Karlovy Vary IFF - 58th Edition

<p>Varvara, a professor of philosophy, is discussing the concept of God&rsquo;s death with her students. She is visited by her sister Angelina, an eminent gynaecologist who has been recalled from Moscow and sent to another city, where she is to reduce the number of abortions. Not long afterwards a girl comes to see her at the hospital, asking her to perform an abortion, claiming that she is carrying the Antichrist in her womb. After a heated dispute with a student, Varvara ponders the presence of evil in human nature, while Angelina carries out an illegal abortion on the girl and takes the embryo home with her... This mystical film by Anja Kreis is beguiling for its ominous atmosphere and raises uncomfortable questions about human conscience, morality and faith, although it declines to provide definitive answers.</p>

<p>In 1907, Afonso arrives on a tropical island not far from the African coast, where he has been tasked with treating a group of workers plagued by a mysterious affliction called banzo, also known as slave nostalgia. Those affected feel an intense homesickness, fall into apathy, lose the strength to live, and eventually die. Alonso slowly discovers that it is not enough to treat the physical symptoms; he must understand the soul of those who have been uprooted. The oppressive atmosphere of the isolated tropical island forms the backdrop for a story from the dark colonial past in which humanity is put to the ultimate test. Banzo is also a reminder that there is more than one way to interpret the past, and that behind every story is a person telling the story.</p>

<p>Two young people, Soundouss and Ja&acirc;far, arrive at a luxury villa in the resort of Cabo Negro rented by Ja&acirc;far&rsquo;s lover, who is supposed to join them later. But something is wrong &ndash; he still hasn&rsquo;t turned up, and they can&rsquo;t reach him on his phone. Left on their own, they decide, despite their uncertain financial and personal situation, to enjoy their holiday as much as their minds and bodies will allow. On vacation, with time seemingly non-existent, they take the opportunity to reflect on their relationships back home &ndash; and on the future, which feels so distant here on the sun-drenched beach. Writer-director Abdellah Ta&iuml;a presents a queer ode to the seemingly carefree time of youth.</p>

<p>Bruno Anković&rsquo;s feature film debut is set in an impoverished Croatian village between the years 1926 and 1945. The constant deprivation, repeated changes to the regime, and war pervaded the forests and shrouded the place in a miasma that obscured all visions of a better future. Village life was also tough for Mijo: His young, innocent soul was burdened by the outside world and troubled by inhumane orders, and he then fell prey to the false sheen of right-wing ideology. This film adaptation of the successful novel of the same name by Damir Karaka&scaron; presents us with wonderful shots of the rural landscape, but it is also a testimony of commonplace brutality and demonstrates the reasons why innocent people become easy quarry for ideological crusaders.</p>

<p>Architects, their relatives, colleagues, historians and art theorists tell stories connected with socialist buildings and bring a comprehensive view of this stigmatized part of the history of Czechoslovak architecture. Expo 58, Prior or Kotva. Architecture created during the period of socialism arouses constant discussion in today&#39;s public space. For a part of society, it is just a monotonous example of a remnant of the communist regime, which it would prefer to forget. The documentary series, however, looks at the resulting buildings without ideological prejudices and focuses primarily on the actual work of the architects at that time. The eight-part series was created based on the theme of Vladim&iacute;r 518, who published his own book on the topic. We will screen two parts within the program block.</p>

<p>Green-haired Maia is tired of city life and, driven by a desire to be among nature, she decides to spend the summer picking oranges. In the orchards she is greeted by the gardener, an eccentric loner called Teo, who notices that Maia isn&rsquo;t like everyone else. In the same way he tends his plants, he devotes his time and energy to her, too, and the young woman starts to blossom. Their burgeoning friendship, however, is unsettled by the arrival of Teo&rsquo;s father and older brother Arturo, who are planning a celebration in a neighbouring village... In her richly coloured story, which shows it&rsquo;s sometimes difficult to find someone who could help us to discover our true selves, director Ivana Gloria awakens within us senses that we didn&rsquo;t even know we had.</p>

<p>A true story of injustice perpetrated on a peaceful gardener by a wealthy neighbor meets Karel Čapek&rsquo;s eponymous literary work about a gardener&rsquo;s hardships and successes over the course of a year. Director Jiř&iacute; Havelka, one of the most complex artistic personalities of our time, has long proved that &ldquo;alternative&rdquo; and &ldquo;audience-friendly&rdquo; need not be mutually exclusive. His quietly moving tragicomic story about a remarkably stubborn struggle for the right to a dignified life is built on two great performances by the always outstanding Oldřich Kaiser and D&aacute;&scaron;a Vokat&aacute;.</p>

<p>It&rsquo;s the 1940s. The Slovak state witnesses the rise of nationalism and it&rsquo;s not an auspicious time for minorities. The turbulent social mood also impacts the widow Marika, who loses her job in an Aryanised dressmaker&rsquo;s shop. Given the increasing anti-Hungarian sentiment, she shuts herself away, particularly since she is also harbouring a little Jewish boy. Despite this, she still finds herself singled out by two men: a German Nazi officer and a captain of Slovakia&rsquo;s Hlinka Guard. This drama by Slovak director Iveta Gr&oacute;fov&aacute; is an adaptation of the novella by Peter Kri&scaron;t&uacute;fek, which conjures up the dramatic atmosphere of wartime Slovakia. The story of a fragmented era, which forces the protagonists to confront complex dilemmas, is told not only through words, but also by way of a powerful visual language.</p>

<p>Libu&scaron;e has been capturing her &ldquo;rock-n-roll&rdquo; life full of twists and turns in thousands of pictures and autoportraits. Yet the sudden photographic success after 53 years of work has not helped her to see her real self in the mirror. She is still searching for herself, the place where she belongs, as she goes through piles of negatives and diaries while working on a new book.</p>

<p>Three members of an extended Afghan family start their lives over in Iran as refugees, unaware they face a decades-long struggle ahead to be &ldquo;at home.&rdquo;</p> <p>Nearly 5 million Afghan refugees live in Iran, often with such tenuous legal status that any unexpected event could lead to forced deportation, family separation, or worse. Starting in 2001, these three stories elegantly and movingly capture the plight of people living their lives with hope and joy, but trapped under a state that constantly threatens police brutality, administrative violence, and armed conflict. In their feature debut, co-writers and directors Raha Amirfazli and Alireza Ghasemi dazzle as a new voice in Iranian cinema. But the lasting power of<em> In the Land of Brothers</em> lies in the indelible performances of its actors, whose humanity lends a specific perspective on the struggle of living as a refugee in Iran &mdash; but that will be recognizable around the world.&mdash;SS</p>

<p>In her feature-length debut director Paula Ďurinov&aacute; sets out to wander among varied rock formations in order to try and come to terms with the loss of her grandparents. Different stages of grief unfold among the sea currents, the dark caves and the volcanic wasteland, while the strings of an autoharp resonate in the ravines. Lapilli finds a unique balance between the personal and the environmental in a modernistic requiem full of perceptive observations on natural phenomena and on man himself. This is a work that excels in its inner strength and rare film language, where sea waves reflect shifting thoughts, and where the erosion of arid soil is reminiscent of a broken heart filled with memories of people who are lost to us forever.</p>

<p>While Sigmund is always away on business, Maria juggles her career with childcare and managing the home. Like many other relationships, theirs was also all about love and harmony in the early stages, however, after years of married life, the cracks started to appear. Sigmund is ultimately the one to ask for a divorce, and Maria is forced to confront her greatest fears. While ostensibly a divorce drama, this debut by writer-director Lilja Ingolfsdottir nevertheless takes us further, delivering a multilayered character study of a woman experiencing a crisis that leads her to self-knowledge. Loveable isn&rsquo;t a story about the quest for true love; on the contrary, it takes a fresh approach to examine contemporary ideas of romance, equality within the relationship, and the power of womanhood.</p>

<p>A family of five lives together in an old village house. While the parents are slowly aging, the children are growing up, and it is clear that they will soon go their own way. This unchanging rhythm of everyday life is disrupted by the unexpected news of the mother&rsquo;s pregnancy, and the idea of a new sibling gradually affects all members of the household. March to May is an understated, intimate portrait of family togetherness, which is often expressed in the smallest of ways. An unassuming yet highly original story, filmed with the same tenderness and patience with which nature awakens every spring.</p>

<p>A group of young adventurers sign up for one of the most challenging military training courses in Latin America, which will turn them into fearsome warriors operating in the dangerous VRAEM region, an area with a military presence identified for its heterogeneous armed groups, coca plants and narcotics trafficking.​ In his absorbing look at the hermetically sealed world of the army, debut director Paolo Tiz&oacute;n paints a portrait of one institution while depicting individual human stories and reflecting on male identity, the potential for self-determination, and a fragile masculinity that stands in striking contrast to the brutal training. Sensitivity alongside violence, beauty alongside vulnerability.</p>

<p>One evening, one apartment, five leftist students, and one vision of a non-violent socialist revolution. When this gathering is interrupted by the unannounced visit of two members of a right-wing movement, things quickly spiral out of control. Turkish director Burak &Ccedil;evik uses long takes and an enclosed space as a canvas onto which his ensemble cast&rsquo;s strong performances paint a story reflecting the turbulent political situation in 1978 Ankara. How far are people willing to go for their political beliefs, and how much can the ideology of a group influence the behavior of an individual? Nothing in Its Place holds up a mirror to more than one revolution.</p>

<p>Drama, Family, Siblings, Coming of Age</p>

<p>The pig-killing fest on an old farm is a tradition Karel looks forward to every year. It&rsquo;s the only chance for the whole family to get together, have a good time, engage in a squabble or two, and enjoy some great food. But this time things are different. The butcher hides the fact his cartridges are damp, grampa can&rsquo;t bring himself to tell Karel, recently widowed, that this slaughter will be their last, daughter Lucie is depressed after her marital breakup, and grandson Du&scaron;&iacute;k runs away while his parents argue over whether he&rsquo;s old enough to watch the kill. As for Karel, the pig&rsquo;s blood spilling everywhere is the last straw... Adam Martinec&rsquo;s feature debut is a remarkably incisive study of the Czech temperament which, through its visceral character portrayal and searing humour, evokes the masterworks of the Czechoslovak New Wave.</p>

<p>When Sandro&rsquo;s father decides to devote his existence to God and leaves for a monastery, the teenage introvert finds himself deprived of the fundamental certainties of life. Abandoned by his father and his mother, who is working abroad, the young man embarks on a journey of self-discovery, opening up both to a new friendship with the radical Lasha, who has ties with an ultra-right organisation, and also to the chance to explore his own sexuality. George Sikharulidze&rsquo;s perceptive feature debut considers how fine the line is between the observer and the observed, and asks where contemporary post-Soviet Georgian society is heading as it hovers on the border between religious conservatism and nationalisation on the one hand, and the desire for independence and modernisation on the other.</p>

<p>After Han is released from juvenile prison, where he served seven years for killing an opponent in a fencing match, he meets his younger brother and insists on his innocence. Jie believes him, and the torn brotherly bond begins to heal. Behind their mother&rsquo;s back, Han helps Jie perfect his fencing skills so that he can qualify for the national championships. But the initially energetic clinking of sabres is slowly drowned out by silent doubts: is Han really innocent? Nelicia Low&rsquo;s gripping atmospheric thriller offers a nerve-wracking duel between the ideals of brotherly love and the illusions that we project onto those close to us.</p>

<p>Acclaimed filmmaker, activist, Sakharov Prize-winning former Kremlin prisoner, and soldier Oleh Sentsov is currently defending his homeland as a lieutenant in the Ukrainian army, which he joined in the first days of the Russian invasion in February 2022. During one assault, his infantry fighting vehicle was destroyed by enemy artillery. His attempts to organize the evacuation of part of his unit were complicated by the lack of ammunition and incessant Russian fire. The name of the operation was Real, and Sentsov&rsquo;s eponymous film is a unique immersive experience that offers a hyper-documentary insight into the reality of the war through the eyes of one direct participant.</p>

<p>An unsettling drama about a marriage which is steadily losing its spark. Momoko (Noriko Eguchi) leads a respectable life as a housewife. She dresses elegantly and ensures that the apartment looks just right, down to the last detail; she attends to her husband assiduously and goes to great lengths to cook him proper Japanese food. Are these expressions of love, or rather paranoia from the emotional chasm that has opened out between them? And when does devoted care become an obsession? A psychologically precise case history of a spent relationship, in which long suppressed pain has risen to the surface. A film that examines the dark corners of human frustration and hysteria, where the desire to create something good develops into the urge to destroy.</p>

<p>Desolate after experiencing a traumatic incident, Nia travels to the family&#39;s summer retreat amid the snow-covered Himalayas in order to regain her strength. There she finds the company of the caretaker&rsquo;s mother-in-law, Bhemi, and her grandson, Sunny. Irrespective of their differing ages, social background and their ideas of happiness, a surprisingly strong bond develops between them, which cannot be broken, not even by the arrival of someone who drives Nia straight back into her trauma. This visually mesmerising film offers an authentic and vivid depiction of the process of coping with female pain and demonstrates that a second chance might emerge where we least expect it.</p>

<p>What is Europe? In his highly topical personal essay, Vadim Jendreyko travels across the old continent to discover its essence in places that might be called acupuncture points of European identity. His various stops include the bottom of the Rhine, Greek docks, the European Parliament, a primeval forest in Poland, and a Sarajevo library. All of these places invite ambivalent reflections: on the one hand, they celebrate Europe&rsquo;s diversity and the breadth of its cultural heritage; on the other hand, they are symbols of turbulence, conflict, and bloody history. Is Europe condemned to be stuck in a vicious circle of violence, or is there hope in those who try to sing the songs of others?</p>

<p>The hotel room as a place where everybody is a stranger. A place that is yours for just a moment. A temporarily intimate space entered by a maid in order to clean it while, if possible, not leaving a single trace of her visit. Each part of the episodic Stranger is set in just such a place. One episode equals one shot. One shot equals one story. What they have in common is China, the home country of both guests and staff, although each of their lives differs from the others. The film&rsquo;s absurd, darkly humorous, poignant, and mysterious stories are set in a seemingly confined space that nevertheless opens up new and surprising dimensions with each episode.</p>

<p>One of the most important women in British modern art, the painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham was a highly inspirational figure, whose work was deeply impacted by a pivotal event in her life. In May 1949, this leading representative of the modernist St Ives group of artists climbed to the top of the Grindelwald glacier in Switzerland, an experience which was to transform the way she saw the world. She spent the rest of her life capturing its shapes and colours, indeed its very essence. In his essayistic portrait documentarist Mark Cousins delves into complex themes of gender, climate change and creativity, while laying bare the artist&rsquo;s character and vast imagination so pervasively that he creates the impression we are seeing the world through her eyes.</p>

<p>Pě&scaron;&aacute;ci, &quot;Attention aux hommes!&quot;, &quot;Tanečnice&quot;, &quot;Opakov&aacute;n&iacute;&quot;&hellip; These are just some of the string of hits by Prague band Tata Bojs. Always energetic, capable of myriad transformations, precise in their conceptual approach to the visual and musical interpretation of individual albums and concerts. It&rsquo;s no surprise that Marek Najbrt (Champions, Protector, Polski film) decided not to go for the conventional documentary. He tells the band&rsquo;s story as a playful collage, pieced together from a wealth of archive material and recordings of concerts and futuristic stage performances with the Vosto5 theatre company. Thus, unfolding before our very eyes is a portrait of a highly original band which, despite the alternative nature of its output, has earned its rightful place among the country&rsquo;s top players.</p>

<p>Just as he does every year, dad flies from sunny Portugal for a three-day visit to the Netherlands, the drab country of his birth. He has his usual errands to run and he visits his doctor for his annual check-up, accompanied by his eccentric grown-up son&hellip; This intimate film offers a glimpse into the relationship between two men who have grown apart yet, as they engage in seemingly mundane activities, little by little they try to find their way back to one another. Three Days of Fish, the second outing by Dutch filmmaker Peter Hoogendoorn, is a gentle drama, interlaced with the dry humour typical for the region. The director&rsquo;s feature debut Between 10 and 12 premiered at the Venice IFF.</p>

<p>Am&aacute;lka is six years old. She loves her cat, her parents, and her gran and grampa. It&rsquo;s summertime and all the little girl could wish for is for the day to turn out just as it should. Except that things are different. Her parents have shut themselves in a room and she can hear raised voices through the door, which isn&rsquo;t normal. Something&rsquo;s going on and Am&aacute;lka has no idea what it is. In a superbly creative direction from Beata Parkanov&aacute;, Tiny Lights follows a family break-up as perceived by a child: Through the keyhole, ear pressed to the door, everything seen at adult waist height. Each day has to end, and this one has brought Am&aacute;lka to the point of no return. She feels the hurt as she drifts off to sleep, but she has also grown up a little.</p>

<p>&ldquo;I collect. I document. I write down my memories. I&rsquo;m afraid they&rsquo;ll disappear.&rdquo; This is how Victoria Verseau introduces her intimate documentary diary, in which she returns to Thailand and to the year 2012, when she underwent gender-affirming surgery. She had long awaited this moment, but then came feelings of uncertainty, amplified by the death of a close friend. The conceptual artist adopts an almost archaeological approach to the past and lays bare the process of writing a personal story that is intrinsically linked to the creation of her own identity. In this deeply felt debut she reveals the joyful aspects and also the dark recesses of transition and, bringing other testimonies into play as well, she critically examines what defines women as women.</p>

<p>A lonely middle-aged woman lives her monotonous life. Every morning, she goes to her job as a supermarket cashier, and every day after work she goes straight home to look after her ailing mother and the rest of the family. Nobody, however, seems to care. Then, the mysterious murder of her boss sets off a chain of events at the end of which she can be free and find her own worth. How to describe her journey? Perhaps best as a sexual odyssey, an exploratory expedition to places where an important role is played by carnality, desire, and its gratification. Tropicana is a subtly enigmatic reflection on conservatism, prudery, and the false ideal of physical beauty.</p>

<p>Within the first month of Russia&rsquo;s invasion of Ukraine, more than 12.5 million people were forced to flee their homes and 5 million fled the country altogether. Documentary filmmaker Antonin Peretjatko returns to Lviv with Andrei, who has left with his family for France, to retrieve Andrei&rsquo;s personal belongings and to explore his own roots, but most importantly to record eyewitness testimony from people who have remained in Ukraine. Part reportage documentary and part poetic road movie with an aesthetic style reminiscent of the early French New Wave, Voyage Along the War tries to share with the viewer what everyday life looks like in a war-torn country.</p>

<p>One might think that Czech and Slovak filmmakers have already said all there is to say about the period around 1968 in Czechoslovak history. As Jiř&iacute; M&aacute;dl&rsquo;s latest outing shows, however, this crucial era in our modern history still has forgotten stories to offer that are worthy of our attention. The film revolves around the international news office at Czechoslovak Radio, a place full of talented individuals possessing broad insight, linguistic skills, and above all a commitment to honest journalistic work with a focus on the truth. An epic, dynamically shot, rewarding film, which embraces uncommon heroism in the face of an oppressive regime, the strength of fraternal ties, and the eternal themes of love, betrayal, morality, and hope.</p>

<p>After years away Kaloyan returns to his native Bulgaria in order to sell his late father&rsquo;s flat. What at first seems like a routine task devoid of emotion gradually develops into a journey to the depths of his being, where he is confronted with distant traumas, yet he also strikes a new path towards self-discovery. While childhood is filled with sensations and the rustling wind, adulthood is a state of fragile, windless and fading memories of those closest to us. Vesnakov delivers colourful existential reflections on the nature of family bonds and personal identity over the course of time. Yet he also muses on modern-day Bulgaria, where the cemeteries of its original inhabitants are being replaced by shady casinos, and where cultural memory is waning in a country deceived by an illusory vision of economic prosperity.</p>

<p>Xoftex is a Greek refugee camp, where Syrian and Palestinian asylum seekers anxiously wait for news of their refugee status. To pass the time between interviews with the immigration office, Nasser and his friends film satirical sketches and make preparations for a zombie horror flick. Except that the reality of the camp could be taken for a horror scenario itself. The tension between its inhabitants gains momentum and every conflict removes one more brick from the wall which divides reality from dream &ndash; or, indeed, nightmare. Fragments of real life, humour, and the unimaginable suffering of people risking their lives to escape their own country, merge into an explosive, at times, surreal spectacle which invites the viewers to immerse themselves in the story and the lives of immigrants in a way they will never have experienced before.</p>

<p>The walker with the shaved head and dressed in a red robe is barefoot. He walks slowly but determinedly through the forest, over stones and grassland. He also makes his way through the shadows of trees and houses. He sets foot in the train station, the church and the museum. The sun rises and sets again. The walker passes through Washington, D.C. Another stranger is also on the move in the city. We are unsure whether or not he is following the walker.<br /> Tsai Ming-liang began his Walker series in 2011; this is now the tenth film. In the role of the monk, his long-time collaborator and lead actor Lee Kang-Sheng travels all over the world. The figure is inspired by Xuanzang, a Tang Dynasty Buddhist monk who journeyed thousands of miles on foot between China and India.</p>

<p>Theodora Remundov&aacute;&rsquo;s documentary portrait looks at Iva Janžurov&aacute;&rsquo;s dramatic and comedic roles in both film and theater, as well as the roles she has played in her family and in social and political life. The director (Janžurov&aacute;&rsquo;s daughter) has created a film filled with the truthfulness, sincerity, and capacity for self-reflection of a woman who has devoted her life to acting. The use of clearly staged scenes is combined with an openly acknowledged effort to avoid the kinds of clich&eacute;s usually found in biographical documentaries to create an organic whole that provides an overview of Janžurov&aacute;&rsquo;s pivotal roles while also sharing highly personal and intimate moments from her life.</p>

<p>A meek word processor in New York impulsively travels downtown to Soho for date with an attractive, but apparently disturbed young woman, and finds himself trapped in a nightmarishly surreal vortex of improbable coincidences and farcical circumstances.</p>

<p>While a gamer uploads a testimonial video to denounce the harassment she suffers in a video game, a stranger enters her home and hacks her computer, blurring the boundaries between the real and virtual worlds.</p>

<p>Beyond the giant trees, the subtle ferns, the hungry caves and the generous glens, in the forests there are voices that root those who visit these landscapes. They are the echoes of a more bestial and fair time, where a thunderbolt is a divine finger and a cloud is a shelter. It is in this scandal of reasonable magic and living ghosts where the sky unfolds downward and impregnates the earth with edible, medicinal and deadly colors. The rains are the council of the gods. CARLOS DOMVILLE</p>

<p>In Mumbai, Nurse Prabha&#39;s routine is troubled when she receives an unexpected gift from her estranged husband. Her younger roommate, Anu, tries in vain to find a spot in the city to be intimate with her boyfriend. In Mumbai, Nurse Prabha&#39;s routine is troubled when she receives an unexpected gift from her estranged husband. Her younger roommate, Anu, tries in vain to find a spot in the city to be intimate with her boyfriend. A trip to a beach town allows them to find a space for their desires to manifest.</p>

<p>Roses, glitter, jockstraps. God&rsquo;s gaze is everywhere, even in a gay sauna, especially when the steam rising above it veils a hint of danger. In his latest film, Joseph Wilson confirms once more his status as a filmmaker with an extraordinary sense of queer aesthetics; here he again shifts&nbsp;between elements of camp and authentic experience, between provocation and endless playfulness. An exhilaratingly intense adventure, with more kick to it than a puff from a&nbsp;bottle of poppers.</p>

<p>For his feature film debut the director took on an extremely challenging assignment &ndash; to transfer one of Franz Kafka&rsquo;s novels to the big screen. He settled on the early prose work&nbsp;<em>The Man Who Disappeared</em>, which nevertheless already contains all of the author&rsquo;s key motifs, primarily the angst-ridden, solitary hero, and the surrounding reality as a labyrinth full of absurd situations and incomprehensible demands. In order to evoke the protagonist&rsquo;s grievous states and the perils of his estranged world, Mich&aacute;lek made inventive use of expressionist film idioms: copious details of faces and gestures, scenes with no backdrop, steeped in chiaroscuro, and a score brimming with dissonance. The&nbsp;sets depicting the American urban landscape are markedly reminiscent of Fritz Lang&rsquo;s&nbsp;<em>Metropolis</em>.</p>

<p>A journey through the material that makes up our habitat: concrete and its ancestor, stone, and their impact on a changing planet.</p>

<p>It&rsquo;s certainly no coincidence that moviemaker and militant revolutionary Masao Adachi opted to make a film based on one of Franz Kafka&rsquo;s last and undeniably most exquisite short stories,&nbsp;<em>A Hunger Artist</em>, which the writer was still editing the day before he died. The body of the fasting artist does, indeed, show signs of sacrifice in the form of a real and metaphysical struggle against everyone and everything &ndash; like the film director, who decides to leave his homeland, put down his camera and take up arms in the battle for the liberation of Palestine. The hunger artist &ndash; just like the filmmaker or the fighter &ndash; expresses the ascetic concept of creative art, according to which the artist&rsquo;s truth and destiny lie in his ability to come as close as possible to death. Once we make the decision to fast, we have to fast forever.</p>

<p>Amedeo, an army officer on leave, travels to Rome genuinely intent on having a private audience with Pope Paul&nbsp;VI. This peaceful mission comes to the attention of a Vatican police commissioner, who sends Amedeo on a roller-coaster jaunt involving a series of absurd situations, from his arrest and harassment from officials and the Pontifical Swiss Guard, to an improbable affair with a high-class prostitute. For many months, Amedeo stumbles through Vatican officialdom, desperately searching for someone to help him. What Ferreri originally intended as a faithful filmic adaptation of Kafka&rsquo;s&nbsp;<em>The Castle</em>&nbsp;became a tragicomic allegory loosely inspired by the novel, exploring the intricate labyrinth of relationships between the citizen and Power.</p>

<p>Three women in a Marseille apartment gets stuck in a heat wave. They find themselves trapped in a terrifying affair and longing for freedom.</p>

<p>Through the lens of her father&rsquo;s camera, she looks back at a period of her childhood of which she can remember nothing. Twenty years after surviving cancer, she searches for traces of the illness between scars and desires.</p>

<p>This short mockumentary film provides unique insight into the life of Jon&aacute;&scaron; Vdoleček of Prague, a member of the mostly unknown baroquesexual minority. To baroquesexuals, Baroque art is an object of desire, love, and sensuality &ndash; and Jon&aacute;&scaron; is the first to open up about the topic on camera.</p>

<p>Battery Mommy works at a nursery. One day, she finds out the Christmas tree in the nursery is on fire. She urgently runs to the fire alarm to safely rescue the sleeping children.</p>

<p>A filmmaker consistently unafraid to wade through the weird miasma of contemporary life, Bertrand Bonello (<em>Nocturama; Coma</em>, NYFF60) works from the outside in, dramatizing the psychological toll of the political and cultural world around us. Here he has created a dynamic and disturbing parable that jumps between three different time periods (1910, 2014, and 2044) to diagnose our acute&mdash;and perhaps eternal&mdash;feelings of estrangement and alienation. Using Henry James&rsquo;s haunting 1903 short story &ldquo;The Beast in the Jungle&rdquo; as his film&rsquo;s provocative inspiration, Bonello tells the story of a young woman (L&eacute;a Seydoux) who undergoes a surgical process to have her DNA&mdash;and therefore memories of all her past lives&mdash;removed. In so doing, she realizes her fate has long been intertwined, for better and worse, with a young man (George MacKay). Touching on modern anxieties of AI and incel culture, which may recur throughout history as commonly as love and hate,&nbsp;<em>The Beast</em>, like all good science-fiction, asks essential questions about the ever-shifting status of humanity itself.</p>

<p>The woman&rsquo;s dead, but her hair still looks great. This film compilation arranges scenes from the series&nbsp;<em>A Case for Two&nbsp;</em>in chronological order and demonstrates how the fetishisation of the female body developed or, rather, froze to death in this popular German crime series. Bare ankles, lace necklines, perfect make-up: even hanged women have to look good.</p>

<p>Within my walls, many people are taking a break. Waiting to&nbsp;live.</p>

<p>A cantor in a crisis of faith finds his world turned upside down when his grade school music teacher reenters his life as his new adult bat mitzvah student.</p> <p><em>Between the Temples</em> is a rare, offbeat comedy buoyed by its casts&rsquo; lively yet heartfelt performances. Indie stalwart Nathan Silver reteams with co-writer C. Mason Wells for a script that delivers both jokes and emotional depths with a confident hand. Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane are a natural fit as our loving leads, while the rest of the film is peppered with a way-too-funny cast including <em>Triangle of Sadness&rsquo;</em> standout Dolly De Leon and comedy writing legend Robert Smigel. They create a film that delights in frenzied misadventure while being carefully driven by a warm heart and loving embrace of human connection.&mdash;CS</p>

<p>When Kathy (Comer, Killing Eve) encounters Benny (Butler; Elvis, SFF 2022) at a biker bar, she&rsquo;s adamant that she wants nothing to do with his motorcycle club The Vandals. But the attraction is visceral, and they&rsquo;re married within weeks. The mercurial Benny is also utterly devoted to Johnny (Hardy), the family man who founded The Vandals. Once a hangout for two-wheel enthusiasts looking for a good time, the club grows and the membership becomes increasingly hard to control. Kathy finds herself having to compete for her husband&rsquo;s attentions. Inspired by Danny Lyon&rsquo;s &lsquo;60s book of photographs depicting the club and its members, The Bikeriders is an epic and thrilling portrait of a clan-like subculture and the ties that bind.</p>

<p><em>Bliss Point</em>&nbsp;indicates the optimal dose of food additives required to achieve desired palatability for the consumer.&nbsp;<em>Bliss Point</em>&nbsp;is also the culmination of a trilogy, in which Gerard Ort&iacute;n Castellv&iacute; traces the journey undertaken by food products as they make their way to our table. Buffeting us with alluring images, this aesthetically honed film follows the various stages a food item has to go through in order to stimulate our taste buds. At the same time, however, Castellv&iacute; calls into question the scramble for perfection, where functionality is placed above humanity.</p>

<p>After a random encounter outside a nightclub, a young house painter ends up at an afterparty with a charming couple, only to find himself trapped in a power game between the two, who use him as a prop to relight their flame.</p>

<p>A middle-class family&rsquo;s fate becomes intertwined with their only son&rsquo;s enigmatic new friend in post one-child policy China, putting unspoken secrets, unmet expectations, and untended emotions under the microscope.</p> <p>After an incident at their private school, Wei, an only son from a middle-class family, and Shou, a quiet, highly perceptive boy, find themselves connected through some mysterious energy that draws them intimately into each other&rsquo;s lives. In his feature debut, writer and director Jianjie Lin elegantly unfurls a story where, just under the surface of family dinners, polite manners, and daily school and extracurricular activities, lie dark truths and hidden yearnings threatening to explode into sight. With an arresting, sharp style and a unique sensitivity to the socioeconomic status of its characters, <em>Brief History of a Family</em> is an exciting new expression of Chinese film on the world stage.&mdash;SS</p>

<p>The Orbis Pictus probe is about to carry a golden plate with information about planet Earth to extraterrestrial civilizations. The film, based on a fictitious situation, captures the modern problems of today, but above all the issue of humanity. Thanks to the space probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 in 1977, the golden plate carried the records of human life into space. Its task was to inform possible extraterrestrial civilizations about our existence. But the mission failed. Now it&#39;s the turn of the Orbis Pictus probe and the new gold plate. But what to record on it? Do we need to present an objective picture of humanity? What is the world really like, what should the message be to the space population? Positive or negative, we ask for help or attract them to us. Who are we as humans?</p>

<p>Director Lina Soualem traces the history of four generations of Palestinian women in her family by pointing the camera at her mother, actress Hiam Abbas, of&nbsp;<em>Succession</em>&nbsp;fame. In playfully recreating moments from Abbas&rsquo; life in Palestine, Soualem pays tribute to her mother while creating a record of the political and cultural issues of her lifetime. &ndash;&nbsp;<em>Murtada Elfadl</em>&nbsp;</p>

<p>Noelte&rsquo;s adaptation of Kafka&rsquo;s novel&nbsp;<em>The Castle</em>&nbsp;was unlucky to have been nominated for the Palme d&rsquo;Or at Cannes in a year when the festival was cancelled half way through due to student protests (the same could be said of the submissions from three of his fellow contenders, Czech filmmakers Forman, Němec and Menzel). The film features Maximilian Schell as the land surveyor K., who arrives to take up a post in a small village, yet everyone claims he was hired by mistake. Thanks also to Schell&rsquo;s superb performance, Noelte succeeded in crafting a haunting cinematic vision of the terrifying dimension of power, applied through the agency of bureaucracy and hierarchical order. Noelte also added layers of the comic and tragically grotesque, elements so fundamental to Kafka&rsquo;s world.</p>

<p>A masterpiece by Jean-Marie Straub and Dani&egrave;le Huillet, based on themes from Kafka&rsquo;s novel&nbsp;<em>The Man Who Disappeared</em>. For the cinematic version of the tale of young Karl Rossmann, from his arrival in the New World to his encounter with the Theater of Oklahoma, the legendary filmmaking duo went for a distinctly political angle, clearly reflected in the film&rsquo;s title as well. &ldquo;<em>For us, Kafka is the only great poet of industrial civilisation, namely, a society&nbsp;in which people depend on their work to survive</em>.&rdquo; America represents something of a dream for Rossmann, adrift in a world which is difficult to understand, and strewn with blind optimism and untold violence. Straub-Huillet shot almost the entire film in Hamburg and, in order to achieve the authenticity of the original text, they incorporated the specific dialect favoured by Kafka.</p>

<p>It&rsquo;s been twenty years since filmgoers first saw this stylistically polished relationship drama for four players, based on the celebrated play by Patrick Marber. Through this cinematic endeavour, director Mike Nichols, already well&nbsp;respected at that time, if not fully appreciated, sparked&nbsp;memories of two key films from his early career,&nbsp;<em>Who&rsquo;s Afraid of Virginia Woolf&nbsp;</em>and&nbsp;<em>Carnal Knowledge</em>. Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts and, above all, Clive Owen who, in his role as Larry, earned one of the film&rsquo;s two Oscar nominations, shifted an erotically charged story of love, manipulation and betrayal to the realms of a modern classic with its critically acclaimed combination of magnetic performances and disarming stellar potential. &nbsp;</p>

<p>Mona and her colleagues attend a teambuilding event aimed at improving cooperation within the team. But the course of the workshop is far from easy. Mona is unable to maintain her leadership position on the team, her colleagues are confused, and their instructor is almost unbearably optimistic and constructive. To make matters worse, Mona learns that she has been the subject of an anonymous complaint for inappropriate workplace behavior... A tragicomedy from the corporate world, where interpersonal ties and friendship compete with ambition, where being promoted is the greatest goal of human existence.</p>

<p>Lia, a retired teacher, has promised to find her long-lost niece, Tekla. Her search takes her to Istanbul where she meets Evrim, a lawyer fighting for trans rights, and Tekla starts to feel closer than ever.</p>

<p>Mila struggles as she remains unpaid at work and finds comfort in a love interest through his constant phone calls. But a promise of hope may also lead to tragedy<br /> and sad love songs.</p>

<p>Spain on the Noche de San Juan holiday. As so often, the sisters Jessica and Alma are on their way to the Caritas aid station. Although they experience violence at home, the two try to break the cycle and treat each other with love.<br /> &nbsp;</p>

<p>Curiosa tells the story of overly curious Mary, who visits her boyfriend&rsquo;s flat for the first time, just to discover it&rsquo;s been stripped bare of all personal belongings. After being denied an explanation, she climbs into his head.</p>

<p>More than 40 years ago, we sent Vladim&iacute;r Remek into space. He thus became the first astronaut of non-American or Russian origin to do so. And it&#39;s not the only thing we&#39;ve succeeded in space research. The six-part documentary series is dedicated to the achievements we have experienced in the field of space exploration in our history. It shows well-known stories, but also those that have not been given such attention. It places everything in an important societal context influenced, for example, by the Star Wars between the West and the East. As part of the program block, we will screen the third and sixth parts. The sixth episode will bring us back to our present day and explore what questions and topics are relevant in today&#39;s space research.</p>

<p>In the early 1860s, two immigrants, Vivienne (Krieps) and Holger (Mortensen), meet and agree to settle down together in the quiet town of Elk Flats, Nevada. The fiercely independent Vivienne refuses to be married, but she and Holger build a life together, finding joy and beauty even amid the harsh conditions. When Holger decides to fight in the Civil War, however, Vivienne is left to fend for herself in the town controlled by the corrupt Mayor Schiller (Danny Huston), his business partner Jeffries (Garret Dillahunt) and his unhinged son Weston (Solly McLeod). In his second film as director following 2020&rsquo;s Falling, Mortensen creates a riveting and moving portrait of a strong woman making her way in a world of ruthless men.</p>

<p>Aspiring actor Edward undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his appearance. But his new dream face quickly turns into a nightmare, as he loses out on the role he was born to play and becomes obsessed with reclaiming what was lost.</p> <p>Writer-director Aaron Schimberg&rsquo;s latest film is a surreal, singular tale of one man&rsquo;s desire to self-actualize. Sebastian Stan is Edward, a man overcome by the reality of his appearance, intent on curing his alienation and transcending his self- and socially-enforced artistic potential. Adam Pearson and Renate Reinsve carefully embody foils to Edward&rsquo;s ambition; an artistic and philosophical juxtaposition of his, and our, conceits.</p> <p>Through a haunting score, Lynchian approach to story, and folkloric magical realism, a unique psychological thriller emerges. A stylish vision of the theatrical currents of New York stages a universe where reality and fiction blend in beautiful ways; where lies, expectations, and internal turmoil weave a man&rsquo;s consequentially incipient senses of truth and becoming. <em>A Different Man </em>is a reflexive allegory for the modern tortured artist; a subversive, gothic fairytale that deftly begets obsession.&mdash;CA</p>

<p>Taking its title from the tactical protest strategy of the same name &ndash; &ldquo;an action that seeks to achieve an end directly and by the most effective means&rdquo; &ndash; DIRECT ACTION is a contemporary portrait of one of the most important militant activist communities in France &ndash; a 150-person strong rural collective that survived multiple violent eviction attempts by the French state, successfully resisted an international airport expansion project, created an autonomous zone from 2012-2018, and spawned a remarkable new ecological movement in 2021. Through a collaborative and uniquely immersive observational approach, DIRECT ACTION documents the everyday of a diverse ecosystem of activists, squatters, anarchists, farmers and government-labeled &ldquo;eco-terrorists&rdquo; &ndash; so as to better understand how the success of a radical protest movement can offer a path through the climate crisis facing us all.</p>

<p>It&rsquo;s the dormouse&rsquo;s birthday party, and its friend the bear wants to bake a cake. But they are both unexpectedly overcome by the need to hibernate.&nbsp;</p>

<p>The Lunies family has not really been a family for a long time. Lissy Lunies, in her mid-70s, is quietly happy when Gerd, her husband who is slowly wasting away from dementia, is put in a care home. But her new-found freedom is short-lived: diabetes, cancer, kidney failure and the onset of blindness signal that she does not have much time left herself. Meanwhile, her son Tom, who is a conductor, is working on a composition entitled &ldquo;Dying&rdquo; with his depressive best friend Bernard. Tom&rsquo;s ex-girlfriend Liv wants him to be the surrogate father of her child. His sister Ellen begins an affair with a married dentist with whom she shares a passion for alcohol and intoxication. But everything in life has its price. Confronted with death, the estranged family members finally meet again.</p>

<p>Teenagers Anna and Josef grew up in a strict religious sect. When the whole group gathers by a forest lake to perform a baptism on its youngest member, the two of them decide to run away. They disappear into the woods, but soon discover that they are completely unprepared for life outside their community. Special Jury Mention in the National Competition at the 18th Pragueshorts Film Festival 2024.</p>

<p>Electra reflects on her tenth birthday; mixing memories, dreams, and hidden fantasies into a harrowing, mixed-media collage of a scarred adolescence.</p>

<p>A masseuse returning to the dating scene falls for a man who turns out to be the ex-husband of one of her clients in Nicole Holofcener&rsquo;s charming, perceptive rom-com &ndash; one of the century&rsquo;s finest. The initial meet-cute and intermittent splashes of zaniness give way to a gentle, bittersweet meditation on middle-age anxieties, loneliness, and the lingering emotional void parenthood can only cover temporarily. Holofcener&rsquo;s first collaboration with&nbsp;<em>Seinfeld</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>Veep</em>&nbsp;star Julia Louis-Dreyfus,&nbsp;who received a Golden Globe nomination for her role, this is&nbsp;the director&rsquo;s biggest commercial hit to date, notably featuring the penultimate performance of&nbsp;<em>The Sopranos</em>&nbsp;icon James Gandolfini in the warmest, most affable turn of his&nbsp;storied career.</p>

<p>A teenager flunks an oral school exam, following a seemingly benign question asked by his teacher. Questions over why the boy was failed ignite a nationalistic debate, in Hungarian director G&aacute;bor Reisz&#39;s powerful, multi-perspective, state-of-the nation drama.</p>

<p>&ldquo;Beid, Hafsa, Melissa, Manessa, Mohammad&hellip; 25 children and their dedicated teacher. We wanted to find out who they are&hellip; to discover their skills and strategies, their joys, fears, wants and needs.&quot;<br /> (Ruth Beckermann)<br /> <br /> More than 60% of all children in Viennese elementary schools do not have German as their first language. At the same time, there is an acute shortage of teachers and tutors. These adverse conditions are the starting point for Ruth Beckermann&#39;s FAVORITEN, in which the Austrian filmmaker (The Waldheim Waltz, Mutzenbacher) accompanies a Viennese elementary school class over the course of three school years. The result is an astonishingly cheerful portrait of an unusual community.</p>

<p>Are you looking for reassurance that your beloved is The One, that your partner is truly for life? Then visit the Love Institute, a scientific organization that will test the mutual compatibility of people who have decided to embark on life&rsquo;s journey together. It is here of all places that the incurable romantic Anna finds a job, temporarily mentored by the thoughtful and sympathetic Amir. Greek director Christos Nikou&rsquo;s tender and absurd romance with a touch of sci-fi will delight even audiences who tend to avoid anything that is even remotely &ldquo;science fiction.&rdquo; Co-produced by Cate Blanchett, the talented Nikou&rsquo;s second outing (his debut&nbsp;<em>Apples</em>&nbsp;instantly made him one of the most sought-after directors today) features disarming performances by Jesse Buckley and Riz Ahmed.</p>

<p>Loosely inspired by General Custer&rsquo;s defeat at the Battle of Little Big Horn, the first Western in John Ford&rsquo;s &ldquo;Cavalry Trilogy&rdquo; presents the ambitious Lieutenant Colonel Thursday (Henry Fonda), who is bitter at being reassigned to a distant outpost. When the Apaches go on the warpath, all the warnings of the hardened Captain York (John Wayne) are in vain. One of the first films to portray the original inhabitants of the North American continent with respect and understanding,&nbsp;<em>Fort Apache</em>&nbsp;is one of many films that contributed to the iconic status of Monument Valley, using the local scenery as the stage for a thrilling depiction of watershed moments in the history of the conquest of the American West.</p>

<p>Almost a quarter of a century separates Fran&ccedil;ois Truffaut&rsquo;s debut&nbsp;<em>The 400 Blows&nbsp;</em>and his final film,&nbsp;<em>Confidentially Yours</em>. A life dedicated to film; twenty-one feature films largely reflecting the life of an ultimate cinephile obsessed with cinema. Shortly before his tragically premature death, Truffaut shared the ups and downs of his childhood and adolescence with his longtime friend Claude de Givray, without shying away from more painful memories. Unfortunately, the ailing filmmaker did not live to complete the planned autobiographical &ldquo;Screenplay of My Life.&rdquo; David Teboul has woven much of Truffaut&rsquo;s life into a documentary portrait full of previously unpublished material from the life of one of the most beloved French directors of the 20th century.</p>

<p>This short film by eminent Japanese animator K&ocirc;ji Yamamura, adapting Kafka&rsquo;s short story of the same name, re-creates the Kafkaesque experience &ndash; a combination of unnatural terror and&nbsp;incredibly dark humour &ndash; with the aid&nbsp;of the traditional Japanese comic theatre known as&nbsp;<em>kyōgen</em>. All the action is distorted and, at the same time, subjected to unsustainable ridicule.</p>

<p>Franz Kafka is working on his&nbsp;<em>Metamorphosis</em>, but he&rsquo;s suffering from writer&rsquo;s block; he can&rsquo;t get off on the right track. While trying to decide what Gregor Samsa is going to wake up as, he is constantly interrupted by door-to-door salesmen, young women, and his own inexplicable hallucinations. The film, whose title combines&nbsp;the name of the celebrated author with the cult family classic by Frank Capra, won the 1995 Oscar for best short live-action feature.&nbsp;</p>

<p>To live in a trailer surrounded by vegetation, insects and slugs, in a place you&rsquo;d never guess was right in the middle of Berlin, might be a lifetime&rsquo;s ambition or perhaps it&#39;s simply a temporary hideaway. Some of those we encounter in this intimate, but never invasive, lyrical documentary are currently in a process of transition, while others are &ldquo;merely&rdquo; looking for love and closeness. The observational approach makes for a truly authentically populated film, whose testimony transcends the scope of individual narratives, and whose sense of detail helps to create the agreeable atmosphere of a languid summer afternoon. Are we viewing a documentary about people once united in the now dissolved Mollies collective, or are we watching ephemerally poetic love stories as they unfold?</p>

<p>After graduating from high school, a group of teenagers from small-town Oregon go on a road trip to the coast some 500 miles away. The five good friends set off in a van in high spirits and begin a rollercoaster of adventures and extraordinary encounters with odd passersby, hobos and hippies&mdash;a modern version of Kerouac&#39;s On the Road. On foot, by freight train and by boat, they hope to reach the famous &ldquo;Party at the End of the World.&rdquo;</p> <p>The friends talk about their uncertainties and problems, musing in voice-over or with new best friends they make along the way. What will the future hold when they return home? There&rsquo;s no shortage of inspiration and new ideas in the meetings with the free-thinking, hippie-like residents of Oregon.</p> <p>The filmmakers play with reality and fiction, as they did in their previous projects that are an ode to typical American phenomena, in this case the road trip. There is room for emotion and sadness, but also loads of fun in the endless freedom of skating, sleeping under the stars and smoking a lot of weed&mdash;all under the motto: &ldquo;Fuck it.&rdquo;</p>

<p>In a strict boarding school nestled in the Himalayas, 16-year-old Mira discovers desire and romance. But her sexual, rebellious awakening is disrupted by her mother who never got to come of age herself.</p> <p>With precision and sensitivity, first-time feature director Shuchi Talati invites us into the lives of characters she intimately understands and deciphers, allowing us to experience adolescent sexual discovery with all its conflicting emotions. Preeti Panigrahi embodies Mira with nuanced sincerity, her hesitation transforming into confidence when she&rsquo;s swept up by Kesav Binoy Kiron&rsquo;s charismatic, wry Sri. Kani Kusruti, meanwhile, gives a brilliant performance as Mira&rsquo;s cunning mother, Anila, setting up the perfect game of mother-daughter chess as these women descend into a struggle that threatens their affection for each other. Beautifully exploring the origins of empowerment and the limits of trust, <em>Girls Will Be Girls</em> celebrates the freedom of self-acceptance and the solace of female agency, sensuality, and physicality.&mdash;AS</p>

<p>Copenhagen 1919: A young worker finds herself unemployed and pregnant. She meets Dagmar, who runs an underground adoption agency. A strong connection grows but her world shatters when she stumbles on the shocking truth behind her work.</p>

<p>It is late 18th century in Venice, and in a convent school for girls Teresa, a girl with prophetic gifts, joins forces with some amazing music-makers. They create a new kind of music that is pop, bright and bold, and challenge the ancient and rigid system.</p>

<p>Twelve-year-old Adam from the Slovak village of Utek&aacute;č can do any job you ask of him. He is strong, brave, and very active. He earns his own money, his life is completely in his own hands, and his friends admire him for it. Adam says all this about himself, but the truth is perhaps a little different. Set to a folk rhythm, Slovak director Katar&iacute;na Gramatov&aacute;&rsquo;s hybrid documentary brilliantly uses the tools of cinema, a sense of subtle humor, and provocative irony to tell the story of one Romani boy and one remote village where life is far from easy.</p>

<p>Beneath the earth a family is born, whose members come into the world bursting through a pile of sodden&nbsp;leaves. Father, mother and son are forced to live together, imprisoned in this dark, reproductive mechanism. The child, who is a perpetual lightning rod for his father&rsquo;s rage and is often left on his own, plants a seed in his bed, which germinates into a grandmother. David Lynch, who, for years, entertained the idea of making a feature based on Franz Kafka, had already anticipated similar&nbsp;thoughts in&nbsp;his third short film. Using a combination of live action and animation, he explores territory, whose atmosphere is reminiscent of&nbsp;<em>The Metamorphosis&nbsp;</em>and&nbsp;<em>Letter to My Father</em>.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Edward, civil servant, flees fiancee Molly on their wedding day in Rangoon, 1917. His travels replace panic with melancholy. Molly, set on marriage, amused by his escape, trails him across Asia.</p>

<p>Totone&#39;s carefree teenage life of drinking and dancing takes a turn when he must provide for his 7-year-old sister. Seeking income, he channels his energy into producing an award-winning comt&eacute; cheese to claim a competition prize.</p> <p>The film tells the story of 18-year-old Totone, who spends most of his time drinking beers and going to balls in the Jura with his gang of friends. But reality catches up with him: he has to look after his 7-year-old sister and find a way to earn a living. So he sets out to make the best Comt&eacute; cheese in the region, one that will win him the gold medal at the Concours Agricole and 30,000 euros.</p>

<p>Is family something we are born into, or is it something we build over the course of our lives? Who creates family? And can it be created artificially? Goran Stolevski&rsquo;s third feature film tells the story of Dita, a social worker who is forced to take on the role of mother and to deal with various steps necessary for giving a group of &ldquo;dropouts&rdquo; family support. But this diverse bunch of characters bursting with energy is like a bomb waiting to go off. A crushing portrayal of the complexity of interpersonal relationships and social roles,&nbsp;<em>Housekeeping for Beginners</em>&nbsp;premiered in the Orizzonti competition at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the Queer Lion award<strong>.</strong></p>

<p>A brother and sister are hibernating. Only the sister wakes up. Human hibernation blurs the boundary between people and animals. A thought experiment equal parts sci-fi and meditation shot in searing images.</p>

<p>Nina, a young and headstrong exotic dancer, finds herself stranded in the far North. She convinces her recent customers, five men on a bachelor hunting trip, to put her up for a few days. In this masculine microsociety, by turns hilarious and philosophical, Cynthia starts to feel a sense of belonging she never has before. But a mysterious stranger&rsquo;s arrival changes the course of this improvised holiday forever. Both raw and dreamlike, Hunting Daze offers up a unique universe where humour, horror, the uncanny, and the sensual combine.</p>

<p>The self-contained world of the swimming pool forms the stage for a conflict between Vio and her classmates, with whom she does not get along. The worst is Sara, a master of subtle innuendo, which each time becomes more personal and thus more painful. The entire situation leads to an inevitable clash that might just bring catharsis and change the two girls&rsquo; relationship forever. The pastel-hued setting of the swimming pool contrasts sharply with the darkly sad world of adolescent girls searching for their place in the classroom and in life.</p>

<p>Federico Fellini is at Cinecitt&agrave; Studios making a film based on Kafka&rsquo;s novel&nbsp;<em>The Man Who Disappeared</em>;&nbsp;during breaks between scenes, he responds to questions put to him by a Japanese television crew. Fellini reminisces about the past and about a certain brand of filmmaking which has possibly disappeared forever. Together with Marcello Mastroianni he sets off to visit Anita Ekberg at her villa, where they re-live the era of&nbsp;<em>La dolce vita.&nbsp;</em>In the meantime we are given&nbsp;an increasing number of references to the works of Franz Kafka, whom Fellini often described as his favourite writer. In the end Indians on horseback appear in the mix as well, while elephants and a thunderstorm almost destroy the film set. The movie, like its literary model known also as&nbsp;<em>Amerika</em>, remains unfinished.</p>

<p>Sergei Loznitsa questions the consequences of the invasion of one country by another.</p>

<p>For an exhibition that ultimately never took place, the Centre Pompidou asked the filmmaker to reply, in pictures, to the question:<em>&nbsp;&ldquo;Where are you at, Leos Carax?&rdquo;</em>&nbsp;His attempt at an answer is itself full of questions about himself and &ldquo;his&rdquo; world:&nbsp;<em>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know, but if I were to reply, I would say&hellip;&rdquo;</em>&nbsp;Such is the genesis behind the aptly titled self-portrait&nbsp;<em>It&rsquo;s Not Me</em>. In this essayistic collage, cult&nbsp;self-taught filmmaker Carax looks back at his childhood, assesses his first attempts at filmmaking, revisits his recent works of cinema, and interweaves personal history with world history. This forty-minute assault on the viewer&rsquo;s senses, filled with material sure to inspire post-film discussion, had its world premiere at this year&rsquo;s Cannes Film Festival.</p>