Playlist
<p>After a Palestinian teen confronts Israeli soldiers at a West Bank protest, his mother recounts the series of events that led him to that fateful moment, starting with his grandfather’s forced displacement.</p>
<p>A year after the premiere of her documentary debut Lapilli, Paula Ďurinová returns with an entirely different, yet equally sensitive film entitled Action Item. This activist anatomy of burnout, set in Berlin, interweaves the observation of community sharing with a more experimental montage. The work takes note of the myths associated with individualistic society yet, at the same time, it conveys sincere moments of solidarity between individuals who aren’t afraid to speak of their anxieties. This is both a personal and also very human film, which invites us to take a break in these hectic times, when burnout doesn’t necessarily mean the end; on the contrary, it might be a new beginning, where individual pain is gradually transformed into the power of collective sharing.</p>
<p>Jérémy and Baptiste encounter one another quite by chance, yet they quickly realise they have something in common: the desire to feel good about themselves once again and to find a solution to their receding hairlines in order to achieve this goal. Their shared journey to Istanbul to receive hair transplants develops into a surprisingly intimate experience during which, alongside new heads of hair, a fragile bond starts to grow as well. In his feature debut Manoël Dupont follows the two men with a sense of empathetic detachment and an appreciation for fine detail and humorous dialogue. The film likewise gently explores the themes of queer identity, vulnerability and human intimacy. The pair’s meanders through the Turkish metropolis heighten the atmosphere of the quest – namely the search for beauty in things that aren’t perfect.</p>
<p>The uniqueness of filmmaker Miro Remo resides, among others, in the originality of the questions his films raise. His latest outing, a work which loosely develops the theme explored in the book of the same name by Aleš Palán and Jan Šibík, provocatively asks whether it’s possible to spend your whole life in a single place. As if harking back to a bygone era, twins František and Ondřej Klišík have made the stubborn decision to do just that. Crazy eccentrics or charismatic, possessed storytellers? It seems that they never grew up; viewed through the lens of so-called civilisation, their world shows signs of absurdity. Yet, in their genuine bucolic enchantment, they offer us all the chance to distil our source of inspiration, those of us who sometimes tire of conformist adherence to order.</p>
<p>It’s the early 1990s and 13-year-old Karolína, a gifted novice singer, is given the chance to become a member of a world-famous girls’ choir, taking her place alongside her older sister and her other rivals in the ensemble. Everything points to the fact that Karolína’s exceptional talent has caught the attention of the formidable and much admired choirmaster. This highly anticipated psychological drama calls to mind not only the notorious case of Bambini di Praga, but also other devastating situations involving the clash of innocence and abusive authority. In a work entirely free of sensationalism, Provazník demonstrates focused humility and extraordinary sensitivity towards his fledgling actors as he depicts an exclusive world, in which desirable prestige goes hand in hand with premature coming of age.</p>
<p>A devoted single mother dreams of a solo vacation in Italy at her friend's house, but when arrangements collapse, she must bring along her disabled teenage son on what was meant to be her private escape.</p>
<p>Afghanistan under the brutal rule of the Taliban. After surviving her family’s massacre, Leila has just one goal in life: to find her son Omid. But in a country where being a woman means being less than nothing, her chances are desperately slim, and so she chooses an extreme and dangerous solution. She radically changes her identity and sets out on a path where even the slightest hesitation can mean death. In her masterfully crafted second film, Turkish director Gözde Kural applies her familiarity with Afghan society in order to tell a story of oppression that forces individuals into roles – be it borrowed masculinity or forced femininity – that they would never accept in a free country.</p>
<p>At the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, Wim Wenders invited several of his esteemed colleagues to a hotel room, where he filmed their reflections on the future of film. This exclusive documentary survey, Room 666, inspired two Czech producers to engage in a similar undertaking in collaboration with the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. During last year’s festival, they thus invited around thirty Czech or Czech-based filmmakers from all generations and asked them “what makes Czech film Czech?” The result is an exciting mosaic not just of views and opinions, but also of mannerisms and personalities.</p>
<p>War is primarily a human tragedy, but we should not forget that nature typically suffers with us. The documentary film Divia is a darkly immersive meditation which brings to light Russia's unprecedented aggression on Ukrainian soil and its grievous impact on places that issue their indictments in silence: forests turned to ash, fields ravaged by explosions, flooded towns, or rusted hulks of military hardware in devastated regions, where life has faded away. But nature doesn’t just give up and, like her, neither does man and his ambiguous existence. As one side brings destruction, the other – mine clearance personnel, people searching for bodies, ecologists – quantifies the aftermath of the tragedy and restores fragile Ukrainian ecosystems, even while the horizon rumbles on.</p>
<p>Eva is a popular teacher who is married to the local mayor. Although he has betrayed her trust, she still plans to support his election campaign, and so she starts to volunteer at a local refugee center. Here, she grows close to eighteen-year-old refugee Amir, who charms her with his poetic talents. But the closer they get, the less control she has over the situation. A drama about forbidden love, Don’t Call Me Mama confronts its protagonists with a moral test while provocatively exploring how hypocrisy can masquerade as generosity. Taking full advantage of her experience as a casting director, Nina Knag gets outstanding performances from actors Pia Tjelta, Kristoffer Joner, and Tarek Zayat.</p>
<p>Seeing the lack of care that her elderly neighbor Elsie is receiving from so called professionals, Colleen takes it upon herself to care for her. However, Colleen's intentions may not be what they seem.</p>
<p>Czardas of Two Hearts, In the Slovak Valleys and I Love You are just some of the hits which turned pop singer Karol Duchoň into a household name more than four decades ago. At a time when the young generation is rediscovering the legacy of the “Czechoslovak Tom Jones” outside the context of his heyday, Peter Bebjak (The Line, Nineties) presents a stirring portrait proving that the concepts auteur cinema and big audience can coexist in a single, highly appealing endeavour. The film version of Duchoň’s dramatic fate relies on the stage play by Jiří Havelka and Róbert Mankovecký The Earth Remembers (Zem pamätá), and preserves the way in which it looks back at the Normalisation era, without rash judgement, yet with subtle irony.</p>
<p>The signing of the peace accord between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas in 2016 led to the formation of the Search Unit for Missing Persons. The act of finding and identifying the missing was thus seen as essential for rebuilding a nation, whose identity is shaped by those who disappeared. This experimental essay interweaves three stories: a female director reconstructing the life of a dead transgender woman through film; an intimate study of the filmmaker’s family, who also dealt with a missing relative; and the testimony of forensic pathologist Karen Quintero. This formally unremitting work finds a compelling balance between the personal and the political, adding conceptual reflections on the texture of the region, on cartography, and the unspoken traumas of Colombia’s modern history.</p>
<p>In his fourth feature film Davi Pretto takes the viewer into the near future, where the development of artificial intelligence has brought with it increasing neurological problems. And this is what’s troubling 40-year-old protagonist K, who has lost his memory and can’t remember where he is from. The desolate man has to find out where he really belongs, and his journey through an unidentified city proves absurd, almost tragic. In the context of the ruling caste system, this low-budget dystopia articulates class inequality in contemporary Brazil, moreover, it touches on environmental issues and uses AI to create scenes in the film. The result is formally stimulating, engagé and, at the very least, cautionary.</p>
<p>How Come It's All Green Out Here? is a 114-minute drama directed by Nikola Ležaić. While specific plot details have not been widely disclosed, the film is part of the Proxima Competition at the 2025 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, indicating a focus on innovative storytelling and emerging voices in cinema. The film is a co-production between Serbia, Croatia, and Bulgaria, and it marks a significant entry in Ležaić's directorial portfolio.</p>
<p>Jimmy Jaguar, aka Jagu, is a demon who drifts from soul to soul, awakening something dark within. His hosts become vessels of revenge. But whose revenge? And why do their victims, chosen with no clear pattern, all seem to share the same eerie trait? They are alive only because “it is against the law to kill them”. Bence Fliegauf’s latest film – following his acclaimed works from Berlin and Locarno – unfolds across the vast, unforgiving plains of Hungary, where silence hangs heavy and secrets sleep beneath the soil. Listen closely, and you might hear the silence rumble with threat… or catch echoes of a buried past. Or perhaps it's the demon calling – because Jagu needs us all.</p>
<p>Spring is in the air, and Nicolau has just turned twenty-four years old, but he doesn’t feel like throwing a big party. He is beginning to sense that his dream of being a professional musician is falling apart, he still lives with his parents, and he pines for his former girlfriend. Though he lacks the energy to move forward, fate throws several opportunities his way to take control of his life again. With his debut feature – a sun-drenched Lisbon tale about the carefree naiveté of youth that brings to mind the films of Rohmer – João Rosas follows on not just his shorts Entrecampos (2012), Maria do Mar (2015), and Catavento (2020), in which he depicted Nicolau’s childhood and adolescence, but also the legacy of earlier Portuguese auteur filmmakers.</p>
<p>In the middle of the lake lies an island – silent, abandoned, without the clear promise of anything unusual. Bětka, her older sister Marie, and their friend Alma are spending the summer here, the days flowing like still water. When they randomly visit the island, the natural landscape around them begins to change – and the emotional one inside them as well… Vojtěch Strakatý’s second feature film is a gentle study of girlhood, the yearning for a different world, and the fragile search for happiness, which may lie elsewhere – or not exist at all. In a poetic Bohemian summer where the buzzing of insects mixes with the sound of the rustling grass, we observe the girls’ friendship as something mysterious and half-dreamed. The only thing we know for sure is that the other side of summer is when summer ends.</p>
<p>After many years, Suzanne and her two children unexpectedly show up at the home of her sister Jeanne. It initially looks like Suzanne is tentatively attempting to re-establish a relationship with her sister. But this illusion is shattered with the morning light: Suzanne is gone… Nathan Ambrosioni’s intimate film is a portrait of a woman forced to become a mother to children she barely knows. His minimalist, yet profoundly empathetic storytelling lets the audience observe the slow process of coming together, the fears and hesitations of the newborn family, and the absurdities of the non-functioning state apparatus. A French reflection on the fragile nature of co-existence born of necessity, and how strong it can be when born out of love.</p>
<p>15-year-old Enrique, or Eňo to his friends, is spending the summer with his gran. His time with her is interspersed with rather infrequent visits from his mother Martina, who works far away; all the same, the boy hopes she’ll take him back with her soon. However, contact with his mother dwindles, and her presence is gradually replaced by unflattering village gossip. Enrique decides to investigate the truth. Like her previous short film A Good Mind Grows in Thorny Places (2024), director Katarína Gramatová’s feature debut is also set in the desolate village of Utekáč, where the flaking walls of the houses bring to light the often sombre reality of present-day Slovakia. The leads are played superbly by non-actors, real inhabitants of the Slovak valley, from where it seems an endless distance to the sky above.</p>
<p>David has served his time in juvenile detention. His sincere attempts to restart his life as a free individual with better prospects, however, are hindered by a society that can’t overlook the fact that he has a criminal record, nor is it particularly willing to give him a second chance. Will David be able to cope with his increasing feelings of frustration, or will he succumb once more to the lure of crime? Steffen Goldkamp’s feature debut relies on surgically precise direction, carefully constructed atmosphere, and also the discreet empathy with which the filmmaker discovers the intimacy of his antihero hovering on the edge of society. With his softly nuanced performance Noah Sayenko excels in the main role.</p>
<p>After a wildfire takes the family farm, a rancher seeks a way forward.</p>
<p>29-year-old Ilona and her boyfriend have just moved into a new apartment in a block of flats. When the building’s renovation begins soon afterwards and she befriends Oleg, one of the Ukrainian construction workers, her idyllic notions of a fulfilling life as she approaches thirty start to crumble, like the old plaster on the walls. Gabrielė Urbonaitė’s feature debut is a masterful, contemporary portrayal of the lives of millennials, who on the one hand are exposed to modernity, endless possibilities and Western Europe's constant pressure to perform, while on the other they still carry the traumas of previous generations brought up in the Soviet Union, whose shadows are still alive in the face of current political events.</p>
<p>Emma and Hasan don’t know each other, but they have much in common. Most importantly, they are both sand thieves. Emma steals it for kitty litter, Hasan for making homemade glass. One day, their lives are disrupted by the discovery of a severed finger, and they learn that the human psyche can shatter as easily as glass… William Blake saw the entire world in a grain of sand, infinity in the palm of the hand, and eternity in an hour. In his debut film, Bangladeshi director Mahde Hasan plucks Blake’s words from the page and blows them across Dhaka until they stick to his protagonists. It is an oppressive portrait of a city full of sand, blended with a stylistically refined elegy about the flow of time, personal privacy, destruction, and the tear-filled valleys of our inner worlds.</p>
<p>During the Olympic Games, an unexpected bond forms between a hearing-impaired American and a free-spirited wanderer in the vibrant streets of Paris.</p>
<p>The long-awaited, first Czech Viet-feature is finally here! This authentic portrayal of a community that has become an organic part of modern Czech history is brought to us courtesy of Dužan Duong, a standout, exceptionally talented representative of the first Vietnamese generation to grow up in the Czech Republic. The third millennium has hardly begun and 17-year-old Kien with his crazy red hair returns to his family and their market stall in Cheb after ten years spent in Vietnam. However, instead of the warm welcome he had anticipated, he finds an estranged father, a careworn mother and a younger brother who doesn’t cut him any slack. Told with lightness and wit, this story about cross-generational conflict and much else besides is an affectionate and bold milestone in the debate on cultural identity.</p>
<p>The moment they greet each other at their friends’ wedding, we know that Leili and Pasha were once a couple. But something split them apart. We see their story in flashback. The start of their romance was literally explosive, and it looked as if Pasha wouldn’t survive. But their mutual attraction would not be deterred by his burns and his slight concussion, and the couple slowly moved from an initial infatuation to a more serious phase in their relationship, when it was time to make more difficult decisions than where to go for dinner. And thus came the moment of separation… A charming mix of genres, Iranian director Ali Behrad’s second feature film is a vibrant portrait of Tehran and its inhabitants, who lose none of their élan even in the face of a difficult political situation.</p>
<p>A tender horror flick, an experimental melodrama. Any attempt made to categorise this unconventional cinematic experience seems inadequate. Greek director and musician Alexandros Voulgaris, a.k.a. The Boy, brings us an unusually intimate, yet expressively powerful study of an artist on the brink of middle age. All fears, anxieties and hopes are embodied in the character of Margo, a songwriter who was once famous but who now isolates herself in her apartment. A party held to celebrate her 40th birthday and the emotions that are born there unexpectedly help Margo enter a new stage in her life.</p>
<p>Hayk, an introverted child, lives with his aunt Narine in a remote Armenian village. While Narine cares for him as if he were her own son, Hayk is finding it difficult to fit in with the local teenagers, who amuse themselves trying to toughen him up. When his young mother Anahit returns home after a lengthy period abroad, she upsets the patriarchal order in the village with her striking appearance and rebellious nature, ultimately inciting a conflict for which no-one is prepared. This cryptic, visually and aurally mesmerising film, viewed through the eyes of a child forced to grow up too soon, is dominated by the all-pervading motif of the wind. Its rustling stirs the tension in a radicalising conservative society, while its wailing heralds the irreversible consequences of raging human emotion.</p>
<p>Germany, September 2014. A Syrian refugee camp has opened on the outskirts of Berlin. Visual artist and filmmaker Ammar al-Beik has a cubicle assigned to him for seven months and, in order to survive here, he has to film, document, and rebel against the conditions of life in exile, and also against the established rules of documentaries and features. His phone camera is always switched on; he transforms his tiny room and the entire dismal compound into a universe with its own laws. Ammar’s explosive film is the result of ten years of editing; the intensive autobiography intersects the history of Europe and the Middle East, and film history, too. The singular cinematographic form is flanked with memorable individuals who, like exiled Ammar al-Beik, are merely searching for freedom and truth.</p>
<p>It’s the end of summer. Danielius, a new father in his mid-thirties, leaves his family in Norway and travels to his native Lithuania to sell his parents’ flat. He tries to reconnect with old friends, but the strong bond he once had with them is now broken. Instead of rushing back to his young family to escape the deafening loneliness, he decides to stay, allowing himself to be guided by his solitude. In his feature debut, director and cameraman Vytautas Katkus indirectly builds on his own short filmmaking endeavours, in which he works deftly with an authentic space familiar both to himself and his protagonists, while at the same time adopting a loose conception of time. Here, time seems to have stopped completely in a world which lights up the fragility of the human soul and images of a home that is no longer ours.</p>
<p>After a period of thirteen years Pere Vilà Barceló returns to the Crystal Globe Competition with an uncompromising, introspective probe into the soul of a girl who is sexually abused. The heroine of his sixth film is Gaia, a young archaeology student, whose relationship with herself, and with those around her, is forever marked by a traumatic event. Initially, Gaia cannot find the words to describe her situation, let alone the courage to speak about it. Eventually, however – like an archaeological excavation – she begins to uncover fragments of the past in order to piece her life together. The Catalan filmmaker was able to provide a realistic depiction of her situation by choosing to emphasise the actual process of coping with the trauma, a process which can't be rushed.</p>
<p>Defeated in combat, Ángel returns home to his village in a remote part of the Peruvian Andes. When he arrives, however, he finds the place has completely changed. What was the 18th century is now the present day. What has become of the ideals of the revolution he fought for? The people who live in Peru today, what are they fighting for? The Anatomy of the Horses takes the viewer on a visually and intellectually stimulating journey through the space-time continuum, during which director Daniel Vidal Toche reflects upon whether the struggle against oppression and exploitation in Peru will ever come to an end. Through the character of Ángel, and also Eustaquia, a girl searching for her sister, he also questions whether revolutionary thinking should be consigned to the past.</p>
<p>A recently discovered conversation between photographer Peter Hujar and his friend Linda Rosenkrantz in 1974 reveals a glimpse into New York City’s downtown art scene and the personal struggles and epiphanies that define an artist’s life.</p>