A photo of oneself as a toddler may be the first visual evidence of one’s existence, but the moment of its capture and the events outside the frame stubbornly resist the grasp of memory. An enticing gap opens between one’s actual past and one’s imagination, aptly illustrated by Dennis Tupicoff by means of a magical experience at the cinema: falling asleep, waking up and trying to knit the dangling ends of the plot together.

André Eckardt

Claire is a young artist who, accompanied by a butterfly, sells her pictures in the street. To earn money she takes a factory job and paints greeting cards. But her butterfly is taken ill and she can’t paint any more. Reason enough to break out of this environment.

The five protagonists talk about their experiences with death, recounting what it taught them about life. But hearing it all from the mouths of a spider or a dog is rather unusual …

Lou is losing the cold war with her stubborn and enigmatic stepdaughter Grace when an unexpected challenge arises from the depths of a warm, dreamy afternoon at the local pool. Shadows of the past bear down on the present as Lou is forced to face the truth about herself and the frustrating child she is trying to love.

There are places that make us realise instantly that they don’t need us and never did. They exist even if we don’t look at them. Christmas Island, a tiny 135 square kilometre dot in the Indian Ocean, is such a place. It probably first saw humans in 1643. It’s hard to imagine how amazed the endemic red crabs, which were alone with themselves, the tropical thicket and the snow white sandy beaches until then, must have been at this loud-mouthed guest who declared himself the great “discoverer”! The refugee reception centre on Christmas Island is another such place. Since 2001, the Australian government has detained asylum seekers here to deny them their right to regular admission procedures on the continent. The crabs continue amazed.

We are brought face to face with this amazement in the powerful images, sounds and metaphors of Gabrielle Brady’s cinematic reflection on the right to hospitality and forbearance – poetically condensed, emotionally haunting and politically poignant. First in the shape of trauma therapist Poh Lin, who helps the inmates of the detention camp come to terms with their fate while she herself is struggling to maintain composure. Then as the mythical story of the wandering spirits of the dead, told by the Chinese immigrants. And finally as a sprawling, teeming, unimpressed nature that grows and crawls wherever it pleases.

Sylvia Görke

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Nominated for the Goethe-Institut Documentary Film Prize

"Letter Tape" is an animated documentary about two engaged lovers separated by time zones and several oceans. The audio is an actual tape recording Cathy (the directors mother) made on a hired audio machine, in London in 1957, to communicate intimately to her fiancé after frustrated broken telephone conversations.
Cathy describes a wintry London, heaving under a cloud of smog and imagines a time when they can be together again. It is both personal and global in its subject and offers a snap shot look at the western world in 1957.

Spike has just caught his first mud crab. Now he and Dadda have to remove it from the crab pot without losing a finger. A well observed lesson in family diplomacy.

Rain changes our perception of space. It gives us a coordinate system of specific sounds in which we can locate and experience ourselves. Rain helped John Hull rediscover the world with his other senses after he had lost his sight. In 1983, he started to record his self-observations on tape. His original recordings form the centre of this film that opens a new visual space of experience to the audience. Precisely framed images shift the boundary of perception from the exterior to the interior world, from physical space to the space of memory and imagination – a poetic experiment. “Rainfal” is the first part of a series based on John Hull’s acoustic diary.

Lars Meyer

Three animators tell a story of transition – from male to female, and from despondency to happiness. Using recorded interview material and representative artwork, this film touches on the fear and loneliness of living in the closet, and the joy and confidence that comes with stepping into the light.

A lone hunter undertakes a search for a missing boy deep in the snow covered wilderness. Exposed and alone, he is forced to make decisions that will forever change his relationship with the environment he fears. The magic of a snowy landscape made out of sand.