land, state medical practitioners began removing rotten teeth with the promise of replacements in the months that followed – then the president lost. Through interviews with those worst affected by that campaign, Smiling Georgia tells a story about the whims of political power and the defiance of those who usually hold the least of it – a film short on teeth, yes, but far from toothless.
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.
In the countryside of Estonia, humans and all other living beings compose an orchestra in which everyone has their place in co-creation of the humble rhythm of earth.
In nature, everything is in balance. Everyone has their task in the neverending circle of life – plants and mushrooms, insects and animals... This diverse orchestra always finds its rhythm and tone. Recognising the distinctiveness of being human, this film looks at our possibilities to co-exist within that co-creation of nature peacefully. After nearly seven years of exploring the periphery countryside of Estonia, this oneiric journey filmed on 16mm brings to the foreground the daily rhythms of ordinary people and animals in different ages and phases of their lives. It composes an analogue gospel of a microcosm, which has consciously or unconsciously rejected the central, arrogant doctrine of human exceptionality.
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.