Can a state of emergency become normality? Is everyday life possible despite the apocalypse? Bohdan would reply with a “yes” and a calm smile. He lives in Nikopol, Ukraine, on the former Kakhovka Reservoir, which dried up rapidly after the Russian army destroyed the dam in 2023. Like most of Nikopol’s inhabitants, Bohdan has adapted to the constant bomb alarms and nearly daily bombardments – an unbelievable mental achievement which Anastasiia Bonadyha also captures using sound design and music, transforming it in the process: a music box plays a Viennese waltz, the howling sirens turn into the drawn-out tone of a shofar horn. Bohdan’s serenity and optimism are deeply rooted in his faith. As he puts it, he’s not scared of death, he will come to God anyway. Living and enduring, as long as possible: shot on a Super 8 camera, Bonadyha’s film is a moving time capsule, a moment of hope amid the impositions of the ongoing war.

Marie Ketzscher

Between 1959 and 1981, the Franco regime had over 33,000 bodies transferred from more than 500 mass graves across Spain to the Valle de los Caídos – a monumental mausoleum erected to glorify the fascist victory. Decades later, relatives are still searching for the remains of their loved ones. Three families follow in the footsteps of the disappeared and encounter bureaucratic, legal and social obstacles that persist to this day. Drawing on director Manuel Correa’s own research as part of Forensic Architecture, a research agency that investigates state and corporate violence, the film reconstructs in meticulous detail what the regime sought to conceal. Digital maps, citizens’ archives, official documents and new forensic technologies reveal what remained hidden for decades. The result is a topography of terror that visualises the extent of systematic violence and brings to light the history buried beneath fascist monumentalism.

Seggen Mikael