12-year-old Nikita and his family have been staying in an underground station in Kharkiv for weeks. The place promises protection from Russian attacks, but there is not much distraction down here. The glaring lights and provisionally furnished carriages create a surreal to dreary atmosphere, pets roam the aisles, an aging musician plays songs on his guitar.

Ivan Ostrochovský and Pavol Pekarčík condense the first months of the war in Ukraine into an oppressive but not hopeless narrative, because the station is also a place of encounters. Niki soon meets Vika, who is his age and who coaxes the lethargic boy out of his shell. Together they roam the underworld, but while Vika is permitted to go to the surface at least once in a while, Niki’s radius of movement ends at the stairs on which sunlight falls occasionally. And yet an outside exists which the two directors make visible by Super 8 shots scattered in between. They show a damaged Kharkiv: destroyed vehicles, a charred bed, provisionally protected monuments. “Photophobia” is a hybrid, introspective film that manages to find something like tender romance in an unreal situation.

There is something very subtle about the moment when children become adults that it can hardly be put into words. In fact, hidden, almost imperceptible changes suddenly appear that act like tectonic shifts in the human psyche. In her documentary debut, Marie-Magdalena Kochová has managed to capture this subtle move. She documents the life of 18-year-old Johana, who lives with her parents and her younger sister in a small town in the Czech Republic.
The sister has autism. Her health condition is severe and unpredictable. Her hysterical fits and aggressive outbursts dictate the life of the whole family. All the schedules are synchronised so that someone is always with the youngest. The well-practised routine is threatened when Johana decides to apply for a study programme in psychology at the university after her school exams. This means that she will soon have to move to another city, leaving the entire burden on the parents. Kochová shows us a transitional period in anticipation of massive changes, which requires everyone involved to have firm confidence in their own decisions. The mental tension is palpable, but the camera maintains an equalising distance. Step by step, the beauty of a challenged life unfolds, where courage becomes the only measure.