“You can’t seem to move forward, can you?” her mother asks. Twenty years after an unfinished film, the filmmaker is still pursuing her creative callings, confronting her roots, familial expectations and silences that have shaped her. An intimate essay about identity and belonging, set in a small rural Slovakian community where her creativity and sexuality clash with strict expectations of womanhood. Through personal archives, home movies and animation, she gently attempts to untangle what holds her back. Can she move forward without damaging the roots that are hers too?

Anca Păunescu

Bára Basiková is a Czech rock icon. She left a lasting impression in the 80s as lead singer of the bands Stromboli and Precedens and continues to fill concert halls as a solo artist to this day. Numerous musicals also live from her presence. Famous for her fascinating, approachable longitudinal portraits, Helena Třeštíková shows Basiková’s turbulent life over the decades. Her love of art and her search for fulfilling partnerships are recurring themes. More than once, Basiková is forced to admit that a relationship has failed and must risk a new start. Money repeatedly proves scarce and the burden of everyday life sometimes almost forces her to her knees. Yet Třeštíková never dwells too long in any one moment: the editing is fast-paced; over feature-film length, “Bára – Diary of a Rockstar” conveys a speed and richness of experience that seem to stand in direct relation to the protagonist’s lifestyle. Basiková is driven, a romantic and a fighter. Třeštíková brings substantial themes in her own unique way to the fore: what are the consequences of deciding to dedicate your existence to a passion full of uncertainties? What roles do age and aging play for a woman? And last, but not least, how to always keep things going?

Carolin Weidner

The small kitchen table around which director Kamila Serwicka, her two sisters and their mother Agnieszka squeeze themselves has something symbolic about it: the space they each have while living together is restricted and somehow shrunk down; expansion is bitterly needed. Yet this crampedness also allows an intimacy to be experienced, a solidarity that supports and protects. In “Blossoming”, Serwicka creates a portrait of her family, who were profoundly affected by the alcoholism of the father and husband for many years. The tension when he enters the room is tangible – they all keep their distance in an attempt to shield themselves from verbal violence and emotional manipulation. Yet the film doesn’t remain in this oppressive status quo: when the addict leaves, a transition process begins which throws up sensitive questions. How was it possible to ensure such a situation for so long? Why did Agnieszka never separate from her husband? How will things now be? Over the course of five years, the Serwicka women expand their gaze, find new perspectives and standpoints – and new connections with each other, also in religious rituals. “Blossoming” bears witness to a both a challenging escape and a reawakening long overdue. A reminder that nothing has to stay the same.

Carolin Weidner

Jimena is in her twenties, a young woman who goes by the nickname La Pichi and grew up on the edge of Buenos Aires close to the port, the other side of the invisible line that separates centre from periphery. These are not mere descriptions, but rather how she tells it herself – her garrulousness knows no bounds, which makes her the perfect storyteller. Like a Scheherazade porteña, La Pichi tells a new story each night and there are so many it’s easy to lose count. With their extravagant titles, her stories of relationships, family, body issues and class might seem like tall tales, but they are all plucked from her everyday reality, the same reality lived on the fringes that we see in velvety nocturnal images during and in between her voiceover monologues, which are narrated with an infectious enthusiasm and humour that belies their ambivalent undercurrents: the tale of the boyfriend who didn’t want to be seen with her, the tale of the transvestite-loving grandmother who cooked glorious food she wasn’t supposed to eat, the tale of the father with vitiligo who at one point was no longer there. Yet this is no narrative of hardship and suffering, but rather one of irrepressible, inspirational joy, for what can be more empowering than being given space to chronicle your own biography on your own terms? As La Pichi herself says, “I wasn’t one word, I was many.”

James Lattimer