In the early 2000s, Maria Nikolaidou took a photo on Munich’s “Panzerwiese” (tank meadow): Her son Alexandros and another little boy playing war. A woman with angel’s wings wraps her arms protectively around the two of them. Twenty-three years later, mother and son return to the spot where the black and white photo was taken. Alexandros now uses the same camera to make a photo film about the image and also meets with his former playmate. Their voice-over memories and associations reveal different perspectives and moods. The history and stories behind a photograph are being reconstructed: What was overlooked at the time? Why were Alexandros’ grandparents not allowed to give him a gun? Who is the person on the hill in the background? In the end, a new image emerges.

Anke Leweke

A Slavic legend whose essence can also be found in Tibetan records inspired the two Soviet scientists Mikhail Vasin and Alexander Shcherbakov to formulate their “Hollow Moon” hypothesis in 1970. In this hypnotic film, the Hungarian director, autodidact and graphic designer Sándor Reisenbüchler probes the theory in a highly poetical manner, sending us across the centuries from an imagined past to a distant future. His unmistakeable collages, which he brought to life with meticulous precision working alone at the animation table, combined with experimental moving image material, recall memories of analogue projections and the liquid light shows of the 1960s. Organic shapes and colourful patterns generate a fascinating pull which carries us through a magical portal into a hypothetical space ship inside the moon.

Franka Sachse

A girl is crying, carving scratches into the wood with a Swiss army knife – exactly as if they were flesh wounds. On top of that, she cuts off her hair. But she is not alone with her sadness: A tender “Nisse” (a household spirit) watches her. When she seems to vanish in the thicket of her dark thoughts, he drops a small injured bird in her way so that both can learn to fly. “Mother Didn’t Know” is a magical and dark tale of childhood depression and of the importance to recognise it and react without delay. The girl’s emotions are given ample space; the camera is close to her and her demons. All around, delicate dust motes float in the air like fairy dust. Killi’s film, though, could also be a tale about the burden of growing up, a burden that becomes unrelatable in retrospect. In any case, there are windows, exits, light – if you only look closely enough.

Marie Ketzscher

Losing your hair through chemotherapy is a painful experience for many people, not least because a bald head displays one’s new vulnerability so blatantly. But Maja Arnekleiv, the daughter of Norwegian animation director Anita Killi, turns the steps of the transformation – the original mum’s hair, the near-baldness, the new growth which is so different from the pre-chemo hair – into a tribute to resilience, love and family solidarity even in difficult times of illness. In a pixilation documentary produced over a period of two years, she captures in 755 single frames (selected from more than 3,000) how she and her siblings comb, blow-dry, style, braid and spray Anita Killi’s hair, while Killi always has her eyes firmly on the viewers. Sometimes laughing, sometimes serious, always loving. In 2017, Marja Arnekleiv won the Golden Dove for this tender, very touching film which celebrates the mother of four, whatever she looks like.

Marie Ketzscher