The camera calmly explores the holes and fissures of a cliff face, the traces of the ocean. The austere landscape seems to have fallen out of time. Only a few decades ago, fishermen threw their trap baskets into the water from here. Today, the sea around Malta has long been fished dry. Punta, a moustachioed islander, wants to have one more go.
A weir is woven from the hairs of a horsetail, a forgotten craft is demonstrated. An intercut Super 8 film documents the diversity of marine life in the past; its grainy images radiate something irretrievable. An octopus curls around a foot, a jellyfish floats through the eternal blue. Punta gazes melancholically at the sea, far beneath him the waves are crashing against the rock as they have always done. And yet the sight is deceptive, because he and we know that no fish will ever stray into his weir. The rough singing of a woman’s voice begins.

Andrees’ graduation project approaches the perky 14-year-old Jacki mainly through her social environment: the stressed patchwork family mother, the solitary long-distance truck driver father, the eclectic neighbourhood. The closer the film gets to its protagonists, the freer the movements of the camera become, gliding through a studio as if in a trance or flying over the nocturnal motorway as if over a UFO landing strip.

The original title of this film can be roughly translated as “A Nameless Life” and there is really no other way to sum up the story. We will never learn the protagonist’s real name, but in the one hundred lonely years that we accompany him for 90 minutes of cinema, we see ever new facets of him. The film opens with a seemingly innocent montage of taxi rides in 1994. But as nonchalantly as the scenes are strung together here, it is important to pay attention to the subtleties if you want to stay on top of things during the ensuing century-long trip. The journey begins in the northern Japanese province and takes us through the J-pop world of Tokyo’s hip Harajuku district to a post-apocalyptic future where Fernand Léger and Stanley Kubrick shake hands.
Ryuya Suzuki is considered an outsider in contemporary Japanese animation. He is the sole author, director, animator, editor, and musician here. “Jinsei” is entirely his vision, a film about life and death, fate and rebellion, about power and powerlessness, unsparing and emotional. The 2D animation is imaginative, surprising, usually minimalist, always irritating, occasionally contemplative and then explosive. A hellish ride through human abysses, produced with so much attention to detail that new spaces open up every time you watch it.

As she visits an exhibition, a graphic designer is mesmerised by the photocollages of the anti-fascist John Heartfield, who became known as the “montage dada.” Stefanie falls through a vortex of paper and photo snippets into an old-fashioned looking studio. A pair of scissors – an analogue tool she herself hardly uses – attracts her attention. She begins to cut a figure out of cardboard, a miniature version of the artist who at once addresses her and explores his life and works with her. The studio turns out to be a living archive that ceaselessly produces documents and information about Johnny. The research gives Stefanie, stressed and disappointed by her job, new motivation, and the courage to choose a different path as a designer.

Both protagonists have the same profession and find themselves facing the same questions about the significance and recognition of their work. Both are struggling in their own way with frustration and fears, caused by the different social and political circumstances of their generations. The different elements of this animated documentary come together in a dialogic collage that reflects on the mission of art, its educative and critical power, and its potential to bring about changes in our society.

The Russian travelling circus “Joy” promises joy to the outside world – and not just in name. Behind the scenes the tone is rather harsh, unless there’s a party going on: life is dominated by jealousies, small and bigger cruelties. In a debut film full of wit and tragedy, Daria Slyusarenko portrays great artistic dreams in a small tent and four people who, each in their own way, cope with life in the circus.

Their permanent tour takes them through small towns where only a few kids are still enthusiastic about snakes, parrots and clown acts. Otherwise the tiers remain mostly empty. The tent is run-down, the animals are tired, “Joy” has seen better days. The nomadic life isn’t easy for the artists either: putting the tent up and down, in pouring rain and stormy weather, the only retreat is the mobile home and money is tight at every turn. The show still goes on, without artistic compromises. When Yana turns up, after many years of working in Europe, and becomes clown Valeriy’s new partner, enthusiasm spreads. While the two rehearse ambitiously, the animal dressage couple struggles to keep up the status quo and the stars of the ring together. A portrait of bittersweet circus life that comes amazingly close to its characters.

Roos is fourteen years old and lives with her mother and her older transgender sister Jules. Jules is currently transitioning, taking hormones and experimenting with her looks. Roos, who has no interest in nail polish and the like, is irritated by all the changes. When Jules moves out, Roos begins to miss her new sister and gets closer to her again.

Highly focused groups of humans move through nature. It is night and they are listening. Or it is midday and they are counting. Sometimes they carry antennas on their backs and roam meadows at the edge of the forest. They are the witnesses of the so-called sixth extinction, the people who document the disappearance of biodiversity in the Anthropocene. Marianna Milhorat approaches them with patience, spending a long time with women who discuss the intensity of the croaking of frogs, while the roar of the streets can be heard in the background. Others report on the “sea star wasting disease”, a mysterious illness that turns starfish into a whitish mush.
“Just Above the Surface of the Earth” leaves little room for hope, but at the same time puts its faith in the indefatigable individuals who have at least decided not to close their eyes. It is to them that Milhorat dedicates this experimental portrait, sophisticated on all cinematic levels. For it is not only bats that flutter through the film, but also thoughts: by Cormac McCarthy, William Golding, Martin Heidegger, or about the mythical river of the dead, Styx. The score, composed by Brian Kirkbride, translates the various microcosms into immersive sound art, giving us access to a world that we often inhabit as if blind and deaf.

The small recording device named REC lives all alone in an abandoned attic when a bird appears at the window. REC is really excited and wants to talk to it. But when the bird hears REC’s “voice” it flies away in terror. Now REC tries everything to record the bird’s beautiful song. Time is running out, because its battery will soon be exhausted.

In short sequences of images pointedly set to music by Louis Armstrong, the film follows the pleasurable triumph of young life over the obstacles of setting out into the world. As short as the film is and as curious its contents, the chequered story of its working and release titles is just as interesting. In 1987, the industry magazine “Film und Fernsehen” presented it simply as “A DEFA film by”. The text printed there ends with a sentence in brackets: (And many a viewer may marvel at the courage of the little ducklings and feel encouraged themselves.)