It looks like business as usual deep in the jungle – until one night a lantern lights up and magically attracts countless insects. They fall into a strange trance; even the bat family wake up. While the adults use the bright commotion to hunt, the young bat saves a glowworm, a fly and a moth. The next night, the dangerous light returns. The small bat is determined to try to save her new friends from its spell. A small adventure about friendship and mutual help.

Lina Dinkla

What is left when everything fades away? An old photographer tries to reconstruct people and events by means of old photographs, but they keep slipping away from him, vanishing in the dark, washed away by the waves. In his 2D animated film, rendered in black and white, Anton Dyakov not only shows how memories are lost, but also how they sometimes haunt and overwhelm us – for example in the shape of a disturbing archive fragment of blurred war photos. “Black Box” deals with loss and grief from a personal, yet universal perspective, while referencing the culture of remembrance in the digital age which is increasingly managing – or seeking to manage – without the haptic assurance of a printed photo.

Marie Ketzscher

Sam, a grumpy raccoon, must share a prison cell with Bob, a loveable, but somewhat slow-witted manatee. Their chaotic prison break gradually reveals Sam’s soft core, while Bob remains unfailingly loyal to Sam. Will they manage to escape? Suddenly, that no longer matters so much, since together they have already experienced something much better: solidarity. A cute plasticine animation you will absolutely love.

Lina Dinkla

Anne (36) lives in Halle (Saale) and her life is in chaos. An apartment full of moving boxes, a yapping dog. She tells her mother on the phone that the electricity is about to be cut off again. Sometimes her daughter Leonie (14) drops by. Like her mother, she is at risk of slipping into drug addiction. Anne has already lost custody of her two younger children, too. The camera stays purely observational, captures loose scenes from the life of a woman who wants to take responsibility again. The film does not look for psychological explanations but shows Anne as she is. On her drives through the prefabricated housing estate, she seems isolated from her surroundings. Mother and daughter grow closer over an ice cream in a public square. Anne’s visit to her mother provides support but creates pressure, too. We grow ever closer to Anne, sharing her wish that she can become a role model for her daughter.

Anke Leweke

16-year-old Krzysztof was last seen on a bridge over Poland’s Vistula River in 2023. The CCTV camera briefly turned away, and by the time it returned, he had vanished. Following his disappearance, his father Daniel launches a relentless search in Poland’s largest river. As time piles up, the searches persist. Any tech that proves useful gets pulled into it, from drones to metal detectors, trackers, and even loaves of bread, sent floating down the current in the hope of locating the body. The camera matches these rhythms, dredging the river’s depths and combing its banks. The searches, showing the father’s restless energy and the sheer labour of this endeavour, mix with vérité scenes with his family, as well as news snippets about Krzysztof’s alleged sightings. Social media streams are scoured too, providing unsettling insights into the boy’s inner states. Director Michał Marczak – and by extension his camera – accompany Daniel, taking the audience along in a boat and into the heart of a family’s unresolved grief. As closure remains out of reach, Daniel starts assisting other searches, and sombre discoveries are made of other lives lost in the waters.

Sevara Pan