Barcelona, 1991. Juanjo has to repeat the last school year. His new teacher seats him in the last row next to Miquel, who is not exactly happy about this. The two have to write an essay together on the same afternoon. A disagreeable task that is gradually forgotten as they discover that they share a great passion: music!

Juanjo comes from sheltered circumstances, his family pamper him. Miquel is the son of a single mother who could hardly manage to take care of his two siblings without his support. Heavy Metal becomes the refuge and central node of their friendship. Screeching guitars and screamed vocals – with a few remarkable exceptions – are the soundtrack of this exciting but warm-hearted and gentle story that allows a glimpse into the souls of two teenage boys. The film’s visual design is consistently pared down – to the point of leaving out whole sections of the background and character portrayal. The directors’ poignant use of distinctive striking visual elements takes us ingeniously into the world of the two friends. A wonderful journey into a time of changes, insights and growth.

Nazario, founder of the Spanish underground comics movement and pioneer of the gay graphic novel, looks back on his eventful life, his flamboyant and explicit works. 16mm films, photos, illustrations and paintings document the spirit of departure of a counter culture, but also recount Nazario’s great love for Alejandro with whom he was together until the latter’s death. Profession and passion merge in this artist.

It has been said that the baroque artist Diego Velázquez didn’t paint figures, but the air and light between them. And one could say about this film that it is not Velázquez’s larger-than-life painting “Las Meninas” that is the subject, but the penetrating gaze with which it looks back at his viewers. Among the many clever minds that discuss the artist and the intricate structure of this painting’s composition, it is curiosity itself that somnambulates here.

“Paintings aren’t movies, they’re paintings”, insists art critic and historian Svetlana Alpers. She’s right, of course – and then again, she isn’t. She’s one of the renowned talking heads interrogated by director Andrés Sanz Vicente to solve a crime. But who or what actually died? Perhaps our ability to see, as Alpers claims? For around 400 years, Diego Velázquez’ painting has been exposed to the eyes of its public, the analyses of its scientifically advanced critics who have racked their brains over who on the canvas enters through which door and why. “The Painting” is a continuation of this painting-eye-encounter with the means of cinema. The air and the light between the concrete thing and its passionately glowing aura are captured. In this, but only in this, a painting can be a movie after all.

Covid-19 has made quarantine and self-isolation the everyday experience for many. This project, developed at the CPH:LAB, invites people to scan their most personal places and moments. The resulting VR experience is a walk-in archive and time capsule, the collective memory of a state of emergency which also preserves forgotten virtues like deceleration and the spirit of discovery.