The setting and cast of characters seem like the prelude to an unusual fairy-tale. An elderly man, a hermit living in a remote cabin, is visited by a young woman, almost a girl, who can understand and imitate the language of birds. Deep in the forest, Jean and Mana record and catalogue the calls of the different species day by day, night by night. But then they hear the voice of an unknown animal and set out to find it.

The focus is on birdcalls and their classification. But instead of making the meticulous analysis of sound events look like a quirky hobby, the film inspires us to listen closely. The two scientists’ unperturbed curiosity is catching, and as we watch, we are gradually infected not just with their enthusiasm for their object of research but also with their childlike desire to discover a secret.

A new Musifants episode! Grandpa Günter – a retired circus elephant – and grandson Charlie take another musical excursion into the songbook of the 1920s and 1930s. This time, it’s the little green cactus’s birthday and Charlie bakes a cake. No sooner is it on the table, smelling delicious, than a bit is missing. Charlie wants to know who has been sneaking a bite …

Wang Xilin does not enter the stage in a suite, as the title might suggest, but completely naked. He stretches and bends, appears to familiarise himself with his surroundings, does some vocal exercises, sits down at the piano. Wang Xilin is one of China’s most important composers of contemporary music, having written his first symphonies in his youth. Wang Bing gives the 86-year-old more than a little space. For his portrait, he presents him with the entire Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris.

This is where Wang Xilin reviews his life of torture and oppression, recapitulates the tribulations in communist China, reports knocked-out teeth and nightmares, suicides among intellectuals. His testimony is frequently underlaid, sometimes even drowned out by grandiose musical arrangements. When an orchestra thunders from offscreen, Wang Xilin’s body rears up – “Man in Black” is also an exorcistic oral history. The composer turns himself into his own instrument, into the medium of a violent epoch, sharing his emotions literally unveiled.

A macabre Italian children’s song tells the story of Mario, a soldier who returns from war and must learn that his girlfriend has left him for another man. Mario decides to kill her. The film picks up on the ambivalent mood of the song and reinforces its vibration in the space between blithe children’s game and brutal murder.

A woman and a black cat live together in the city. They seem a little lonely but make the best of it. The small miracles of life can be found in all kinds of everyday moments, and their loneliness is transformed into a cheerful melody. A buoyant piece in black and white which does get a little colour in the end.

A colourful luminous river flows through the black void. Geometrical surfaces dance in small repeating loops around wondrous organic plants. The abstract lines, rectangles and semicircles briefly form animated figures. Tina Turner’s classic in the musical interpretation of Miles Davis and the animated visual world of Irina Rubina and Michelle Brand.

Nobody likes to play tennis with Tyrano so he endlessly hits the ball against the wall – until one day he meets Brachi. Playing a match, however, doesn’t quite work out as Brachi keeps falling over. Tyrano tries everything to make Brachi stay and finds out in the end that all the other dinos have their problems, too. But hey, whatever!

The sun is slowly setting in the jungle. The little monkey closes his eyes. He rocks and glides from one green leaf to the next, gently drifting off into sleep. But what is this? Suddenly the world of dreams becomes darker, more colourful and wilder. Mysterious plants, creatures and shapes are lining the path through the night … “Somni” is a filmic lullaby, though no one is likely to fall asleep here.

Imagine the last day of your life has dawned. What will stand up to review? What brings contentment? What brings regrets? “Vika!” is a film about the value of life and self-discovery, inspiring us to reflect on one’s chosen path and its forks and to stay true to oneself.

Vika, the 84-year-old main protagonist, a mother and grandmother several times over, looks back on a difficult childhood and many years of working in a “proper” job. When she retired, she seized the opportunity to reinvent herself. She became a DJ and star of the Warsaw nightclubs, who regularly drives her young audience wild. Super cool? Inappropriate for an elderly lady? Agnieszka Zwiefka’s portrait deconstructs the borders between the “acceptable” and “unacceptable” roles of a woman who refuses to acknowledge her age. Vika wants to live in the moment, with no ties to the past. Zwiefka combines elements of music and narrative documentary films and creates an enchanting, immediately accessible and utopian world. Dancing to Vika’s rhythms means freeing yourself from the limitations dictated by society, age and sometimes even one’s own children.

You need momentum to escape it all. Vonfelt packs the necessary energy into unstoppable pop beats and verbal images. On a backdrop of fleeting nocturnal city lights, Michelle Brand creates a refreshingly dynamic slipstream of fading forms and intense colours. You let yourself fall gently and with a smile into the rush of acceleration.

In 2043, humanity launches a spaceship called Zoopticon to send a greeting to distant galaxies. Lightyears later, the once proud – loaded with valuable cultural artefacts and lots of hope, after all – ambassador’s spirits sink in the infinite expanse. Loneliness leads to a blundering suicide attempt which jolts the spaceship’s body awake, whereupon the genetic material of five animals from five continents stored in petri dishes unexpectedly comes to life.

Jon Frickey, Sandra Trostel and Thies Mynther brush the science fiction classic “2001” against the grain. Their Zoopticon, a benevolent relative of Stanley Kubrick’s supercomputer HAL 9000, takes a surprising route on its odyssey through space. Their extraordinarily stylish animation starts with a moving monologue of the sensitive protagonist and finds its perfect orbit as a grandiose opera gradually begins to unfold – complete with soulful drama, brightly coloured radiant pop charm and tongue-in-cheek cathartic confidence.