Do computer-generated figures now look as “real” as “genuine” humans? For 26-year-old Lale, this question is not only exciting in theory, but in practice. She works as a model but would rather spare herself exhausting shoots by getting an avatar. But when she has taken the first steps towards “doubling” herself, she has second thoughts. What does it mean, in actual, legal and moral terms, to bring a virtual duplicate of oneself into the world?

Katharina Pethke accompanies her young protagonist on this process. The intellectual game turns into a test on the living subject, a weighing of possibilities and fears. What does it mean for our perception of the world (and for documentary film, too, of course) that the promise of reality of visual media has long since become a gradual one? In the age of omnipresent self-dramatization, deepfakes and extended reality, we are embarking on a journey to our joint (media) future. It’s no coincidence that it ends at a place that already inspired Plato’s ideas on reality and its shadows.

According to mythology, Prometheus was bound to the rocks of Mount Kazbek, more than 5,000 metres high and covered in ice. For Vakho, this mountainous region in the Georgian Caucasus is a self-chosen exile – out of deeply felt guilt. 48 years ago, he lost his brother in tragic circumstances that had previously come to him in a dream: “I couldn’t let go of the past”, the man, now in his eighties, explains in this visually impressive debut short film portrait.

Around 1,500 people from more than forty countries met in Dresden for the 1984 congress of UNIMA, the Union Internationale de la Marionnette. Founded in 1929, UNIMA claims to be the oldest international theatre organisation and has been promoting the global development of puppet theatre to the present day. This Kinobox item offers affectionate impressions of the high art of puppetry.