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Film Selection

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Whose Voice is This?

Dana Iskakova, Saodat Ismailova | Duration 10'

WHOSE VOICE IS THIS? explores the soundscapes of the collection of Central Asian films in the Arsenal archive. By examining dubbed voices, background effects, and original soundtracks, the work traces Soviet ideology’s influence on films from the 1960s to the 1990s, capturing its gradual erosion and the impact of Perestroika.

Grandmamauntsistercat

Zuza Banasińska | Duration 23'

Created from materials garnered from the Polish Educational Archive, GRANDMAMAUNTSISTERCAT tells the story of a matriarchal family through the eyes of a child grappling with the reproduction of ideological and representational systems.

Afraid Doesn’t Exist

Anna Zett | Duration 31'

A defunct police state is experienced both as a source of nebulous horror, and as a site of political and poetic self-empowerment. Anna Zett combines film and sound material from the Berlin archives of the GDR opposition with poetry and music from the time, showing the charged period of transition in Germany between 1986 and 1990.

Endarchiv

Anna Zett | Duration 18'

Endarchiv examines the symbolic process of disposal and forgetting while raising the question how to take care of the emotional and performative remains of the GDR and its oppositional movements. The film maker Anna Zett is seen spray painting short questions and statements onto large mounds of pebble gravel, where every step leads to a rockslide. The action is interspersed with found footage filmed by Klaus Freymuth, showing artists and demonstrators painting and writing onto the East side of the Berlin Wall shortly after the border was opened in November 1989.

A Metamorphosis

Lin Htet Aung | Duration 17'

In the houses, after parting, Mothers were made up of tears. Sons were transformed into empty glass cups. And the lullabies became a curse. The film examines the suffering and resilience of the Burmese people by using the distinct political elements that have floated for several years on the ocean of political opera under repetitive military dictatorships in Myanmar.

The Motherfucker’s Birthday

Saif Alsaegh | Duration 7'

Through dancing, the film shows the evil of dictators and the horror people endure under powerful political leaders. Saddam dances, Bush dances, so what's left for the Iraqi people except to join in?

Loynes

Dorian Jespers | Duration 25'

A Kafkaesque courtroom drama set in 19th-century Liverpool, recounting the trial of a corpse with neither name nor past. Dozens have gathered for the absurd ceremony — and perhaps to deliver justice.

Citizen-Inmate

Hesam Eslami | Duration 15'

The electronic monitoring has transformed Tehran into a digital panopticon, turning the nightmare of constant surveillance and control into a reality. But what happens when the roles are reversed and the focus is turned on the surveillants?

Empty Rider

Lawrence Lek | Duration 15'

EMPTY RIDER is a single-channel video installation that extends Lawrence Lek’s use of cinematic language and simulated environments to explore the architecture of control. Developed using computer-generated animation, the work follows the trial of Vanguard, a sentient self-driving car accused of an attack on its human operator.

Another Other

Bex Oluwatoyin Thompson | Duration 9'

A Black police officer and a university president are interrogated by multiple white state officials after their failures to sufficiently comply with their respective institutions' plans. An experiment in image, sound, and subtitle, ANOTHER OTHER identifies these figures as collaborators with racist systems, even as those systems betray them.

happiness

Fırat Yücel | Duration 18'

An urgent desktop diary made at the intersection of a hectic digital landscape and the inner violence of modern colonization. The film chronicles the sleepless nights of a group of activists, eyes fixed on screens as they follow the news from Palestine and the Middle East. In Amsterdam, far from their home countries, police violence and the threat of deportation glue them to digital interfaces night after night.

How Are You?

Caroline Poggi, Jonathan Vinel | Duration 31'

A group of animals live on a wild coastline and try to heal the ills caused by the contemporary world. A kind of rehab.

The Birds Choose the Cards

Basim Magdy | Duration 24'

What was intended as a film about tourism, sunsets and war, quickly turns into a puzzle with its pieces tangled between ancient philosophy and a strong desire to see the future. An emotional film where first-person narration transcends the absurdity of the journey it narrates to explore the defeat of empathy. The dissonant soundtrack highlights the warmth in the details of the narrator’s journey.

Being John Smith

John Smith | Duration 27'

After enduring many decades of embarrassment and discomfort, the artist finally admits that possessing the most common name in the English-speaking world has had a profound impact on his sense of self. Combining fragments of autobiography with interjections concerning confidence, self-doubt and the state of the world, BEING JOHN SMITH takes us on a confessional journey that addresses universal dilemmas as well as personal ones, revealing just how important a name can be.

L’Mina

Randa Maroufi | Duration 16'

Jerada is a mining town in Morocco where coal extraction, although officially halted in 2001, continues informally to this day. L’MINA recreates the current work in informal mining pits using a set design created in collaboration with the town’s residents, who perform in their own roles.

Memory Is an Animal, It Barks with Many Mouths

Eva Giolo | Duration 24'

In the valleys surrounding the Dolomite Mountains, children reimagine ancient Ladin legends while they examine bodies of water, holes, caves and passages looking for something lost or forgotten. Through a poetic choreography, the film becomes a fictional journey creating resonances between the landscape, magical thinking and Ladin – the protected old Rhaeto-Romanic language of the valleys; a puzzle unfolds as a timeless fable.

Slet 1998

Maria Popivoda | Duration 22'

74-year-old dancer Sonja Vukićević moves through socialist-modernist spaces, her body echoing Yugoslavia’s last mass performance. Intertwined with a teenage girl’s diary from 1988, the film traces the shift from socialist collectivism to rising nationalism.

Portals

Elena Duque | Duration 16'

PORTALS follows the course of the Guadalete River in Cádiz, Spain, from the mountains to the sea: a catalog of landscapes that hide other landscapes, a collection of interdimensional portals (and postcards) that fuses real action and animation creating an impossible fauna and flora, inventing a new history and geography for a humble waterway.

The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing

Theo Panagopoulos | Duration 17'

When a filmmaker of Palestinian descent based in Scotland unearths a rarely-seen Scottish film archive of Palestinian wildflowers, he decides to reclaim the footage. This tender film essay questions the role of image-making as a tool of both testimony and violence when connected to entanglements between people and the land.

The Orchards

Antoine Chapon | Duration 25'

In 2015, in Damascus, the Basateen al-Razi district and its orchards were razed to the ground as punishment for the population’s uprising against the regime. Having lost everything, two former residents recall their neighborhood.

Who Was Here?

Evi Stamou | Duration 26'

To fill in the gaps and inconsistencies in her father’s biography, filmmaker Evi Stamou begins a correspondence with an artificial intelligence. From this conspiratorial and often impertinent exchange, possible and probable stories emerge, painting the portrait of a young dreamer, at a time when the Greek military junta was gaining power.

J-N-N

Ginan Seidl | Duration 19'

J-N-N is based on family conversations between the artist during a trip to Iraq and intensive research on the Jinn, the ephemeral entities that are deeply interwoven into the country's culture. Through a visual and fragmentary journey through the desert of Iraq, from Ur via Babylon to the secluded living rooms in Baghdad, the film questions a culture and society that has been torn apart by ongoing wars, civil wars, repression and terrorism.

Koki, Ciao

Quenton Miller | Duration 11'

Co-written and narrated by Koki, the 67 year old speaking cockatoo of Yugoslavia's former leader Tito, KOKI, CIAO features recordings made with the bird over four years and previously unseen images from state archives, including accounts of state visits from Nikita Khrushchev, Sukarno, the Ceaușescus and Gandhi, as well as celebrities like Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti.

Every Epoch Dreams the Next

Johannes Gierlinger | Duration 18'

Starting with an excerpt from an Albanian feature film from the communist era in which a boy dreams of the construction of a modern city, EVERY EPOCH DREAMS THE NEXT reflects on how a cityscape changes as power structures shift and how these power structures can override the common good and the general public.

World at Stake

Total Refusal (Susanna Flock, Adrian Jonas Haim, Jona Kleinlein) | Duration 20'

A golfer fails to strike, a soccer team plays against itself and a rally co-driver faces an identity crisis. They are surrounded by an audience unable to act. Shot inside of sports video games, A WORLD AT STAKE turns the ordering principles of victory and defeat upside down and negotiates social roles between individual sovereignty and collective passivity.

What we ask of a statue is that it doesn’t move

Daphné Hérétakis | Duration 31'

Nothing seems to be moving in Athens and the people are as still as statues. But elsewhere in the city, a caryatid escapes the museum and a small groupuscule demands the destruction of all antiquities. Perhaps filming is the only way to avoid turning into stone.

Green Grey Black Brown

Yuyan Wang | Duration 12'

A synthetic realm unfolds, meticulously engineered by global startups. Everything is bound together by a dark slime—an oily, recurrent presence that merges Jurassic-era flora with plastic plant decorations destined for shopping malls. Petroleum, in both refined and unrefined forms, opens up a portal to the gory logics of petro-capitalism and global extraction practices.

Their Eyes

Nicolas Gourault | Duration 23'

How does a machine learn to read the world? Testimonies and screen recordings introduce the experience of online micro-workers from the Global South: their job is to teach the AI of self-driving cars to navigate the streets of the Global North.

Common Pear

Gregor Božič | Duration 15'

In a not-too-distant future ravaged by climate crisis, a team of scientists analyse the archival footage of farmers from the past, in an attempt to understand their connection to the land.

Sudesha

Yugantar | Duration 30'

SUDESHA (1983) takes its name from its central figure, a female activist involved in the Chipko movement, India's major ecofeminist protests at the foot of the Himalayas. The vibrancy of a first use of color is matched only by the fury felt by these women against deforestation, as well as against traditional roles. The happiest day of her life, a woman recalls, was when they arrested her and she no longer had to cook or wash dishes.

Idi Katha Maatramena

Yugantar | Duration 25'

IDI KATHA MAATRAMENA / IS THIS JUST A STORY? (1983), the only film by the Yugantar Collective that doesn't use so-called documentary images, is based on a screenplay co-written with another feminist and activist group, Sri Shakhti Sanghatana, and is dedicated to the issue of domestic violence and the often unseen effects of family life on women in India. Instead of opting for a moralistic tone or dwelling perhaps on the subject of death, the film focuses on the solidarity the main character finds in a friend.

Tambaku Chaakila Oob Aali

Yugantar | Duration 25'

The act of listening and allowing union and trade union groups to speak for themselves is also essential for TAMBAKU CHAAKILA OOB AALI / TOBACCO EMBERS (1982), in which the Yugantar Collective spends four months with the women workers of a tobacco factory in Nipani, the ground zero of one of India's most important labor strikes of the time, which involved 3,000 women. The result of this collaboration is almost like a strike manual, in which the workers discuss strategies of unionising and methods to spread their actions, as well as how they want to be represented.

Molkarin

Yugantar | Duration 25'

In MOLKARIN / MAID SERVANT (1981), Yugantar Collective's first film, reenactments of conflicts between employers and their domestic workers are mixed with interviews and images of community meetings where the workers discuss their needs and grievances. Gradually, these become resolutions, with hundreds of workers in the city of Pune coming together in a strike that succeeds in opening negotiations for new rights and a manifesto regulating working conditions, from respecting days off to providing decent pay.

Punku

J. D. Fernández Molero | Duration 132'

Deep in the Peruvian Amazon lowlands, Meshia, a Matsigenka Indigenous teenager, discovers Iván, a young boy who vanished two years ago and was presumed dead. Determined to save him, she embarks on a journey upriver into the mountains, heading to the city of Quillabamba. As their bond deepens, Ivan confronts his trauma and haunting dreams, while Meshia pursues her ambitions and clings to her illusions.

Levers

Rhayne Vermette | Duration 89'

After an explosion causes a complete blackout, residents of a Manitoba community struggle to maintain their composure and connections as darkness tests their resilience.

The Seasons

Maureen Fazendeiro | Duration 82'

Weaving accounts of rural workers and fieldnotes of a couple of archaeologists, amateur footage and scientific drawings, legends, poems and songs, THE SEASONS is a journey through the real history and the tales of Alentejo, a region in southern Portugal, and a portrait of the people who have lived there.

MACDO

Racornelia | Duration 118'

Evoking a Christmas Eve in late 1990s' Mexico City and drawing on telenovela and home movie aesthetics, MACDO delivers a sharp exploration of family power dynamics and the mechanisms of domination within a household.

Debut, or, Objects of the Field of Debris as Currently Catalogued

Julian Castronovo | Duration 78'

A young filmmaker named Julian stumbles on a hidden book tied to a vanished art forger and the perfect mystery for his next film pitch. But, as coincidences mount and paranoia sets in, he begins to question what’s real, who’s watching him, and whether he’s directing the story or being directed by it.

Clementina

Agustín Mendilaharzu, Constanza Feldman | Duration 109'

The quarantine hastens Constanza and Agustín, an actress and a filmmaker, to move in together. Away from their jobs and their routines, they decide to shoot a short fiction film inspired by Constanza's struggle to adjust to living in a new house. Yet once that is completed, the problems in real life continue: malfunctions in the building force mean they need to let workers in, they are left with no electricity or running water, and finally, they are forced to move to Constanza's place. Each problem becomes the beginning of a new fiction film: a new comedy with Clementine in the lead role.

La Flor (Part 3)

Mariano Llinás | Duration 290'

LA FLOR is a complex narrative made up of six independent, successive stories, connected by the same four actresses: Pilar Gamboa, Elisa Carricajo, Laura Paredes and Valeria Correa. Each leaps from a fictional universe to another, as if it were a masked ball. One could be a sorceress in the first, a pop singer in the second, a mute spy in the third, herself in the fourth, a near-invisible secondary character in the fifth, before reappearing in the sixth as an escaping captive during the 19th century.

La Flor (Part 2)

Mariano Llinás | Duration 312'

LA FLOR is a complex narrative made up of six independent, successive stories, connected by the same four actresses: Pilar Gamboa, Elisa Carricajo, Laura Paredes and Valeria Correa. Each leaps from a fictional universe to another, as if it were a masked ball. One could be a sorceress in the first, a pop singer in the second, a mute spy in the third, herself in the fourth, a near-invisible secondary character in the fifth, before reappearing in the sixth as an escaping captive during the 19th century.

La Flor (Part 1)

Mariano Llinás | Duration 210’

LA FLOR is a complex narrative made up of six independent, successive stories, connected by the same four actresses: Pilar Gamboa, Elisa Carricajo, Laura Paredes and Valeria Correa. Each leaps from a fictional universe to another, as if it were a masked ball. One could be a sorceress in the first, a pop singer in the second, a mute spy in the third, herself in the fourth, a near-invisible secondary character in the fifth, before reappearing in the sixth as an escaping captive during the 19th century.

Folk Traditions of the Land

Mariano Llinás | Duration 98'

This second instalment from the Commando Corsini (Pablo Dacal, Agustín Mendilaharzu and director Mariano Llinás) takes us to the plains of the Pampas where folk artist and musician Ignacio Corsini grew up and forged a vision of the world that would stay with him for a lifetime. The result of this excursion is a wandering journey around the landscapes of Argentina, its paradoxes and its ghosts, with the conviction that Corsini's life and work is a door to Argentine history, from the history of music to everyday politics.

Trenque Lauquen

Laura Citarella | Duration 128' + 132'

A woman vanishes. Two men take to the road in search of her: they both love her. Why did she leave? Each one of them has his own suspicions, and hides them from the other one who - mysteriously - never truly becomes his rival. Neither is right - but is anyone? This sudden run away becomes the hidden core of a number of fictions: the secret of another woman, lost as well, many years ago; the secret of the life of a village governed by a supernatural incident that nobody seems to perceive; the secret of the plains, which never ceases to spread and devour everything.

Closing Film: Dry Leaf

dir. Alexandre Koberidze | Duration 3h 6'

Sports photographer Lisa vanishes without warning. She was last seen photographing rural football fields in remote Georgian villages. Her father, Irakli, unable to accept her disappearance, sets out on a journey to find her. He teams up with Levani, Lisa’s enigmatic best friend, and together they travel across the countryside, retracing her steps through quiet villages, meeting kind strangers, and speaking with children playing football along the way.

Take Me to the Water

dir. Teona Galgoțiu | Duration 7'

Fragments of memories are brought to the surface by the Blue Danube Waltz, revealing the lesser-known history of the Danube – the Black Sea Canal. While borders between filmmaker and actress become blurry, languages and layers of the past intertwine.

We Lived Slowly in Times of Peace

dir. Kristina Jacot | Duration 8'

Quiet rituals, comforts of daily life, memory flickers through grainy traces. Time quietly slips away. Peace, at times, is merely the absence of war.

Opening Film: With Hasan in Gaza

dir. Kamal Aljafari | Duration 1h 46'

Three MiniDV tapes of life in Gaza from 2001 were recently rediscovered. What started as a search for a former prison mate from 1989, led to an unexpected road trip from the north to the south of Gaza with Hasan, a local guide whose fate remains unknown. A cinematic reflection on memory, loss and the passage of time, capturing a Gaza of the past and lives that may never be found again.

Stones and Their Whispers of Old Stories

dir. David Drăgan, Noah Kohlbrenner | Duration 26'

STONES AND THEIR WHISPERS OF OLD STORIES unfolds as a dialogue between ancient stories from the Transylvanian and Valais mountains, intertwined with contemporary movement. Through the lens of dance, the environment becomes both stage and symbol, where whispers of forgotten stories are etched into the fabric of the earth.

Oedipus Redux

dir. Cosmin Nicolae | Duration 13'

In 1967, Pier Paolo Pasolini traveled to Romania in search of a primordial, archaic setting for Oedipus Rex. The director left with only a collection of music, which was used almost entirely as the soundtrack for the film that was ultimately shot in Morocco. OEDIPUS REDUX is a speculative exploration of locations that invites viewers to contemplate a "what if" within cinematic history.

In My Head

dir. Irina Tempea | Duration 6'

Through IN MY HEAD the filmmaker reflects on her multiple sclerosis by examining her own magnetic resonance images, thus sketching the movement of life that persists with the disease.

Hélène F. A (Post)mining Allegory

dir. Larisa Crunțeanu, Sonja Hornung | Duration 20'

HÉLÈNE F. A (POST)MINING ALLEGORY arose out of a confrontation with spaces affected by open pit mining in Romania, Germany, and Serbia. A disembodied voice haunts the production of landscape, pointing towards its feminization as a vehicle for scaled-up exploitation under so-called ‘green’ capitalism.

Whiteout Conditions

dir. Laura Săvuțiu | Duration 7'

WHITEOUT CONDITIONS explores the discrepancy between the fear-mongering tone of snowfall reports and the idyllic landscapes that accompany them, with the intent of documenting the mise-en-scene, the language and the choreography of Romanian media.

Our Sea

dir. Alle Dicu | Duration 20'

In a world without oceans, Linda discovers a mysterious company that offers immersive sea experiences.

Patchwork with Grandpa and Grandma

dir. Alma Buhagiar | Duration 7'

The director's grandparents, who have been together for over 60 years, recall (and re-edit) fragments of their life together. The film, originally intended as part of a video installation, captures a return to a nonlinear past, while also probing how textures and the materiality of images can be inscribed onto the cinema screen.

Light that Never Quite Returns the Same

dir. Andreea Borțun | Duration 24'

Light and natural elements, some of which are as old as the phalansteries followed here by the filmmaker, come into dialogue. Borțun narrates confessions of places and the people who inhabited them, interrogates and gives a voice to those behind these stories of social utopia.

Fracti

dir. Lavinia Petrache | Duration 6'

Humans live their routines inside an ethereal village floating in the sky. What happens when one of them causes the world to end?

I Am Also Part of the Three Turns

dir. Monica Maria Moraru | Duration 15'

Relying on oral and fragmentary histories, I AM ALSO PART OF THE THREE TURNS traces the effects of a destructive earthquake in Bucharest and a concurrent flood it caused in a small town in Buzău, during a period of nationalistic urbanization in Communist Romania.

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