A queer auto-narrative about longing in three acts that addresses seemingly chaotic but systemically functioning cycles of attraction and revulsion, fear and desire, consumption and withdrawal, ecstasy and regret. While the film creates a timeless immediacy, the first-person narrator's commentary, in contrast, sounds like overthinking rather than an unquestioned moment of just-being-there. Whether at the club, by the lake or in the student cafeteria – one’s own judgement is always quicker than the question of how one is actually doing at that moment. But gradually something begins to change: An initially barely perceptible frequency shift sets in. The fragmented staccato of the first comments gradually gives way to a tale that gently settles in the interstices between dune, dream and reality.

Luc-Carolin Ziemann

„My life is a prison“, Adelina says. The young woman is smoking and looking into the camera, her parents sitting on the sofa to her right and left. In black and white and the narrow 4:3 ratio, this family scene feels oppressive: Adeline spent eleven years under house arrest here, with a father who refuses to accept her identity and a mother who seems loving but powerless. In Georgia, there is neither freedom nor security for trans persons like Adelina. Anti-queer attacks happen in broad daylight; the legal situation of the LGBTQ community has recently deteriorated further. When the protagonist at last leaves her parents’ village to go to Vienna, the style of Rati Tsiteladze’s debut film also changes. The lipstick glows red, the lights of the big city neon yellow. A different, freer life seems possible. But the freedom brings new challenges: financial and health problems, communicating in a foreign language – and loneliness. “A Song Without Home” is the intimate, impressionistic long-term portrait of a person who wants to define herself and clings to an unshakeable conviction: “No law can erase who we are.”

Jan-Philipp Kohlmann

What does a person’s library say about them? James Paul Dallas doesn’t just create a portrait of a life, but also shows a present in which possession, memory and identity are all becoming shaky. In early 2025, the anonymous protagonist guides the director via mobile phone through his empty apartment in Brooklyn. What can stay and what can go in what was his home for 20 years? The kitchen crockery is first up, then the books. Giacometti and Basquiat can stay in New York. But please pack up everything between Lequeu and Brick. A course is thus tracked through an intimate microcosm. It’s not just one individual’s paths to wisdom that are being measured out here, but also his desires, preferences and guilty pleasures. The footage gives fragmentary glimpses into a private world, piquing the curiosity and sparking the imagination of all those watching: what were all the things that happened in this apartment? What sort of person lived here? And why does he have to give up all these things, and maybe even a part of himself?

Borjana Gaković

“El primer año” documents the first year of the Unidad Popular: the rude awakening of the ruling classes of Chile as they are faced with the democratically elected socialist government. From the immediate economic sabotage of the right wing through celebrating workers, the situation of the Mapuche, the agrarian reform, the nationalisation of coal and copper mining and Fidel Castro’s visit, up to the “March of the Pots” by bourgeois women crying for bread, of which they have plenty, the cycle of achievements and difficulties is complete. Besides their journalistic interest, Patricio Guzmán and his collaborators sought to capture the atmospheric aspect of the departure towards a fairer society under Salvador Allende, which is what makes “El primer año” such a moving document of its time. Chris Marker offered to produce a French version with the help of the SLON film collective, which is preceded by photographs by Raymond Depardon, accompanied by a foreword on the history of Chile. Guzmán continued his work on the chronicle of events until he was forced to leave the country after the military coup of 11 September 1973. It was only in Cuban exile that he was able to successively finish his masterpiece “La Batalla de Chile” (1975-79) together with Pedro Chaskel. Each of its three parts was acclaimed at the International Leipzig Documentary and Short Film Week and the Berlinale Forum.

Florian Wüst

Romantic, mystical, folkloristic: Theodor Kittelsen's (1857–1914) oeuvre as a painter is not just dedicated to nature but also to legends and trolls – and has influenced artists to the present day. Natasha Nikitina for example, whose film takes up Kittelsen's twelve-part series of pictures "Soria Moria Palace" and his eponymous book: The young hero Askeladden sees the golden palace of Soria Moria in the distance and sets out to reach it; an allegory of the golden future that can be earned with a lot of hard work and dedication. In her film, however, Nikitina focuses more on the atmospheric element, letting a troll in a rock wake up and fall asleep again, letting geese and other birds take flight, letting fog and dusk turn into night and back into a glowing morning. A tribute to the artist, but also to the myth-enshrouded Norwegian landscape in general.

Marie Ketzscher

“How long have you known each other?” – “Six funerals.” Having grown old as a gay man is a privilege in the wake of the Aids crisis. At “Lebensort Vielfalt”, a Berlin housing project for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersexual persons, lived experiences are exchanged among three generations. They used to be pigeonholed, today children might just be allowed to learn to speak before they define themselves. A wild kind of growing up and ageing. All residents share the desire to be safe, even from having-to-explain-themselves. The camera roams the house, crosses the corridor, moves from one balcony to another, looks out of the window onto the street, develops new perspectives. Social backsliding is registered; sometimes new happiness is found. On deceased persons’ birthdays, the raspberry cake is cut. Falling asleep, the sound of riot rises again.

Jan Künemund

The mother’s film archive raises questions. What did she see in the many doll’s faces staring at us through her camera? Why so many shots of flowers? When she herself is in the picture, she is always moving. Was she trying to get away from something? The narrator wants to find their own motifs. But where? It is easy for the mother to say: Film your own reality! Sounds great, but how, when you feel that you are different? As the material is questioned, more and more own images find their way into the film. Integrating themselves. Perhaps they ask the same questions of the world.

Jan Künemund