Maria Júlia

Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations

Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.

Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty

Part two of Leni Riefenstahl's monumental examination of the 1938 Olympic Games, the cameras leave the main stadium and venture into the many halls and fields deployed for such sports as fencing, polo, cycling, and the modern pentathlon, which was won by American Glenn Morris.

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

Hideaway

Documentary portrait of the poet Karla Erbová is a confession of a creative personality who, despite many twists and turns in life, remains true to her ideals and moral values. We witness the final year of the author's life, during which, even at the age of ninety, she continues to engage in public appearances and, above all, actively works on her craft. Through letters that Erbová wrote to her friend, the film offers an intimate, often self-deprecating reflection on old age, solitude, and relationships with loved ones, as well as an indomitable faith in poetry. The film "Ulita" not only highlights the pivotal moments of her life but also serves as a sociological exploration of the lives of the oldest generation.

Pretty Land And Green Its Sighs

A short anecdotal documentary about the nature of destruction, a debilitating deadlock of humanity.

The Boy of The Fish

"The Boy Of The Fish" follows Noon, a young boy living in a Syrian refugee camp, who finds solace and a sense of freedom in a whale-shaped doll he names "Bahr." Set against the challenging realities of camp life, Noon’s journey is both a story of resilience and a testament to the boundless imagination of childhood. Through vivid symbolism and a unique soundscape, the film explores themes of loss, hope, and the longing for freedom amidst confinement. Shot entirely on an iPhone due to restrictions in the conflict zone, the film combines raw authenticity with poetic depth to capture the emotional landscape of a young soul navigating adversity.

Chronos

Carefully picked scenes of nature and civilization are viewed at high speed using time-lapse cinematography in an effort to demonstrate the history of various regions.

The Dance of Icarus

The study of the artistic work and its relationship with the author generates reflections on the connection between the material and the spiritual. The Dance of Icarus is a poetic documentary that offers an open space for reflection, like a tribal dance. Through the effort, passion and imagination of the artist José Benítez, the pictorial process becomes a profound relationship between the artist and the canvas, raising unanswered questions about creation. This documentary, loaded with symbolism, invites a total immersion in the creative process. Directed by Jesús Jiménez, this debut film is presented as an expressionist work that celebrates art in its purest and most visceral form, exploring the dimensions of artistic creation and its impact on the viewer.

Kitchen Dialogue

A generational trauma through the lens of an Asian American teenager through food and poetry.

Koyaanisqatsi

Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.

Baraka

A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.

She is from LÁ

Women find empowerment behind the red nose and makeup, revealing the playful and subversive spirit of female clowning. Through poetic and intimate performances, the clowns share stories that go beyond laughter, exploring their role as manipulators of energy and expression.

While There's Still Time To Smile

We observe the daily routines of an elderly couple. Within the quiet flow of time, a longing for youth and irretrievable memories begin to surface. This piece reflects the sorrow hidden in the stillness of old age and the deep yearning for the past.

Sans Soleil

A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.

Letters to my Grandma

A young filmmaker maintains an epistolary conversation with his deceased grandmother while he rediscovers the space they both inhabited for more than a decade.

de Luz

Filmed during lockdown 2020, ‘de Luz/Of Light’ explores fleeting perceptions and cyclic rituals of Portuguese coastal landscapes, specifically surrounding the Cabo Sardão Lighthouse in Beja, and constructs a complex audio-visual narrative through collaging together various natural rhythms (such as the sun and motion of the sea). This film is intended for screening with a 16:27 aspect ratio. The soundtrack was composed by sound artist Michelle Lewis-King.

A Little Love

Through interspersed conversation and prose, this experimental documentary follows a poet and a neuroscientist as they explore the definition of love, what it means, and why it matters.

Ghuza da Sher

The story of Nisar Ahmed Khan, told through his children and the people he served, a spiritual guide whose followers still visit his tomb on his birth and death anniversaries. And alongside how his family spends a few days at the village keeping his traditions alive.

Stegophilia

Glass

This short documentary, shot in the glass factories of Leerdam and Schiedam, demonstrates how glass blowers do their work. But thanks to the superbly edited ballet of working hands and the sequence of mechanical motions of the engines, is it especially a cinematic tour de force. That the industry can’t do without man’s involvement is shown in the scene where we hear the voice of Haanstra himself counting the bottles on the conveyor belt, until one bottle breaks…