The four people introduced by Aren Malakyan and Vahagn Khachatryan in their debut feature-length film embody the contrasting faces of Armenia today. Some of them are making plans for the future that might even be realised, others strive for seemingly unattainable ideals. What unites them all is the dream of a self-determined life – a near-impossibility in a country where the government tries to control everything and everyone.

Melania, in her mid-sixties, works as a lift operator in a Yerevan hospital and longs for a late career as a cosmonaut. In a way, she seems to be an anachronistic remnant of the Soviet age. The deep country, still ruled by ancient traditions and ideas of happiness, is represented by the farmer Karen, who is looking for the best of all possible wives. And Amasia and Sona own the night over the roofs of the capital. They are part of a new generation ready to fight for a future in which some liberties can be obtained despite a suffocating patriarchy. Occasionally amused, but never judgmental, the two filmmakers watch their native country dream.

She left Serbia a long time ago and never looked back. But then Nataša Urban discovered her father’s hiking diary and began to connect his entries to the events of the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. The 1999 total eclipse of the sun is the central motif, employed by Urban as a metaphor for the way a dark past remains part of the present.

Kitted out with analogue film equipment, the director travels back to find the stories of her family, intimate friends and acquaintances. She listens to memories of inconceivably cruel acts; she watches the wind blow through leaves of grass. Her father, a lean, grey-haired man, hikes through the forest, striding again through the places he once visited. Dreamlike scenes meet sober descriptions of almost unbearable atrocities. Urban skilfully combines 16 mm and Super 8 film with archive material to explore the blurred boundaries between the individual and the collective, the private and public spheres, the personal and the political, resulting in an enchantingly beautiful work of art, a poetic reflection on growing up during the war.

The Bytom area was once known for its coal mines, but structural change has caught up with it, too. The decline of the region is vividly demonstrated by the pawnshop of the Silesian city. Probably the biggest of its kind in Poland, the shop has seen better days. Jola and Wiesiek, the idiosyncratic operators, are each trying in their own way to cope with the crisis and revive business.

The closing of the mines and the resulting unemployment in Bytom left behind all those who were unable to adapt to the new age. In the huge hall, they put increasingly absurd and worthless objects on the counter. The once lucrative trade in jewellery, electric devices and furniture has dwindled and however hard the employees work, the till stays empty. The wiring is unsound, nerves are raw and the tone between them gets rougher. Before they know it, the small business has turned into a kind of counselling centre: drying tears, ladling out soup and giving away goods instead of selling them. Jola in her voluminous fur coat always has an open ear and a warm blanket ready. Wiesiek devises one marketing scheme after the other. But will it be enough to save their business? A documentary report from the “Polish Detroit”, observed with delicacy and pitch-black humour.