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.
A young Burmese woman who was trafficked to China and sold into marriage tells her story. Based on the real-life protagonist’s words and beautifully rendered in pen-and-ink, this animation portrays a woman torn between her love for the child she was forced to bear and her longing for the country to which she may never be able to return.
A Taiwanese boss and Burmese laborers seek ways of getting rich by shrimp farming. However a life gone on the process. It's all about trust, gender power, and culture conflicts.
With 20 years of experience in shrimp farming in Taiwan, Du came to Myanmar alone. Even though he saw only endless wilderness before him, he believed that “when the going gets tough, the tough get going,” nothing is impossible on this earth. He did not expect that what followed were white powders and guns.
A Burmese-Chinese girl, Sue, who also dreamt of shrimp farming, decided to settle down in the shrimp farm her father had started to develop 20 years ago, after the marriage to her Burmese husband, Jojo. She was determined to carry out the unfulfilled ambition of her father. Struggling to confront the false accusation, Du encountered Sue by chance. Together, they decided to farm and rear shrimps in the wilderness and build their “Diamond Marine World.”
It took five years to shoot and produce this film, recording the turns of humanity and the conflicts falling one after the other like the rain in Myanmar.
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.
Truck driver Abu Husain spends endless hours in Qatar in a self-contained world of standing, waiting, and tenaciously moving trucks on the fringes of society.
Truck driver Abu Husain, like many guest workers in Qatar, spends endless hours in a self-contained world of standing, waiting, and tenaciously moving trucks on the fringes of society.
A documentary film crew spends 963 hours in a video game interviewing gamers. Little by little, they drop their masks and give insights into their “real” lives.
Somewhere on the Internet, there is a space of 250 square kilometres in which individuals gather in a community to simulate survivalist fiction. Under the guise of avatars, a film crew enters this place and makes contact with the “locals”. This mysterious, post-apocalyptic rural landscape is revealed as a meeting place, where stories, ideas and friendships are shared. Slowly the players drop their masks to reveal their realities, their daily lives, their relationships of love and friendship. Mixing their memories of the game with the stories of their real lives, a group will take us on a walk to the borders of the Internet. By going to the edge of the game, in search of the limits of this place, the film explores the first steps of the virtualisation of our lives and questions the future of our world.
I grew up in Yangon. In February 2021, my dreams came to an end. My mother said: “Son, wake up. The military has taken over the country”. The days got darker. The window in my narrow room and the piece of sky I watched seemed to be the only freedom I had left. I wanted to say something about this new undercurrent in my life. I wrote things down, recorded my voice, and searched for images that might reflect my feelings and those of other young people. And now there is a film which conveys what it's like to lose the ground beneath your feet.
Leipzig, 1989. A young punk, detained in a mental hospital, longs to be close to her boyfriend. A doomed love story in the midst of the collapse of the GDR.
Leipzig, 1989. Margarethe, a young punk opposed to the East German regime, is detained in a psychiatric hospital. She dreams of breaking out to join the man she loves – a punk musician named Heinrich. Though the regime's days may well be numbered, the Stasi informants are more present than ever.
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.
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.
Crime boss or fearless dissident? The biggest cyber trial in the history of Israel will determine the fate of a former ultra-orthodox kid who transformed the drug-dealing business.
In March 2019, Amos Dov Silver was arrested at a Kiev hotel, following a global sting operation. Silver, the creator of the drug-dealing mobile app Telegrass, has since been accused by the government of running a crime organisation, but for thousands of Israelis Silver is a fearless folk hero, intent on exposing a corrupt and broken system. Through exclusive footage of Silver, his family and his partners' investigations, as well as secretly filmed footage of Silver in a Ukrainian prison, a polarising portrayal of this man emerges: is he a champion of the people, or a lost soul corrupted by power?
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.
Shan folk singer Nan Mya was a star when she was young. Her metaphorical verses reflect the deep sense of loss that pervades a people battered by Myanmar's ruinous politics.
Shan State in Myanmar is home to a rich culture filled with ancient songs, traditional dances and beliefs. It is also a place where civil war has been raging for over sixty years. Shan folk singer Nan Mya Han was a star when she was young. Now she is older, her metaphorical verses reflect the deep sense of loss that pervades a people battered by Myanmar's ruinous politics. Interweaving her songs with compelling scenes of rituals around healing, death and birth, the film transcends the purely observational to become a multilayered, elliptical exploration of decay and impermanence that is both moving and totally mesmerising.
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.
A religious statue comes alive and unites with a boneless girl. They leave the village together with many other figures that have stepped down from the altars.
One day, all the statues in the area come to life. They leave the roadside shrines and pedestals and calmly set off straight ahead, all in the same direction. They do not even stop for a moment. People watch the phenomenon with growing anxiety. None of them knows where they are going and why. Only a little girl with a boneless body marvels at the procession of the unusual figures with pure fascination. They walk without muscles, although they should not be able to walk. How strange!
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.
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.