I went through the film list of CPH:DOX to find gems I have seen and can recommend that you give a chance. In alphabetical order listing also which category they are in if that helps you. More information on the website of the festival https://cphdox.dk
80 Angry Journalists András Földes & Anna Kis Urgent Matters Journalism matters (sorry!) more than ever in a world of fake news and the unmentionable in the White House.
Amilcar Miguel Eek Backstory A subjective, intimate portrait of the African revolutionary Cabral. Pure poetry.
Below the Clouds Gianfranco Rosi / Highlights Rosi is a brilliant auteur, I saw the film in Paris on a big screen… Napoli, people, Pompeii, he has a special handwriting.
Christiania Karl Friis Forchhammer DOX:Award As Christiania is our neighbour four months per year, we go there often from our allotment garden. The film has it all, maybe too much and yet I miss a stronger focus on the beautiful houses that many inhabitants have built… that I always show when foreigners come to visit.
Double Trouble Emilia Śniegoska Highlights (PHOTO) These two ladies living in a Polish minority village in Romania. Warm, full of humour.
Holy Destructors Aistė Žegulytė Artists & Auteurs Aisté is a huge talent and “Her film is innovative, to say the least; it is attractive and fascinating, surprising in its narrative, serious and full of humour, and full of admiration for the Lithuanian conservators, who are in the film, doing their holy work restoring the skeletons of important noble people and altar pieces, to be shining like never before.” Quote from my review in fimkommentaren.dk
Kabul Between Prayers Aboozar Amini Urgent Matters First prize in Warsaw at Watchdocs. We – in the jury – stated: “This film invites the viewer to a world rarely seen from the inside. With precision, care and without judgment, it shows the human faces of ideology and regime not usually associated with sensitivity or ambiguity. This is a movie that carefully composes each frame, and tells both what is in front of our eyes and what is left out. We have been transported to an unknown, sinister world in a subtle and moving way. The movie maker is completely in control of his material and shows outstanding cinematic talent in every frame and scene.”
Silent Flood Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk Highlights A scenery at a river, hard to grasp because of a dense fog that slowly is lifting, accompanied by old voices off screen telling stories from the past. Stories about bridges that took people from shore to shore but were bombed and destroyed during two wars. The first and the second WW. And never built up again. An amazing opening of a film, that is the filmmaker’s prologue to a film, like one rich painting turned into a film. I felt like I was in a museum going closer and closer to a painting to discover… from my review of the film at filmkommentaren.
The Cord Nolwenn Hervé DOX Award A first-time female filmmaker, who lived many years in Latin America, it was shot in Venezuela. I wrote to the producer “It’s an impressive film. Because of Carolina. What a woman. And what she does! Compassion and practical help. I think the rhythm is fine, there is a nervous flow of energy in the editing that corresponds to her.” And CPH:DOX says “Drawing strength from a violent past, Carolina relentlessly preserves the vital cord between pregnant women and their babies.”
Dear Members of the International Film Community,We are reaching out on behalf of the representative associations of Association of Film Producers of Serbia (UFPS), Serbian Film Directors’ Guild (AFRS), DokSerbia – Documentary Filmmakers of Serbia, Screenwriters Guild of Serbia (USA), Serbian Society of Cinematographers (SAS), Association of Film Artists of Serbia (UFUS), Union of Film Animators of Serbia (UFAS), Association of Film Actors of Serbia and Association of Film and Television Sound Designers of Serbia (UDZS) to inform you of the alarming situation of cinema in Serbia.The Serbian film industry is currently facing a coordinated campaign of state-sponsored censorship. While Film Center Serbia continues to project a “business as usual” image internationally, the reality is a total freeze on funding calls designed to starve independent production.Instead of supporting the industry, the Ministry of Culture exercises open hostility, publicly branding filmmakers as “anti-Serbian” and labeling cultural investment as “wasted” funds.Film Center Serbia has announced no public calls for more than 14 months, despite having funds allocated in their budget. By not doing so, it is openly breaking Serbian law. Political interference, informal blacklists of filmmakers, and public attacks on artists have become systemic. Domestic projects have been excluded from accessing the public tax incentives, while previously approved cash rebate obligations to local and foreign investors remain unpaid.Filmmakers vocally critical of the authorities are systematically denied access to public funding, regardless of their professional track record and international recognition. The leadership of film and cultural institutions has been handed to political appointees with no professional qualifications, whose primary function is to act as gatekeepers and censors.These practices represent a serious violation of artistic freedom, transparency, and the rule of law. We call on the international film community and the European public funding institutions to be fully aware of the current conditions in Serbia and to raise their concern until lawful, transparent, and independent institutional film practices are restored.We, Serbian filmmakers, urgently call on your solidarity and active support in defending artistic freedom and protecting the integrity of cinema in Serbia.Sincerely,Association of Film Producers of Serbia (UFPS) Serbian Film Directors’ Guild (AFRS) DokSerbia – Documentary Filmmakers of Serbia Screenwriters guild of Serbia (USS) Serbian Society of Cinematographers (SAS) Association of Film Artists of Serbia (UFUS) Union of Film Animators of Serbia (UFAS) Association of Film Actors of Serbia (UFGS) Association of Film and Television Sound Designers of Serbia (UDZS)
Photo: Meeting of the Serbian film associations (photo by Djordje Arambašić)
A perilous character, that´s the title of the film, Douglas Gordon says to director Finlay Pretsell, when they are in the Berlin studio of the Scottish artist. I did not know the English word perilous, checked it and shook my head. No. I have no other suggestion and I think the one chosen is the right one. Gordon by Gordon, this is what it is, directed by Finlay Pretsell, poor guy I was thinking while watching, as Gordon is – an understatement – not an easy person to deal with for years I understand from the film, that includes a lot of dialogues, actually mostly monologues by Gordon telling Pretsell that he can´t make schedules for the shootings as he does not in advance, what is going to happen. He is right but what comes out in the film gives me, who knows about the artist, also from an exhibition in Denmark, a fascinating powerful portrait of a man close to his sixties, who as he says himself, has his head full of thoughts, ideas, memories… it’s never boring to be with him, also in archive, clips from 1996, when he receives an award, a young beautiful man till today 30 years later, a man with scars thinking and formulating sentences about Life and Death, a man with hernia (did I get that right?) that he puts plasters on the wound when settled?
Love and hate, it’s there already in the credits, Douglas Gordon loves D…, Douglas Gordon hates D. And the film opens with Gordon setting fire to cloths and other things in the studio. Dramatic as is the scene with the hernia and stopping blood to go to his hands BUT from there to Gordon or should I write Douglas with his soap bubbles towards the end of the film, wow for a change in time and mood. He performs, he calls his mother, he sings Scottish songs, he talks about the responsibility towards parents and sister and brother(s?) and children, blowing bubbles – there is something honest, fragile and beautiful in these scenes, it made me want to hug him – Finlay Pretsell does so on my behalf, wonderful!
Psycho scene in 24 hours, an elephant on the floor trying to sleep, Zinedine Zidane, clips from the fantastic football film, de Niro in the scene from “Taxi Driver”… and much more that I don´t know about from Douglas Gordon, now I know about him, loved him and loved the achievement of Finlay Pretsell, also a Scotsman like Gordon, who at a point tells the director “leave, I’ve had it” out from the studio, calling Pretsell several times to come back, I have a funny story to tell you.
What is happiness… to have a soap bubble stay on your nose. Watch this extraordinary film full of music in the studio as well, Siri play…!
96 years. Thank you for living that long! Thank you for giving us that many films about “the other America”. Thank you for being an immense inspiration for filmmakers all over the world. You appear many times on this site so this short farewell text will include quotes from some of them.
I owe a lot to Suzette Glenadel, who was the charismatic director of Cinéma du Réel in Paris in the 80’es. She was the one who introduced the films of Wiseman to me, when I visited the festival year after year. He was always there at the screenings and this love to France and French culture came through in “Crazy Horse”, “La Comédie Francaise” and “Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros”, (PHOTO) 4 hours of “uhmm” from a Michelin restaurant. “Welfare”, “Hospital”, “High School”, “National Gallery”, “Domestic Violence”, “Basic Training”, “Ex Libris: The New York Public Library”, I love them all and many more… About the latter Manohia Dargis wrote in NY Times: ““In his magnificent new documentary “Ex Libris: The New York Public Library,” Frederick Wiseman takes his camera into those halls as well as into more humble city branches. He sweeps into atriums and down corridors, pauses in reading and meeting rooms, and lays bare this complex, glorious organism that is the democratic ideal incarnate.” As educated librarian this is what I felt as well, when I saw it.
2. In Jackson Heights is about the “new face of America.” (In Jackson Heights is a new film project that Wiseman pitched at the Hot Docs).
3. Wiseman gets permission by asking for it.
4. Raising money is the most “demeaning” part of making a movie. 5. His shoots generally last four to six weeks.
6. Half of documentary filmmaking has nothing to do with filmmaking.
7. The filmmaker’s point of view exists between literal and abstract levels.
8. He never does research.
9. He never cuts a film to meet the needs of a broadcaster.
10. Self-distributing his films on DVDs has been successful.
11. The key to longevity in film is a good producer.
Wise words from a wise man, Wiseman, RIP
PS: I wanted to have a photo of Wiseman but am afraid of copyright – can´t afford buying rights. Instead the photo from the French restaurant film from the Zipporah webpage. Also please read what is written on their website: https://zipporahfilms.com THIS IS WHERE CONDOLENCES CAN BE SENT TO.
Rekordstort antal danske byer inviterer til dokumentarfilmfestivaler
Den 10.-25. marts 2026 står i dokumentarfilmens tegn. CPH:DOX’ landsdækkende initiativ, DOX:DANMARK, hvor mere end halvdelen af landets kommuner arrangerer deres egne lokale dokumentarfilmfestivaler, åbner nemlig biografdørene til mere end 400 filmvisninger, 200 events og et hav af spændende samtaler omkring dokumentarfilm i verdensklasse.
Interessen vokser hvert år
Siden CPH:DOX søsatte DOX:DANMARK tilbage i 2021, hvor ni kommuner deltog, er interessen i dén grad taget til. I år deltager 61 kommuner, og i hele festivalperioden vil biografer såvel som kulturhuse, kirker, højskoler, museer, forsamlingshuse, efterskoler, musikhuse og universiteter være engageret i dokumentarfilmenes univers.
”DOX:DANMARK har på mindre end fem år vokset sig til en størrelse, hvor vi som kulturbegivenhed kan siges at være landsdækkende. At danskere fra Bornholm til Skagen kan tage del i både filmvisninger, samtaler og events, udvider de perspektiver, festivalen ønsker at facilitere. Jo flere, der er med, jo bedre,” fortæller Niklas Engstrøm, der er kunstnerisk leder ved CPH:DOX.
I år er disse 61 kommuner en del af DOX:DANMARK: Albertslund, Billund, Bornholm, Brøndby, Brønderslev, Dragør, Esbjerg, Faxe, Fredensborg, Fredericia, Furesø, Faaborg-Midtfyn, Gentofte, Gladsaxe, Glostrup, Gribskov, Guldborgsund, Haderslev, Halsnæs, Hedensted, Helsingør, Holbæk, Holstebro, Horsens, Hvidovre, Høje-Taastrup, Hørsholm, Kalundborg, Kolding, Lejre, Lemvig, Lolland, Lyngby-Taarbæk, Mariagerfjord, MIddelfart, Morsø, Nordfyn, Næstved, Odense, Randers, Rebild, Ringsted, Roskilde, Rudersdal, Silkeborg, Skive, Slagelse, Struer, Svendborg, Syddjurs, Sønderborg, Thisted, Tønder, Varde, Vejle, Frederikshavn, Hjørring, Viborg, Ærø, Aalborg, Aarhus. Dertil kan man opleve CPH:DOX i København og på Frederiksberg fra den 11. til den 22. marts.
Helt særlige oplevelser i vente
”DOX:DANMARK er meget mere end dokumentarfilm vist i lokale biografer. De lokale arrangører har virkelig taget opgaven til sig og er med til at lave alt fra paneldebatter til fællesspisninger omkring de forskellige dokumentarer. Vi er virkelig glade for, at så mange danskere på tværs af landet kan deltage i de vigtige møder og samtaler, som dokumentarfilmene giver anledning til,” fortsætter Niklas Engstrøm.
Er man til GLADSAXE:DOX, kan man for eksempel opleve hele Danmarks stormvejrsekspert Jesper Theilgaard i forbindelse med dokumentarfilmen Stormbound. VEJLE:DOX inviterer til visning af marinebiolog-dokumentaren A Life Illuminated på byens gamle vandværk, og ved visningen af We Want The Funk dokumentaren i VENDSYSSEL:DOX kan man møde Ida Nielsen, der var bassist for legendariske Prince. Derudover kan man blandt andre møde Knud Romer, Brian Holm, Peter Aalbæk, Karen Mukupa og Casper Schrøder til events under DOX:DANMARK.
Fra Astrid Lindgrens verden til fristaden Christiania
De byer, der deltager i DOX:DANMARK, kan frit vælge mellem en udvalgt perlerække af de dokumentarfilm, der er på programmet under CPH:DOX. Dokumentarerne er både danske og internationale, og de berører emner om alt fra videnskab til politik og personlige historier.
Blandt de udvalgte film til DOX:DANMARK er A World Gone Mad – The War Diaries of Astrid Lindgren, som giver indblik i en helt ung Astrid Lindgrens virkelighed, Petrolheads, som er en ny roadtrip-dokumentar af Emil Langballe, og ikke mindst Christiania, der fortæller historien om hele Danmarks fristad. I alt er 24 dokumentarfilm på programmet til DOX:DANMARK. Byerne vælger selv, hvilke film de vil vise.
Fokus på en yngre målgruppe
Som noget helt nyt har DOX:DANMARK et særligt fokus på at ramme en yngre målgruppe. Dette kan både ses i filmudvalget og gennem samarbejde med blandt andet DFUNK, Sind Ungdom og ungdomshuse i flere byer. Efter den prisvindende dokumentarfilm A Fox Under A Pink Moon kan man opleve unge herboende flygtninge fortælle deres egne personlige historier, og i forbindelse med den animerede queer-dokumentar Bouchra vil der være fællesspisning med en lokal LGBTQ+-ungdomsforening.
Årets DOX:DANMARK-program er en sammensat bruttotrup af nogle af årets største dokumentarfilm på CPH:DOX-festivalen. De 61 satellit-udgaver af festivalen har frit kunne vælge imellem følgende dokumentarfilm:
A World Gone Mad – The War Diaries of Astrid Lindgren, Merckx – Race of a Champion, Alle os og siloen, Petrolheads, Patriarken, Myseriet om Menopausen, Christiania, Intelligence rising, We Want the Funk, Watching People Watching Birds, Everyone Is Lying To You For Money, A Fox Under a Pink Moon, Cambodianske Øldrømme, Techplomacy, Stormbound, Our Land, Bouchra, Molly vs the Machine, Museum, Tingbjerg-eksperimentet, Hjemsøgt, Mariinka, Little Sinner og HEX.
Nederst i denne pressemeddelelse findes beskrivelser af de enkelte film.
Programmet for de enkelte byer kan findes via oversigten her.
DOX:DANMARK er støttet af Kulturministeriet, DFI, Danmarks Radio, Spar Nord Fonden, Øernes Kunstfond, Lundbeck Fonden, Novo Nordisk Fonden, kommunernes kulturpuljer og/eller lokale fonde samt Udenrigsministeriet og CISU.
The program “Prisoners of Conscience + A Friend in Prison, Me Next to the Prison” will be shown Saturday the 14th at 13.00, more Georgian films follow, check the website https://wolfberlin.org/de.
From February 14 to 15, in cooperation with the Georgian Film Institute—a non-governmental initiative supporting independent Georgian filmmakers—we (Wolf Kino) will be showing a joint program of selected Georgian films from recent years for the second time.
What is happening cinematically in a country that has experienced a radical regression toward authoritarianism within just a few years? Georgia—a country with a deep-rooted cinema tradition that has produced poetic, rebellious images even under censorship—is currently undergoing a political and cultural upheaval. After years of democratic development and European orientation, the country is once again being subordinated to Russia against the will of its population: ruled and monopolized by an oligarch modeled on Putin. In response to increasing censorship, Georgian filmmakers have taken a united stand against the state. They are boycotting state funding structures so as not to become instruments of propaganda, and refusing to recognize a cinema that compromises with oppression. By 2023, over 450 filmmakers had already signed up to this boycott.
And yet Georgian cinema lives on. Despite a lack of financial structures, films continue to be made – driven by independence, solidarity, and resistance. Conscience of Georgian Cinema, which is also the institute’s motto at the EFM of the Berlinale 2026, brings together current films that reflect Georgia’s political and social processes through cinema. The short film program Prisoners of Conscience combines works by Salomé Jashi, Nutsa Salomé Alexi, Keti Machavariani, Elene Naveriani, and others about politically imprisoned people in Georgia. The films counter the state’s criminalization of pro-European protests with a cinematic counter-public sphere – as an act of witness and truth. On Another Stage by Teo Jorbenadze portrays the Georgian opera singer and world star Paata Burchuladze and his journey from the big stage to protest. The film was shot before his arrest in October 2025. He now faces up to nine years in prison.
Alexandre Koberidze’s epic experimental road movie Dry Leaf is about a father’s search for his missing daughter. The director’s father plays the lead role, and the score was composed by his brother. The film premiered in the main competition at the 2025 Locarno Film Festival and received a Special Mention.
The series is complemented by two new documentaries: Ketevan Vashagishvili’s 9-Month Contract, a haunting exploration of motherhood and surrogacy under precarious social conditions, and Kote Kaladze’s Nobody in Sight, a sensitive portrait of a young man hoping for a different life as part of addiction therapy.
Current feature films are also represented, including Luka Beradze’s social satire Congratulations Once Again, a fairy-tale-like short film about a New Year’s celebration that gets out of hand. The program is complemented by other works with an original, personal cinematic language, including Anka Gujabidze’s TemoRe, a humorous black-and-white photo adventure, and Dea Cholokava’s What Does the Mud Whisper, a sensitive cinematic portrait of the perceptual world of a six-year-old girl. The series concludes with Tato Kotetishvili’s docu-fiction film Holy Electricity, which won a Golden Leopard at Locarno and accompanies a teenager and his uncle on an odyssey through Tbilisi, addressing themes such as grief and masculinity with wit and profundity.
All screenings will be introduced by Mukhran Makharadze’s short animated film Saturday Cleaning, and after the screenings, the filmmakers in attendance will present their films and engage in conversation with the audience.
Accompanying the film series, 8000 Vintages will be presenting Georgian wines in our bar!
The film series was co-curated by Nana Ekvtimishvili (Georgian Film Institute) and Eva Buchmann (Wolf Kino).
The film program is presented in two parts: Prisoners of Conscience (Georgia 2025, 62 min) is a collection of eleven short films that brings together leading voices in Georgian documentary filmmaking, such as Salomé Jashi, Anna Dziapshipa, Tiku Kobiashvili, and others. Here, individual film portraits capture the political prisoners, the so-called “სინდისის პატიმრები/Sindisis Patimrebi” (English: prisoners of conscience), and their dramatic fate.
A Friend in Prison, Me Next to the Prison by Mari Gulbiani (Georgia 2025, 24 min) tells the story of Dato, whose friend is arrested at a demonstration and sentenced to 10 days in prison, whereupon Dato goes to Zahesi Prison and begins a solo protest. Soon his sister Salomé joins him. Standing side by side in the cold, their silent determination becomes a powerful symbol of friendship, freedom, and courageous commitment to the truth.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with directors Keti Machavariani and Salomé Nutsa Alexi.
directors: Keti Machavariani, Anna Dziapshipa, Salomé Jashi, Sandro Katamashvili, Tiku Kobiashvili, Levan Shubashvili, George Varsimashvili, Elene Naveriani, Vajiko Chachkhiani, Kote Chlaidze, Salomé Nutsa Alexi, Mari Gulbiani
Marketed as safe tools of public order, less-lethal weapons circulate globally. ARTIFACTS OF WAR moves between Europe’s arms fairs, archival material, and a forensic algorithm to explore how force is shaped, regulated, and audited.
Jorge Caballero / Anna Giralt Gris & Diego Pino Anguita / Artefacto Films / CangrejoFilms / Spain & Chile
At a turning point in history, two world leaders from very different backgrounds strike up a strange friendship and set out to change the world. This is the story of Bill & Boris – told through archival footage and in their own words.
Arthur Franck / Sandra Enkvist, Anders Lindström, Rémi Grellety, Sara Skrodzka, Esther Nissen & Thorvald Nilsen / Polygraf / IndieFilm Bergen, Warboys Films & Final Cut For Real / Finland, France, Denmark & Norway
In a devastated Slovak town poisoned by magnesite mining, six Roma children refuse to accept their harsh reality, finding refuge in imagination, friendship, and their dreams that become their only form of resistance.
Roman Ďuriš / Richard Šimeček, Michal Sikora & Albin Bourgeois / Svjetski Films / Lonely Production & Weplus / Slovakia, Czech Republic & France
COSMOFONIA intends to perform a shift in the very conditions of perception. At its core lies a radical cinematic gesture: a film whose soundtrack is composed almost entirely of sounds never heard before by human ears.
Véréna Paravel / Florence Cohen / Anna Lena Films / France
With the 2026 World Cup on the horizon, a banned betting influencer and a relentless investigative journalist expose how sports manipulation has evolved from scandal to business model, now threatening to destroy the game itself.
Lauren DeFilippo & Sam Soko / Amanda Pollak / Insignia Films / LBx Africa / Sweden, Kenya & United States
A group of young Palestinian filmmakers in Gaza overcome the tragic killing of their friend and use their tools of creative resistance to document their own genocide and their communities beyond the colonial lens of rubble and cardboard boxes.
Shourideh C. Molavi & Shrouq Alaila / Shourideh C. Molavi, Henry Plavidal & Laura Poitras / SCM Research / Palestine & Canada
FACE VALUE examines how advances in cosmetic medicine, digital culture and AI are reshaping global beauty norms and transforming algorithmic aesthetic ideals into increasingly compulsory standards that redefine women’s identity, agency, and self-worth.
Faye Tsakas / Riel Roch-Decter / MEMORY / United States
A fabled island of ruins has survived for generations thanks to an unlikely saviour – seaweed. Panchavarnam has spent a lifetime collecting this treasure. She now fights to save her sisterhood of seaweed, even as her daughter chooses another life.
Archana Phadke / Shaunak Sen, Aman Mann & James Wilson / Kiterabbit Films & Valentine Films / India & United States
In Mexico’s avocado capital, prosperity and violence grow side by side as communities fight to hold on to their land, their livelihood, and their future.
Ivonne Serna & Selim Benzeghia / Geoffrey Livolsi, Alex Pritz, Will N. Miller & Selim Benzeghia / Koudéta Films / Documist / France & United States
For Joud, a German-Palestinian-Syrian journalist, turning 40 means choosing love at all cost. Living across Berlin, Beirut, and Damascus, he documents his gender confirmation and political exile, negotiating a life where legal recognition, family history, and romance are divided by borders he must constantly cross.
Diana El Jeiroudi / Diana El Jeiroudi & Orwa Nyrabia / No Nation Films / Docmakers / Germany& Netherlands
In Nigeria’s ferocious fashion scene, three designers fight to escape erasure and reach Lagos Fashion Week’s runway — where visibility means survival. A story about who gets seen, who remains invisible, and the fragile ecosystem that depends on them all.
Nosarieme Garrick / Chioma Onyenwe / Black Gazelle Productions / Raconteur Productions / United States & Nigeria
LETTER TO ALVIN uncovers the life and work of Alvin Baltrop – a largely unrecognized but profoundly important African American artist who chronicled the LGBTQ+ experience at the fringes of New York’s waterfront in the 1970s and 1980s.
Göran Hugo Olsson & Hilton Als / Tobias Janson, Melissa Lindgren, Yona Backer & Joslyn Barnes / Story / Louverture Films & Third Streaming / Sweden & United States
Nobel laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk follows the scars of war across Ukraine’s wounded landscapes, carrying her own trauma into a global fight to recognize ecocide as a war crime. As her resolve meets the fragile promise of justice, she inspires us to find hope — and act.
Lea Glob / Sigrid Dyekjær, Eric Holland & Konstanze Speidel / Real Lava / Flare Film & DIM Filmhouse / Denmark, Germany & Ukraine
A genre-defying, cinematic documentary that explores the radical and under-explored transformations that occur in pregnancy and early motherhood, adapted from the groundbreaking book by Lucy Jones.
Kathryn Ferguson / Rosie Crerar & Eleanor Emptage / Tara Films & barry crerar / United Kingdom
Ewa lives in the shadow of her father’s crime — the assassination of an anti-apartheid leader in South Africa. Despite this, she fights for his release. When he returns to Poland after 30 years and joins the far right, she is forced to confront him.
Łukasz Kowalski / Łukasz Kowalski, Anna Mazerant & Signe Byrge Sørensen / 4.30 Studio / Final Cut For Real / Poland & Denmark
In a ballroom in Queens, NY, senior Asian American immigrants are transported through dance, revisiting worlds left behind and creating lives anew.
Hansen Lin & Siyi Chen / Siyi Chen, Hansen Lin, Clara Vuillermoz & Laurence Buelens / Queens Disco Production / SOLENT Production & Rayuela Productions / United States, France & Belgium
As the US dismantles decades of climate change legislation, an environmental activist strikes up an anonymous, online conversation with a climate skeptic. Shifting between the personal and scientific, can this dialog reveal any common ground?
Ra’anan Alexandrowicz / James Doolittle & Thomas Lennon / All Ages Productions / Once in a Blue Moon Films / United States
The film explores our passion for defeating death by tracing the Russian Cosmism – a 100-y-o movement influencing today’s biohackers and longevity enthusiasts. It is not only a film about how we can live forever but about what happens if we do.
Piotr Winiewicz / Henrik Underbjerg / Stray Dog Productions / Pressman Film / Denmark & United States
In a dreamlike 1950s town square built inside a warehouse, we will investigate our memory care crisis, the healing potential of filmmaking and the fragility of reality itself.
Robert Greene / Bennett Elliott, Susan Bedusa & Douglas Tirola / 4th Row Films / Square Peg Films / United States
An artist persuades his son to make a film about him — but as their visions collide the project unravels into an exploration on masculinity, the need to be seen, and cinema’s elusive promise of redemption from the ghosts that haunt and bind them both.
Beniamino Barrese / Harry Vaughn & Beniamino Barrese / Real Lava / Denmark
Over 3 years, beginning in 2023, a group of Palestinians and Israelis travel to Northern Ireland to learn how bitter enemies made peace. But as their own divided homeland descends into deeper violence, they struggle to make peace amongst themselves.
Yuval Orr & Aziz Abu Sarah / Margaux Missika & Liel Maghen / No Man’s Land / Upian / France, Palestine & Israel
An all-archival adventure documentary that explores the creation of the American Museum of Natural History. Through the interconnected histories of its extraordinary artifacts and the people behind them, the museum becomes a mirror for humanity’s longing to freeze time, amass treasures, and reflect on our place in the world.
Marley McDonald / John Cardellino / Unimerical Studios / future perfect / United States
The definitive story of Niki de Saint Phalle, a pioneering artist who blasted into the art world with a rifle, and became the architect of her own reality with her self-funded visionary masterpiece, the monumental Tarot Garden.
Matt Wolf & Svetlana Zill / Emmanuelle Lepers / Haut et Court Doc / France
THE SILENT NETWORK uncovers an organized movement that builds and spreads political and economic influence through hidden financial networks, revealing a Europe-wide threat to democratic institutions and human rights.
Pernille Rose Grønkjær & Noa Agnete Metz / Vibeke Vogel, Nina Leidersdorff & Malthe Koch / Danish Documentary / Up North Films / Denmark& Norway
A group of Palestinians investigate their personal histories in UNRWA’s formerly hidden archives. Interwoven with Israel’s assault on UNRWA, the film shows that preserving memory is an act of resistance, defying erasure.
What does the world look like for those standing exactly where history begins to fracture? Do they cling to the past, or reach for the future? The film tells the story of a political meteor strike — the chaos that follows, and the challenges of finding direction in a new and unfamiliar world.
Christoffer Guldbrandsen / Peter Engel / Wingman Media / The Ark / Denmark, Germany & Norway
I’m Niniko, an aspiring comedian dreaming of London. My cousin Kakha, Georgia’s beloved actor, refuses to leave. Political turmoil awakens our shared trauma: my dream becomes escape while he fights in the streets—our relationship caught between love, resentment, and survival.
Niniko Lekishvili / Ana Kvichidze, Irina Gelashvili & Estelle Robin You / Moonbow / Radium Films & Grande Ourse Films / Georgia & France
When her mother dies, Anghelina loses the voice that defined what it meant to be a good woman. Caught between her mother’s faith and duty and her daughter’s life as an artist, she must decide which values endure and which end with her.
Ana Gherciu / Ana Gherciu / Narrativa Studio / Sud-Est Media NGO / Moldova
Everyday, miners dig deep into the Earth’s crust, extracting minerals, destroying nature – while in a parallel reality cosmic dust invades human minds, astronauts appear in Armenia’s desert-like landscapes, and the land itself begins to transform into Mars.
Mery Aghakhanyan / Karina Simonyan / Edgar Baghdasaryan Film Production / Armenia
At 86, Vali prepares for the final journey of his life to see his former home and his family’s graves, even though his family opposes the trip and the border remains closed.
Ulviyya Ahmadova / Nijat Dadashov / Cineart Group / Azerbaijan
Pavlo (18) escapes Russian occupation and, with a teacher and imprisoned collaborators, exposes a school system designed to groom children for war. Pavlo’s mission is not over until his brother Ivan (10) is out – before propaganda claims him for good.
Under the shadow of autocracy, the city whispers and roars. An unexpected act elevates an unknown woman into the face of the protest. SOUNDS OF REVOLUTION is a symphony of resistance, where Georgia’s people rise together — but the triumph of collective demands sacrifice.
Nikoloz Bezhanishvili / Nikoloz Bezhanishvili & Victor Ede / NIKADOCFILM / Cinephage / Georgia & France
Following young Ukrainians pulled into the wartime shadow economy, the film immerses us in their inner worlds as fast money turns into addiction. Bound together in a fragile community, they must face the question: what will their escape truly cost?
Oleksandra Horiienko / Kateryna Yahodka & Alex Shiriaieff / EuroArctic Media Group / 2Brave Productions / Sweden & Ukraine
In a world where women are taught to run or endure, Zara, a fearless human rights defender, launches a rehabilitation program for abusers, where she confronts the source of violence, after years of managing its aftermath.
Lilit Movsisyan / Sona Margaryan / Motif Films / Armenia
In a few months, two years will have passed since the death of Thomas Heise, a key figure of European documentary and auteur cinema over the last fifty years. Heise was remembered in Bolzano one month ago during two very intense days, when, together with FAS – Film Association South Tyrol, the three films of the Halle-Neustadt Trilogy (STAU – JETZT GEHT’S LOS / NEUSTADT / KINDER. WIE DIE ZEIT VERGEHT) were screened in the cinema, and a masterclass was organised in his memory. The masterclass retraced his artistic path, from the years of the GDR to the reunification of Germany, and highlighted the importance of what Heise called an “archaeology of memory” in his cinema – a way of working in which the past continues to cast its shadows on the present.
During these days, long-time collaborators of Heise joined us, bringing a living and personal memory of the great German filmmaker. Among them were the cinematographer and lifelong friend Peter Badel, and his first producer during the years of the Wende, Katrin Schlösser.
We would like to open this newsletter by once again taking time – and offering it to you – to pay tribute to a great filmmaker, for a very simple reason: Thomas Heise was an artist who was never afraid to face the contradictions of his time. He was never afraid to “get his hands dirty” and to enter places that were uncomfortable or difficult: whether filming inside a police station in Berlin during the GDR (when all his previous films had already been rejected by the regime), or spending time with a group of neo-Nazis in the town of Halle just after the collapse of the GDR, or even meeting his own brother after many years to reflect on the role that one of their closest friends had played within the Stasi.
Heise loved the spoken word in his films, but many of them will be remembered above all for their silences: for the sighs of the people on screen, and for the deep sense of empathy that Heise was able to create with everyone he met. Very few filmmakers have reached such emotional closeness to the people they filmed. It is worth remembering here another great German filmmaker, Helga Reidemeister, who passed away five years ago and was also born in Halle, before the GDR. In films such as LICHTER AUS DEM HINTERGRUND, VON WEGEN “SCHICKSAL” and GOTTESZELL – EINE FRAUGEFÄNGNIS, she touched the living heart of the people she worked with.
Thomas Heise’s cinema was built around key historical moments and nourished by materials that document important passages of the twentieth century. It is a cinema that does not impose a point of view, but instead asks essential questions to a community. It is a cinema that enters the cracks of History and personal stories and asks: what happens to a community when a social and political balance breaks? Within this work, Heise searched for the physical presence of silence – of sighs, pauses and waiting – creating moments of deep intimacy with the people he filmed. Through Heise’s films, we learn to use words not only to give information, but also to feel and touch emptiness and suspension: in History, in a farewell, in a wound, in a relationship.
Heise’s films should be watched again today more than ever, in a time of easy and tragic oppositions, a time in which everything is shouted, and everyone seems to be the protagonist of something somewhere, while in reality we are more and more victims of History. Heise teaches us to get our hands dirty – and this is the best wish we can make for our young filmmakers.
Emanuele Vernillo Zelig, Head of the Three-Years Training
Miecia is the “Queen of Łeba”, a seaside resort at the Baltic Sea, the Sea, so well known for a Dane, who has tasted lots of smoked fish on the Island of Bornholm. Miecia has had her smokehouse for 40 years and it is quite a popular place near the beach with a neighbouring amusement place that offers carousels and swings. Everybody knows Miecia, who is a nice old lady and a grandma and a warm caring boss towards the young people, who help her in her stall, selling and smoking the fish. A boss who wants people to keep their promises, which is difficult if alcohol is involved. She gives advice on how to live life, wonderful.
As you can interpret from the poster above working with smoke has its consequences. Combined with the cigarettes Miecia lights constantly. She has trouble breathing and good for her she gets a spa trip; it seems she likes it, but still she is on the phone to her employees to check how is everything in the smokehouse. She is welcomed back and she says that now her team will take over and “I will sit on the bench”.
The film is beautifully shot, the editing is focused on bringing out the personality of Miecia, it works, to have her – sometimes pretty direct – humour mixed with the recording of what a traditional smokehouse is and of course you wonder if that can go on, when Miecia and her commitment is no longer there?
The director is from 2000, this is her first feature documentary, more than well done, opening film at Krakow FF last year and in competition at the recent Fipadoc. And pitched at Baltic Sea Docs in 2024.
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