The cycle of domestic violence: tension, escalation, remorse, and then all over again. The woman in Izabela Plucińska’s film shares the fate of many sufferers: She can’t manage to break out. The metaphorical dumbbells she would have to lift to do it weigh 98 kilograms – like the man who does this to her. All she can do is dissolve, disappear and breathe silently into her individual parts. The animations keep erasing themselves, but painful marks are left behind.

Intended as a documentation of Polish artist and theatre-maker Tadeusz Kantor’s “informal painting”, Mieczysław Waśkowski’s film develops a hectic experimental life of its own. The gestural application of paint is staged on changing spatial levels by means of glass plates, camera movements and lighting, making not the painter but the abstract form-finding the movie star.

Against the backdrop of Saint Petersburg’s back courtyards during the Corona lockdown, Tatyana Chistova fuses recordings of the almost empty city and calls to a municipal hotline tasked with offering help and advice, but topics range from the banal to existential questions. Elderly people in particular are affected by poverty, hunger and loneliness. Chistova highlights that in a system that neglects its weakest members, the virus is not the only threat.

Danusia and Basia are a mother and daughter, sharing a life presented by director Karol Pałka as supremely secluded. Far removed from any comfort, the seasons pass, a priest comes to visit, the women wade through mud and cultivate their habits. But, unnoticed by Danusia, Basia moves on a few back roads of her own that lead in other directions.

The nearest town seems light years away. Danusia and her daughter Basia lead a reclusive life in a ramshackle house in the country. The rooms are decorated with flower arrangements, scattered with devotional objects. Mother and daughter cultivate their connection to the supernatural, either in the shape of a strict Catholicism or as small rituals in nature. In one scene Basia dances around a fire like a witch. She is also the one who repeatedly seeks contact with the outside world. We see her with a mobile phone then, but the person at the other end remains intangible, unable or unwilling to break the spell around the mother-and-daughter team. It is a dense, almost deserted world which Karol Pałka in his debut film renders in gloomy, shadowed images that grow brighter only when spring comes. But even then, the dramatic opening piece “Specially for You” by the Ukrainian band DakhaBrakha still resonates.

Soft clouds of light rotate, fan out and change colour: With his cosmic “Luxograms”, Pawłowski radically rethinks the Lumières’ serpentine dance and dematerialises the moving body. It exists neither on a real stage nor in the shape of a real dancer but solely in the projection with a sophisticated system of optical lenses.

The Western culture of self-optimisation is based on the idea that one can control all aspects of life. This VR experience subjects us to a psychological experiment, confronting us with feelings such as frustration, helplessness, stress, rage and grief to show: Control is an illusion. Step by step, we are led from physical activation to contemplative perception.

Spitting ponies, a cursed TV reporter and a hairy giant who is lovingly combed by his brunette girlfriend while she develops inexplicable fears about her own foot. This will later literally be shot off – the foot, not the boyfriend! A faceless man is also there – acting in alliance with the ponies. This colourful, ominous animated thriller made in analogue cut-out technique addresses states of anxiety, masochistic fights and media criticism. Perhaps.

Five young people from Ukraine talk about their lives after the Maidan Revolution of 2014. Not all of them fought in the Russian-Ukrainian war, but the war, however, shattered their life plans. Representing “Generation Maidan”, they face the question of how to cope with experiences of violence, how to go on. Theatre director Roza Sarkisian produces a Hamlet adaptation with them in which they can use Shakespeare’s tragic character as a mirror and face their traumas on stage again.

For them Hamlet’s question “to be or not to be” is not just a historical text, but a current and existential dilemma that has no clear answer. The film follows the rehearsals where different biographies, self-images and political positions clash: A soldier meets his first LGBT person, the feminist quarrels with the fact that the war has undone hard-won emancipatory achievements. Frictions and differences are exposed, compromises are strenuously negotiated. Eventually the film’s focus widens and leaves the stage to introduce the five as individuals with their own inner struggles. The result is a many-layered, dense portrait of a torn and yet powerful Ukrainian generation who, due to the Russian invasion, find themselves at war again, only a few months after their production premiered.

The river Oder: A historical and cultural landscape churned again and again by the tide of events of the past century. A tale told in concentric circles about a region which was and still is the scene of the beginning, end and open middle of voluntary and involuntary migrations. Virulent issues of daily life and politics that, asked with confident casualness, provide a robust account of the present.

Movements and stories in the border region between Poland and Germany – Andreas Voigt’s new film takes up the themes of his 1992 work “Borderland – A Journey”. The charged term “homeland” stirs up (trouble in) the minds and hearts of the people: What it once was and what has become of it! Sure, that’s not the top priority in their daily agenda. But how people appropriate this term and how that in turn structures their attitudes also determines how they figure out the taste of life in the here and now of Europe. The search for closeness is confronted with the insistence on distance. Communication about belonging becomes flimsy because the body language says something different than the spoken word. As a film that’s not about administering a politically correct separation diet, “Borderland” provokes experiences and enables encounters.

She is the centre of attention, but exhausted by life. An old woman in her final days, bedridden and too weak to speak to her husband and daughter. Her selfhood fades away while in the care of her relatives, who have problems of their own. But Julia Orlik brings the woman back into the foreground with her minimalist concept and touching puppet design.

Marta Pajek (digitally) created a complex, atmospheric universe – with minimalist means and yet rich in detail. References to contemporary history meet visions of an intuited, dystopian future. We are made aware of (our own) transience in subtle, but almost brutal ways. Ageing bodies, ageing ideas. In the end, the grande dame of Polish cinema, actor Anna Polony, sings: “… when will we ever learn?”

Witali and Łukasz have graduated from the Orthodox seminary. To take up priesthood, they must either start a family or become monks. But the two friends prefer to live for the moment, to muse, philosophize and sing. The camera looks on, full of empathy, giving the two men space and time to face their situation. A documentary observation turns into a thriller: Can their tender friendship withstand religious obligations and family expectations?

Loosely based on Raymond Roussel’s novel “Locus Solus”, we explore the world of the inventor Martial Canterel. His estate is a place of innovation, a space for experiments that elude ethical responsibility. All its guests become objects of research – and must ask themselves whether scientific progress justifies every sacrifice.

A fly rotates around a lightbulb, a spoon turns in a cup. Everything moves in circles here, including the life of the couple. He looks at his mobile phone, she does the sun salutation. Even her somersaults don’t make him look up. The minimalist black and white animation begins to vibrate. The monotony gets out of rhythm. She imagines him as a fly and chases him. Scenes of a marriage, reflected in the yellow eyes of a gecko.

Inspired by a political protest movement, the Teatr 21 – a theatre company of acting enthusiasts with Down’s syndrome – develops a play in which the participants articulate their wishes and demands and at the same time get to abandon themselves with great joy to creative development. Martyna Peszko attentively follows the creation process as it unfolds in a productively bustling rehearsal atmosphere, with musical accents provided by the improvisations of a free jazz trio.

In 2018, people with handicaps occupied the government building in Warsaw for forty days to demonstrate for more support and recognition. The protest had almost no political consequences, and yet: The revolutionary spark ignited the public. The Teatr 21 project takes up the events, draws strength from the disappointment about the failed insurgence. That leads to discussions about their artistic craft: What does professional acting mean? What has nudity to do with revolution? And why do you always have to understand the lyrics to songs? In exploring the relationship between performance and politics, they reclaim an autonomy they are often denied in life: over their own body, their own stories. The stage direction and dramaturgy provide an unobtrusive and intelligent framework, which is extended by Peszko’s judiciously observant workshop report.

The rules in rural Poland are clear: Every man must have a woman; every dancer must have a female dancer. The pubescent Miłosz feels safe here, especially after his mother’s death. His sister Agnieszka, who is in a long-distance relationship with her friend Majka, does everything to obtain custody of her little brother. Gradually, a new family model is revealed, documented by Marek Kozakiewicz as an attempt that is as restrained as it is determined.

The windmills behind the houses rotate steadily, standing in place, signalling stability. But the lives of Miłosz and his 35-year-old sister are in turmoil. They are facing a red-tape marathon to make Agnieska his legal guardian: Both have been orphans for a few months. Director Marek Kozakiewicz depicts the establishment of a new family no one expects much applause for in conservative Poland. Because for Agnieszka and her partner, who is ten years older, the determination to try living together manifests tentatively. Without kisses, without celebrations, the decision almost casually becomes reality – the women are exploring the boundary between platonic tenderness and enforced secrecy. And Miłosz, too, seems to realise only slowly what the relationship between Majka and Agnieszka really is.