SILBERSALZ Festival 2023

CAN WE AFFORD THE RICH? All societies are based on the idea of a social contract. We are told that if we work hard, if we treat others with respect, if we play by the rules, we will be rewarded. But then there's the rule breakers. Those who make use of tax havens and reap profits without paying back to society. BREAKING SOCIAL looks at global patterns of kleptocracy and extractivism. An assassinated investigative journalist in Malta. A river without water in Chile. When people reach a tipping point, they start to organize and protest. We will see those already fighting at the frontlines of social uprisings across the world. BREAKING SOCIAL explores the possibilities of overcoming injustice and corruption. A film about reimagining the building blocks of our societies and igniting seeds of hope that live within each of us.

Brothers Saud and Nadeem were raised looking at a sky speckled with black kites, watching as relatives tossed meat up to these birds of prey. Muslim belief held that feeding the kites would expel troubles. Now, birds are falling from the polluted, opaque skies of New Delhi and the two brothers have made it their life's work to care for the injured black kites. Shaunak Sen's intricately layered portrait reveals an evolving city and a fraternal relationship bonded by purpose. The film's patient, roaming camera skillfully uses scale and perspective to draw attention to the interconnectedness of an ecosystem — one that humans are a part of, not apart from. The social unrest that begins to materialize in the streets is seen through the perspectives of the brothers and their family, as well as the insects and animals that share the urban landscape. There is both cruelty and tenderness in nature, and Sen elegantly captures how they coexist, while emphasizing the ways in which all living beings must evolve to survive.

Cell Worlds is a journey to the heart of the microscopic living world. It is an unprecedented discovery of a hidden biodiversity: our cells. A journey of introspection and emotion to discover unsuspected microscopic forms, colors and behaviors. Migrations, hunts, symbioses and even communications, who would have thought that the infinitely small was so grandiose? The exploration of these worlds is accompanied by a poetic narration, supported by an original music specially composed for the occasion. Cell Worlds offers a synergistic alliance of images, sound and narration, which gives way to real moments of contemplation of scientific research. It is the first showcase of the most beautiful microscopy images from 26 research teams around the world.

Plastics are everywhere. They are not just in our rivers and oceans, they permeate the air and soil and also our bodies. While the crisis deepens and recycling is far from working, the plastics industry continues to ramp up production. Does the industry want to keep going on like they have in the past? PLASTIC FANTASTIC follows several protagonists, on the one hand representatives of the plastics industry and on the other scientists and activists, to find out where the plastics crisis is leading us.

When the first manned mission to Mars hits turbulence due to personality clashes amongst the crew, the higher-ups devise a high concept solution: create a simulacrum of the spacecraft, stock it with five surrogates who possess the same personalities as the feuding astronauts, and have them re-enact the events occurring light minutes away. And so it is that David (Steve Laplante), a P.E. teacher, achieves an approximation of his childhood dream to journey to the stars. And while he earnestly believes he's making a difference, it seems far more likely that he's being made the butt of some cosmic joke. Is it possible to find your purpose when you've been stripped of all of your agency? Marking the long-awaited return of Stéphane Lafleur (Tu dors Nicole), Viking never speculates whether there's intelligent life on Mars. However, it certainly contends that there's rampant absurdity here on Earth. To use the parlance of the film, Lafleur's cast displays "complete commitment to the mission" by dialing into the film's deadpan wavelengths and mining poignancy from this folly.

In a strange galaxy a small rescue robot dreams of becoming a hero, but in his search for survivors he makes a dark discovery, leaving him with a devastating choice.

Set in 1984, a former NASA Scientist and his young son make a discovery in his make-shift laboratory located in the garage.

We follow a lone probe as it collects music amongst the infinite fields of sounds, in a quest to find its place among the stars. The probe is eons old and has outlived its makers. Yet, it still tries to send back songs of the aging universe around it. It leaves a trail of waves behind it, hoping they will find a way back home, unaware of something that looms on the horizon.

Published in 2009, the first Lancet Climate Change Commission's concluding remark was simple, albeit potent… "Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century."
"The World health organization states that "Although it is unequivocal that climate change affects human health, it remains challenging to accurately estimate the scale and impact of many climate-sensitive health risks. In the short- to medium-term, the health impacts of climate change will be determined mainly by the vulnerability of populations, their resilience to the current rate of climate change, and the extent and pace of adaptation."
But what happens in the long term when adapting to climate change will simply get harder at which point our bodies are unable to cope with the impact of the environment's hostility?
With the wellness industry now being one of the world's fastest, most resilient markets, outranking the pharmaceutical industry several times over, it's easy to see wellness, not healthcare, becoming the clear & present winners of the climate change business providing coping with climate-anxiety an emerging market to profit off of. The International Finance Corporation posits that the "Climate Investment Opportunities" will total $23 Trillion in Emerging Markets by 2030.
When you have a total addressable market of the entire planet, the climate crisis provides a perfect excuse to make every business a climate business. The treatments themselves that are featured in the project are not science fiction, but present-day reality. Bathing complexes, IV therapy, nutrition-specific hydroponic systems, and Immersive virtual reality caves are all popular technologies today, which the project packages and rebrands as "climate-specific treatment".
By shedding light on disaster capitalism, where companies use a crisis like climate change as an opportunity for profit, exclusive Climate Spas like Spa Sybarite are an example of a cautionary architectural typology that is imminent. It is a form of critical architecture that is meant to render and highlight a plausible scenario to provoke and instigate thought on the impact of climate change on health and wellness as well as their corresponding industries."

The fate of the planet is in the hands of its most popular teenage girl.

Two strangers stumble upon a beautiful natural sight, and each other. As they hit it off it's clear that neither of them have experienced nature before. When Fred eventually asks Sally to meet up again, we learn their surroundings are far from permanent.

In a quiet corner of rural New Zealand, a teenage boy holds the key to the greatest discovery of our time. The world is tough for our young genius who's largely misunderstood by the people around him. What he doesn't realise is that by building The Machine, he's started a chain of events that could, if it works, change the course of history forever.

Four young men are stopped by police officers, who believe that they are suspects reported to have a handgun. Based on real-life incidents, the story examines trauma of being in the shoes of the young men stopped.

Matthieu Rytz returns to Sundance (Anote's Ark, 2018 Sundance Film Festival) with this up-to-the-minute tale of geopolitical, scientific, and corporate intrigue that exposes the machinations of a secretive organization empowered to greenlight massive extraction of metals from the deep seafloor that are deemed essential to the electric battery revolution.
Narrated by Jason Momoa, Deep Rising illuminates the vital relationship between the deep ocean and sustaining life on Earth. The documentary also follows mining startup The Metals Company, as it pursues funding, public favor, and permission from the International Seabed Authority to mine wide swathes of the Pacific Ocean floor.
Rytz's fly-on-the-wall access observes extraction companies as they co-opt scientific studies and deliver pitches to investors, proposing how the costs of industrializing our Earth's last pristine environment can be justified to access metals they claim will benefit all of mankind. As oil conglomerates pivot investments to deep-ocean mining, Deep Rising examines humanity's destructive pattern of extracting materials for profit and asks why we don't choose, instead, to develop abundant resources to solve our energy problems.

We experience the story of a transformation. How what we all carelessly flush down the toilet every day can become something wonderful and valuable: Fertilizer.It takes 86 minutes to tell this amazing story. Not a second of it is boring. The story takes you halfway around the globe. Each stop illuminates a new facet of the subject. You get a sense of how much time went into the research.
What happens to the food we digest after it leaves our bodies? Is it waste to be discarded or a resource to be reused? Looking for answers, director Rubén Abruña embarks on an investigative and entertaining quest through 16 cities across 4 continents.
He follows the poop trail from the long Parisian sewers to a huge wastewater treatment plant in Chicago. The presumed solution to use the semi-solid remains of the treatment process as a fertilizer proves to be a living nightmare, because they contain heavy metals and toxic PFAS chemicals.
Can excreta be used to grow food and ease the imminent fertilizer scarcity? He meets the Poop Pirates from Uganda who through work and songs teach people how to turn feces into safe fertilizer. In rural Sweden, an engineer shows him a dry toilet that makes fertilizer from urine.
In Hamburg and Geneva, he discovers residential complexes with localized treatment plants, not connected to sewers, that produce electricity and fertilizer from human excrements. In the end, the director finds answers to sustainably reuse human poop and pee that also increase global food security, environmental protection, and hygiene and mitigate climate change.

Nerve-wracking high-tech thriller about human genetic engineering, ethical twilight zones and the ability to control evolution, spiced up with grand political battles between the US and China. Thought-provoking science fiction from a future we already live in.
Chinese researcher JK has genetically engineered two twin fetuses to be resistant to HIV. A huge scientific breakthrough, but not everyone is equally thrilled, and suddenly JK disappears from the face of the Earth. Like a high-tech thriller from a futuristic and urban future that is already a reality, 'Make People Better' digs deeper and deeper into the case of the missing scientist, which turns out to be the tip of the iceberg in a big political game between China and the US. For if technology can already help us control evolution and create stronger and smarter humans, then perhaps it's not just a question of ethics, but of who comes first?

Italian airship engineer Umberto Nobile enjoys a quiet life with his beloved dog Titina, who charmed him into rescuing her from the streets of Rome. One day, Norwegian explorer superstar Roald Amundsen contacts him and orders an airship to conquer The North Pole. Nobile seizes the opportunity to go down in history. He brings Titina along, and the unlikely trio sets out on an expedition to the last undiscovered place on Earth. Their quest is successful but, in the aftermath, the two men start to quarrel over the glory...
Through the eyes of the four-legged celebrity Titina, (re)discover a true story of triumph and defeat!

What does becoming a father do to men? Scientists investigate how men change physically and psychologically during pregnancy, birth and the first years of being a dad. This film goes on a journey of discovery and asks brain researchers, gynaecologists, sociologists and psychologists about their findings. And it accompanies three men in Germany, France and Sweden during their adventure of becoming a father.

Flowers defy the impossible. Under their seemingly fragile appearance, they're fierce fighters. Their history is that of their dazzling conquest of the planet. Today, they represent 90% of plant species. According to Charles Darwin, "The rapid development of flowering plants is an abominable mystery."
What place do flowers hold in the tree of all living beings? When did they first appear on Earth? How can we explain their prodigious diversification? And what are the superpowers that make them invincible?
To answer these question and solve the abominable mystery of flowers, a new generation of scientists is hard at work. From the African deserts to the summits of the Alps, their discoveries are revolutionizing the way we conceive the origin and expansion of flowering plants.
For the first time, we reveal secrets of flowers with never-before-seen images, time-lapse, and super slow motion captured with a next generation macro-lens. Thanks to stunning, high-detail computer animation, we retrace the history of flowers, diving into the heart of their cells to illuminate the real reasons for their success. Embark on this breathtaking scientific investigation as we lift the veil on the fascinating mystery of flowers.

A meticulous dissection of image-making and a mapping of its movement through society, directors Axel Danielson and Maximilien Van Aertryck use a mind-boggling array of archival footage to collage this sociological study by tracking the transmogrification of photographic philosophy and technology over human history. Weaving and contrasting some of the most iconic, harrowing, and viral images in our collective memory with user-generated footage that transports the viewer through time, space, and experience, Danielson and Van Aertryck intricately fashion an argument about how humans see ourselves that feels rigorous, learned, and current.
The signature analytical style this directing duo developed collaborating on shorts maps beautifully to this, their directorial debuts, arriving them to the features sphere with intellectual verve and universally accessible breadth. Their efforts to contextualize consequential imagery and trace its propagation feels critically vital in the current climate of slippery truths and altered realities. Balancing critical examination with delightful surprises, they put their footage in cacophonous, lively, enlightening conversation. For a film concerned with the construction of image, Fantastic Machine does that very thing with smarts, humor, and great stamina.

The Climate Crisis forces Earth's evacuation with the hope of colonizing a new world. The trip is long and lonely, but a dating system has been created to allow Earth's remaining survivors to communicate and hopefully find love.

In a future world where memories are handled like computer files, two lovers decide to undergo a procedure and have their entire relationship wiped from their brains.

Mia, a young black astronaut, trains in an elite program aimed at preparing humanity for life on another planet. She has to choose between leaving behind her father or realizing a racially just society on a new planet.

With a world population exploding, a new option to upload your mind to a forever home cuts two sisters in half. Through the story of broken sisterhood, The Virtual Llama explores how uploading our minds to virtual worlds might pose a solution to climate change, but at the cost of our bodies and identities.

It is an era in which sex between lovers takes place only in virtual reality. Kim Sun-young visits her father's house for the first time in a long time after hearing the news that his father, Kim Boy-dong, wants to have a wedding with his cat and receive legal recognition.

During another dull day connecting long distance intergalactic calls from a remote satellite, Michael receives a distress call. No one ever receives a distress call. They barely touch on distress calls during the induction day.