Son of the local brothel owner, Ismael lives in the small town of Vereda. He leaves his home town in search of two things that he’s never set eyes on – his father and the sea. Together with his idiosyncratic, yet loyal dog Bacalhau, he wanders through the parched Brazilian hinterland, heading towards greater experience and a sense of himself that goes beyond the label “son of a bitch”. Its design recalling a graphic novel, this road movie on foot is at once raw and crude, tender and profound and above all a lot of fun.

Franka Sachse

“… What news is real? … Everyone decides for themselves.” These disillusioned lines from Veneta Androva’s fictionalised 3D animated documentary about targeted disinformation campaigns resonate. They are spoken by a share4pay user – a real-life Bulgarian platform where you can make “News Sites” sprout like mushrooms with a few clicks in order to earn money with social shares. Their content: alleged gender ideology and racist migration narratives. Androva uses the documentary form to reduce the authenticity suggested by these news sites to absurdity; her pixelated interview partners speak with AI-generated voices, a mushroom creature recites real clickbait headlines (“Romania Shows How to Treat the Gender Plague From the West”), complete with language model analysis. The effect is as eery as the message: the circulation of fake news remains unchecked; containment is virtually impossible.

Marie Ketzscher

Shrieks, laughter, the roar of music and fairground rides hurtling along at breakneck speed – a brief electric crackle and the cacophony of a hot summer night at the fun fair dies away. The ensuing silence is broken by a toy radio squawking from a dustbin. It takes the chance offered by the brief moment of the blackout to tell of waves of emotion it picked up, of secret love affairs and dreams in which the staff, characters and a single visitor in the shadow of the usual high-spirited entertainment bustle lose themselves. As in her previous films, Maria Dakszewicz once more detects, with remarkable sensitivity and precise observation, a place in the emotional hangover area of the spectacle. A place where there are no distractions and genuine dreams are allowed to grow and die. Much here remains vague, the insignificant becomes significant. Precisely sketched, assembled and with elisions, dissolves and distortions in the images, sounds and words, the director depicts a moment’s pause before the electricity comes back on and excess is back in full swing.

André Eckardt