Romanas, his parents Aivaras and Diana and their little dog live in a cramped place in the Lithuanian harbour town of Klaipėda. Linas Mikuta takes an unprejudiced look at a loving family structure where dreams are interpreted, worries are shared and news negotiated over cigarettes and cake, while at the same time the narrative of a timeless childhood summer full of headstands by the side of the road, somersaults on the beach and afternoons in box houses unfolds.

With his friends Romanas roams through ruins, neighbourhoods and along the coast. The eight-year-old conquers his own worlds, lives in his own time. The result is a portrait of a wealth of relationships and resilience at a precarious place that’s completely of the moment. Everyday rituals, care and community are captured in humorous, warm tableaus and light-drenched exterior shots. This film knows about the great love in small things. It knows about pop songs that hit you right in the heart, about tears you are not left alone with, and that playing with the waves between the green sea and the white sand means all the world.

In an infinite expanse of black, a white nuclear entity emerges and is invoked by a woman. She triggers a big bang and a shamanic dance ritual set to Intelligent House beats. Bubbling energy is bundled into a ball of pulsating lightning by women with antlers. Their movements seem to direct the course of the universe.

Having a child is a heavy new responsibility. When Ethan Barrett becomes a stay-at-home dad and suddenly finds himself in charge of the welfare of his little daughter, he realises abruptly that his every action will influence her life – whether he wants it or not. Charming, ironical and witty, he explores how to be least in the way of her perfect development. The next little masterpiece of tongue-in-cheek humour after “Burp” (DOK Leipzig 2020).

Opening the film is a highly visible Soviet coat of arms with translations of Marx’s call “Workers of the world, unite!” into several languages. In the middle of a media circus, representatives of the Soviet Union restituted art treasures to the GDR. The highlight was the return of “evacuated” objects to the Green Vault in Dresden.

What’s the parallel between a Leipzig allotment club and the Wehrmacht’s invasion of Greece? Alert to historical lines of connection, outstanding archive material and enchanting images of the austere Cretan landscape, the complex links between silkworm breeding here and German war crimes there are laid bare. The focus is less on settling questions of guilt than on depicting the inner dynamics of war, resistance and forgetting.