The fight won’t end. Malaria still rules large parts of Africa. Every 60 seconds a child south of the Sahara dies of the disease. All in all, it causes around half a million deaths per year. But why is it so impossible to successfully conquer the disease, even though countless relief organisations have been working on a solution for many years?

The reason, of course, is money, global conflicts of interest, the powerful pharmaceutical industry. That’s nothing new. But the Austrian filmmaker Katharina Weingartner produced an enthralling documentary thriller which literally inscribes exciting, context-shifting and -widening lines of connection into the more or less familiar general picture: connections between the parasite and the pharmaceutical industry, between self-determination in East Africa and the richest man in the world. The focus is on three courageous people in Uganda and Kenya who are fighting the disease on the spot and are often more successful with alternative methods than Western medicine is comfortable with. Because after all a solution of their own, without foreign help and technology, without the mercantile and public philanthropic interests of the helpers, would mean independence.

Julia Weigl

A few decades ago robots still looked like moving toolboxes. This has changed radically. Today’s humanoids not only look like people, they can roll their eyes and wink, too. In this film, they come mainly from Japan, Korea and the U.S. Ishiguro Hiroshi is a pioneer in the construction of such artificial humans. He even built himself a twin. But most of these new creatures are female and, in line with their creators’ fantasies, endowed with the attributes desired in a patriarchal society: “It’s going to be a woman, so the smile is important,” one of the developers instructs his assistant. Almost all the androids have a dollface bearing a none-too-intelligent and submissive expression, saucer eyes and a slightly opened mouth. Only at the Terasem company in Vermont a talking woman’s bust of more mature age called “BINA 48” is supposed to mimic human behaviour emotionally, too.

It’s not surprising that the developers attribute all kinds of world-improving qualities to their creatures and spurn potential criticism in advance. Or are human beings just machines anyway, as Ishiguro claims? This closely observing film without comments by Maria Arlamovsky offers deep insights into this Brave New World, allowing us to form our own judgement.

Silvia Hallensleben

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Awarded with the Gedanken Aufschluss Prize.

The Alps. Nowadays there’s hardly a mountain left untouched. We have long conquered the lofty peaks and developed even the high mountain ranges as recreational landscapes. The fact that there is practically no limit to exploiting the Alps should not be taken for granted: The whole region is covered by a nearly invisible safety system. Well-camouflaged protective precautions against falling rocks and avalanches are there to ensure accessibility and habitability without fear. On the other hand, concrete fortifications around isolated farms or sculptural curved walls on the slopes to secure a whole village look conspicuous and almost surreal.

“Safety123” captures these constructions and the work that’s usually done in the background in breathtaking images. Quiet sequences show impressively how many-layered this safety system is: The landscape is ceaselessly surveyed and emergencies are simulated, whether in computer models, test facilities or large-scale disaster exercises. This observational documentary attentively follows the sometimes mysterious-looking activities and preparations to portray the human struggle against the forces of nature which are unstoppable despite precision technology.

Annina Wettstein

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Awarded with a Golden Dove in the Next Masters Competition Long Documentary and Animated Film.

Laika was actually an ordinary Moscow street dog. Until she became perhaps the most famous bitch in the world when she was catapulted into space in 1957. Since then, she has been regarded as the first living creature transported purposefully into an earth orbit by humans. The fact that Laika died a few hours after the rocket was launched only became known in 2002. The legend that Laika returned to earth as a ghost that has haunted the streets of Moscow ever since is still alive today. In their beautifully edited documentary, Levin Peter and Elsa Kremser go in search of this ghost, following two street dogs on their nocturnal rambles through the Russian capital.

The best animal friends stroll through alleys, hunt cats, observe quietly how people drink away their dreary reality in bars – all this shown from the unusual perspective of two four-legged creatures. Peter and Kremser deftly capture snapshots of today’s Russia, interweaving them with idiosyncratic – so far unpublished – recordings from the Soviet space age. The magical story of a friendship between intimacy and brutality, including small and great departures into unknown spheres.

Julia Weigl

A lost monarchy is represented by a princess whose steadfast mission is to restore to her dynasty real political and economic responsibility in contemporary Romania. With great energy, sometimes funny slips, too, but mostly with the appropriate royalist seriousness, Princess Margareta of Romania plays her role as the subject and object of her own campaign. The performance is of the tale of new wine in old wineskins. Surrounded by her courtly entourage, Margareta travels through “her” country in the same old royal train, on the same royal route, in which her father, King Michael the First already sought contact with his subjects. It goes without saying that the red carpet as the most obvious symbol of monarchist grandeur must be immaculate even at the tiniest stop – though this isn’t always achieved perfectly.

Director Johannes Holzhausen observes the bustle around this backwards journey with a distanced and wide-eyed curiosity. After all, it reveals a telling (a-)simultaneity of the ancient k.u.k. ceremonial and current marketing visions.

Ralph Eue