Before photography and film were invented and constructed the “Wild West”, the famous explorer Meriwether Lewis, whose travels made the westwards expansion of the still young USA possible, died under mysterious circumstances. The present-day narrator of this film, a distant descendant, portrays him as the tragic hero of a speculative gay love story. The potential lover, Meriwether’s “Louisiana Creole” servant John Pernia, is historically documented. But the archive material, which favoured the white folklore of the so-called age of pioneers, lays no trail to this romance.

Ben Young wilds the early Western imagery and queers the nationalist historiography from the perspective of people who are missing in the tales of glory and whose originally free space was occupied by the settler movement and its subsequent legend formation. He uses associative montage and gossip to rehabilitate John and Meriwether, the undocumented romantic couple, as the real pioneers. And they have a score to settle with the U.S.

Unexpectedly, Marion Guillard captures the perfect shot: A flock of birds pirouette in the evening sky, the camera follows their graceful movements as if hypnotized, symbiotically. The road to this moment was long. Guillard shares her journey to the USA with us, which is not only marked by feelings of alienation from her family – the postcard motifs spread before her eyes also leave her cold. In a voiceover, she talks about her relationship to herself and her body, about an ideal of femininity she does not conform to, and disturbing encounters with men.
“We Had Fun Yesterday” follows Guillard’s stream of thought, both autobiographical exploration and reflection about the way we look at others: animals – wild or caged; nature - unspoiled or shaped by humans. The result is a surprising weave in which mental and digital images arise and crumble.

The aeroplanes are stationary, nothing moves, nothing takes off at the US military airbase in Arizona – until a young woman in a white dress begins to jump on a trampoline outside the fence, framed by an idyllic sunset. She conveys her story from the silent offscreen – only through subtitles. Having come from Saudi Arabia, she is stuck in the US because her father stole her identity papers. So homesick that she is considering drastic measures to get back home, she almost enlists in the military. But the US Army is suspicious and would not station her, a risk factor, anywhere near the Middle East. But there is a Baghdad in Arizona, too …
Artist Samar Al Summary’s work is an investigation into systems of power. She does not only talk about herself, the prejudices and obstacles she faces as a Saudi woman, but also about the crash of two Iraqi air force pilots who were to be trained by the US Air Force but never made it home either. In her dramatically condensed film essay, she takes up the symbolic fight – both against gravity, which she can at least temporarily defy by using cinematic means, and against patriarchy. The latter, however, is not so easy to fight.

An Athenian filmmaker is struggling with insomnia and seeks help from a tarot reader. She says that when she does manage to sleep, her dreams are strange, she dreams of her childhood apartment, where everyone has turned to stone. Yet such surreal thoughts hardly sound outlandish given the current state of Greece: petrified monuments to past glories as far as the eye can see, even as any sort of movement in the present has slowed to a standstill. She sets out to understand this curious paradox, dipping into literature, fiction and documentary to do so, disparate elements given unity by playfulness, political sensibility and shimmering celluloid.
Conversations with locals on the streets of the Greek capital about the nature of statues; the 1944 manifesto by poet Yorgos Makris that proposed blowing up the Parthenon and the groupuscule that now seeks to complete his work; the story of the political prisoners forced to rebuild the same monument in miniature; a rogue Caryatid now discovering love. Such times are hard to make sense of, whether in Greece or beyond, and perhaps there is only one way to proceed, to move forward, to live: everything bit by bit. “When will we gather the world together piece by piece?”

Does farmer Ly have dealings with the Chinese, who have recently been tampering with the infrastructure of the village of Sitabaomba, not far from the Malagasy capital of Antananarivo, director Nantenaina Lova asks as bluntly as mischievously. Ly denies it. However, it becomes increasingly clear in the course of “Where Zebus Speak French” that the various development measures, often introduced by foreign initiatives and fuelled by corrupted politicians, also affect him.

Focussing on Sitabaomba, Lova shows over several years how the village population attempt to defend their farmland. Their fight is reminiscent of David against Goliath but doesn’t lead to despondence. Because in Madagascar, a very unique form of artistic, especially linguistic expression has always been cultivated which, at its best, allows people to maintain an inner independence. The commentary is therefore spoken in the style of “Kabary.” This polite, rhetorically sophisticated and sometimes mocking form of speech elegantly circumvents criticism, thus stating it all the more clearly. An artist also visits the village repeatedly and makes stones speak with the children, confirming an attitude Nantenaina Lova describes as follows: “Laughing at injustice rather than crying, resisting rather than pitying.”

A film that teaches us mindfulness. In his audiovisual diary, award-winning Swiss-Canadian filmmaker Peter Mettler says farewell to his mother and father. But the film transcends his personal work of mourning. In an always dialogue-oriented search movement over the cycle of life, he reflects on this world and the next, on existence and time. It is an eternal circuit and flow – like the continuous passing of clouds and rivers.

Visually as well as intellectually, Peter Mettler draws upon personal conversations, philosophical and spiritual texts as well as his own film and sound archive. His approach is characterised by openness and humility towards life and nature. This attentive attitude characterises the director’s notion of “film-making” per se that has shaped all his works. “While the Green Grass Grows” comprises two parts of a larger epic diary project with the same title.