TIDF Screening Schedule

Gwa To, a transgender expects relationship impermanence, assuming women will prefer "real" men. Ma Soe is disillusioned with marriage from her father's drinking. After a period of courtship, the two live together as a couple. Their bond is tested when Gwa To brings home Phoe Htoo, a two-month-old boy seeking adoption. 'Their story makes me think of my childhood: what it could have been if I was raised by my parents. But more importantly, it gave me a chance to understand the strength of parental love and what it means to be a family. I made this documentary as a tribute to this unconditional love and the bonds that it creates.' - Lamin Oo

On February 1st, 2021, a military coup unfolded in the Republic of Myanmar. This visual documentary explores the reflections on art, revolution, and freedom through the travel diaries of two women filmmakers: one Burmese and the other French. Both have witnessed the country in distinct lights.   'This ambivalence made us question the meaning of freedom. Are there conditions? Limits? Is it fair? With this film, we've tried to understand our differences, from one country to another, from one individual to another; what links us to others, our passions, our gender, or even our need for freedom. Presented as a personal diary in visual form, we explore what it is like to feel foreign, to feel lonely or surrounded by others, to feel strong. We attempt as well to understand the role our pictures play in our lives as women film directors. February 1st is the result of creative collaboration from two parts of the world, a collective voice facing geopolitical events that concern all of us. In the end, who takes over the reins of power in this film?' - Leïla MACAIRE

In the aftermath of Myanmar's military coup, life under the junta's terror has remained largely hidden from the world's cameras. In an act of resistance, the anonymous Myanmar Film Collective created a film blending reality and fiction, featuring first-person perspectives and chilling citizen journalism footage.   'This film is a reaction to the "spring-like dream" of freedom in Myanmar that lasted for merely ten years. It is about enthusiasm and hope of a young generation brutally crushed. Perversely, it is a nightmare that the older generations had hoped would never occur in this country again. The filmmakers in this collective currently living in Myanmar decided to express this confusing, nightmarish time and the state of hopelessness through the medium of film, and weave short documentary and partly fictionalised anonymous hybrid films together.' - The Myanmar Film Collective

Chen Da, born in 1905, learned traditional Taitung-style songs as a boy. Working as a cowherd and fisherman, he travelled from Hengchun to Taitung. He began his career as a wandering minstrel at 20. Homage to Chen Da portrays his life and singing in various settings, including his hometown and the well-known musical venue in Taipei, Scarecrow Restaurant.

The film captures the 1979 ritual of Burning the Wang Ye Boat in Sucuo Village, Tainan County. Wang Ye, believed to ward off diseases and evil spirits, is celebrated through building, parading, and burning a wooden boat. Without interviews or dialogue, the visual narrative invokes spirituality and imagination through depictions of people, fire, and the god.   'This film is not a documentation of folk traditions, but a reconstruction of how the villagers enact their pilgrimage and interact with their gods of spirits. The religious rituals in Taiwan are always noisy and seemingly chaotic, yet with a strong force of life. To make the meaning of the ritual easier to grasp, the film tries to reveal passion and paranoia of the pilgrims and turn it into a spectacle of joy and pathos. This is the only thing I expect to achieve in the film.' - CHANG Chao-tang

In 2019 Donbas, amid the looming threat of a new Russian invasion and echoes of past gunfire, five teenagers contemplate their future. Rebelling against their wartime reality, they seek adventure, navigating minefields and dreaming of escape from both conflict and small-town monotony. An unexpected chance to journey to Nepal sparks hope for realising their dream of world exploration. 'We wanted to show that this light can actually fight against darkness…. That's why we will not fade away. It's also about this light inside all Ukrainians.' - Alisa KOVALENKO

With 20 years of shrimp farming expertise in Taiwan, Du ventured to Myanmar, unaware of the challenges ahead—white powders and guns. Sue, a Burmese-Chinese woman with shrimp farming dreams, married Jojo and took over her father's farm. United by ambition, Du and Sue aimed to create a 'Diamond Marine World'. 'Taiwan is close to Mainland Southeast Asia. A lot of Southeastern Asian labourers come to work in Taiwan. Taiwanese people often look at economically disadvantaged Southeast Asian countries through estranged, discriminatory glasses. I traveled along the Mekong River through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam for three months in 2015. During that time, I met many Taiwanese people working away from home and became curious about their work and lives in Southeast Asia. 'In Diamond Marine World, the chef from Taiwan, "Du," with his Burmese employees, "Sue," and "Jojo," work together for an opportunity to become rich. Each of them made their sacrifices and choices in the quest for success. They have also lost their trust due to inner demons and conflicts. What is the definition of success in different cultures and systems of values? To become wealthy or to live in the present? In this film, I think the audience can eventually catch sight of humanity and understand this estranged country, Myanmar.' - HUANG Hsiu-yi

In 2020, the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 swept the globe with panic and death, keeping the whole world hostage in fear and isolation. 220 kilometres from Wuhan, China, villagers in 47KM lived through the turmoil guided by ancestral prophecies and lifestyle, continuing their ordinary existence in those extraordinary times.

In Shan State, Myanmar, ancient culture clashes with six decades of civil war. Once a renowned folk singer, Nan Mya Han now channels loss through metaphorical verses. A documentary intertwines her songs with scenes of rituals, delving into decay and impermanence amid political turmoil. It's a poignant, mesmerising exploration of a people's resilience amidst upheaval.   'In our country, people believe that if someone had experienced scary and frightening events, the guardian souls from the body would run away and that person would never have a dream anymore. In order to become cured of that, the soul has to be summoned back.   'Song of Souls is not only the voice of a mother who is moaning and bewailing for her vanishing children but also the sound of calling my own souls as a filmmaker.' - Sai Naw Kham

A 24-year-old medical student, showing signs of schizophrenia, goes untreated due to family denial. Her brother, eight years younger, questions but remains silent. Years later, he records family interactions, revealing his sister's deteriorating condition. Finally, after 25 years, treatment begins. Despite progress, she succumbs to lung cancer in 2021, leaving unanswered questions for her family.   'My sister was smart, good at drawing, and had great potential. I believe that schizophrenia is not a mental illness but a brain illness, and there is no need to be ashamed or hide it. However, I could not understand the actions of my parents, who could be considered experts. I now know what it's like to feel really troubled because you don't have anyone to talk to. I started recording the facts because they disappeared. It's a boring video that looks like a home video, but I made it because I wanted to help prevent the same thing from happening again.' - FUJINO Tomoaki

Obstetricians Hla and Nyo Nyo, a Buddhist and a Muslim, brave persecution in Myanmar to provide medical care for Rohingya women. Despite the civil war and risks, Nyo Nyo establishes a clinic, showcasing resilience in the face of political turmoil. The Sundance-prize-winning documentary captures their unwavering commitment amid a backdrop of violence and instability.   'I was born in Rakhine State, in the western part of Myanmar. When I was a kid, it seemed as though Buddhists and Muslims were able to live peacefully side by side. As an adult, I was living and working as a filmmaker in Yangon. In 2012, news of the Rohingya conflict started to come out. I refused to believe in the hate speech in the media at that time, so I went back to my hometown to better understand myself, my people, where all this anger and hatred was coming from. As a female filmmaker, I first thought of searching for a story about women in the conflict zone. Many people were saying that the Rohingya population was growing because of a lack of access to birth control. This heightened my curiosity to find midwives practising in the region. There I met two extraordinary women, a Buddhist midwife Hla and her young Muslim apprentice Nyo Nyo. This film is dedicated to women living in a conflict zone. It’s about compassion, courage, and sisterhood.' - Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing

Mojtaba, Hamzeh and Zar are among other individuals who have been thrown into prison and ideologically interrogated in Iran. In this documentary, the director wants them to interrogate him as agents of the Islamic Republic might. He would like the real torturer in Iran to see himself through the film as if in a mirror.   'I ask Iranian political refugees in France to interrogate me on camera as an agent of the Iranian regime would. My initial intention was to take this recording to Iran to show it to an interrogator working for the regime and to confront him with his own violence. Would it be possible to awaken his conscience? My Worst Enemy raises questions regarding filmmaking and ethics. Is there something wrong about proposing such a re-enactment to a political refugee? What are the risks for him and for me? What is the nature of the pact with the audience? Is it possible to change a system from the inside?' - Mehran TAMADON

In 1985 Buenos Aires, the trial of Argentina's last dictatorship unfolds, reminiscent of Nuremberg after WWII. Recorded on U-matic tapes, 90 days reveal testimonies of horror and a final verdict: 'Never Again'. The film delves into defenders, political positions, and victims' voices, narrating tales of torture and pain, encapsulating life and death within a courtroom.   'The 90 days that the trial lasted were entirely recorded by the public television with two cameras on U-matic cassettes. The search for and access to the trial archive, 530 hours of footage, began in 2013. Dreaming about a documentary film that narrates what happened there, and at the same time tells the story of the Argentine horror and its justice process.    'It was not easy to find the material. At the public television channel, which was in charge of the recording, they denied me any kind of collaboration for fear of political reprisals. At the General Archive of the Argentine Nation (AGN), which has the material in custody, they suggested that in order to avoid inconveniences I should look for the material at the University of Salamanca in Spain, which also has a copy of the material in custody. It seemed incredible. More than three decades after the trial, it still raised fears and reservations in small officials unable to make a decision and take the risks.   'In 2019, after much walking, I learned, through my friends at the Luisa Hairebedian Foundation that the archival material, the 530 digitised hours, are in the custody of Memoria Abierta NGO. We met with the team, agreed on the guidelines to work together and then, finally, we were ready to start visualising the archive…. The Trial is the first cinematographic work that deals exhaustively with the archive of the Trial of the Juntas, the cornerstone of the process of justice for crimes against humanity in Argentina and it is an invaluable document for Humanity'. - Ulises DE LA ORDEN

In a Yangon clinic, patients with mental disorders find solace under an artist couple's care. The duo, blending medicine and art, helps patients express their struggles creatively. The husband, a physician, contemplates a film reflecting the clinic's reality but fears consequences. The wife, a psychiatrist, grapples with her own need for healing while treating others.   'This is a country where the civil war has not only been going on for seven decades but continues till today. This is a poor society in which the basic needs of thirty million people are never met. If we apply a broader definition of "psychiatric disorders" to the population, more than half of them have mental or psychological problems. But this film is not about "psychiatric patients" nor "psychiatric clinics." It tries to testify and document the chaotic phase the country is going through. Most people try to make themselves sleep better; having lost their freedom in this crazy and cruel life, they struggle to carry on with the help of the injections that help them sleep.' - Midi Z

During World War II, Taiwan was part of the Japanese Empire. This documentary explores the experiences of Taiwanese soldiers, doctors, and overseas residents in Southeast Asia during that time. Using cross-generational memory dialogues, family letters, diaries, and videos, the film addresses the complexities of Taiwan's historical memory and diverse identities during that period.   'As an intermediary who immigrated from Malaysia to Taiwan, it gives me the courage to make this film. Although I do not deny that personally, there is anger and incomprehension towards the 70 years of silence in Taiwanese society; in Malaysia, we live with constant reminders from our elders to remember the cruelty that has happened to us. I believe that humanity can be shaped; unless we accumulate maturity in our thinking through intergenerational dialogues, we will continue to be mediocre. This is the beginning of my personal resistance, refusing to become a mediocre person.' - LAU Kek-huat

Taman-taman (Park): Two Indonesian poets meet at Tainan Park, using daytime experiences to craft poetry. Inspired by encounters and emotions, their creations take shape through night-time chanting, imagination, and action. Taman-taman (Park) unfolds a journey resembling an ancient fable, with untold stories hidden in the endless night. The storytellers become integral parts of the narratives as well.   'If we describe it with landscape painting, no matter how realistic it is, the painter cannot bring the scenery in front of them into the exhibition hall. However, looking at the landscapes that the painter has selected, modified, and embellished, sometimes the soul can be taken to a further place. Or, the painting itself is already an independent scenery, whether as a whole or in detail; it makes people yearn for or fear. Sometimes, when looking at landscape paintings, imagining the painter facing the scenery across this canvas, gradually, it also becomes a part of the scenery.' - SO Yo-hen  

In 1997, the sudden abolition of licenced prostitution in Taipei City compelled 128 licenced prostitutes to take to the streets. Bailan, a protesting sex worker, fell into a coma in 2005. Using intricate takes and archive footage, this film unfolds her life after the abolition of legal prostitution. It portrays the oppression of everyday people by policy and politics, while also highlighting the warmth in relationships among people and with cats. 'In the current era of image inflation, looking back to re-edit DV footage with a resolution of only 720×480 from almost two decades ago was not meant to negate my past self. Rather, it was done to face my regrets properly and attempt to provide fair treatment to my materials. For me, Lauchabo refers to both cats and humans. It is both a cat's name and the name of this group, "thàn-chia̍ h-cha-bó," women who make a living with their bodies. I hope that some of their moments can be remembered.' - TSAI Yann-shan

In Hong Kong, the Goddess of Compassion temple attracts worshippers seeking financial help, while across the street, garbage collectors toil, recycling waste into wealth. As new development threatens their way of life, Wong Siu-pong's observational documentary Obedience questions what is truly considered waste in this city.    'In 2008, the announcement of a new railway project promised significant improvements for Hung Hom. This scandal-ridden project, marked by excessive cost overruns, spanned over a decade. Initially budgeted at HK$30 billion, the costs skyrocketed to nearly HK$100 billion, all under the watchful eye of Hong Kong's citizens. Additionally, a major acquisition plan for old buildings in the area fell by the wayside due to the project's delays. Developers and property owners neglected these buildings, leading to frequent collapses due to disrepair. Amidst this flurry of controversial news, I became deeply curious about how the residents in the area were coping with the looming changes to their homes.   'My journey began in 2017, filming in a quaint recycling shop within the neighbourhood. Here, I observed people exchanging paper, construction refuse, and renovation debris for small sums of money. What was dismissed as waste by construction teams was a valuable resource for the local scavengers.    'Amidst the backdrop of towering new skyscrapers and the stream of visitors to the Kwun Yum Temple, I witnessed the harsh realities of the neighbourhood. Elderly individuals sifted through garbage for cardboard, worth only a few pennies; aged garbage collectors worked beyond their physical limitations; a family handled food waste from the restaurants. At night, vendors sold used goods at the "dawn market"—a temporary flea market operating in the early hours to evade police intervention.   'For these scavengers, constant labour and waste are their world. However, their future is uncertain with the impending completion of the redevelopment project, demolition of old buildings, and closure of recycling shops, raising questions about the fate of both the waste and its collectors.' - WONG Siu-pong

In summer 2014, sunflower fields and coal mines in eastern Ukraine turned into a 12 square kilometre crime scene. A multi-layered investigation into the downing of flight MH17, in which a butterfly-shaped shrapnel found in the pilot's body implicated the state responsible for a war crime that remains unpunished.

The film you're about to see incorporates real material from film history. However, any collusion between art and industry, conflict between freedom of creation and the law, or any hint of moralism in the life of images, are purely unintentional. 'The starting point of the film is limited to a single material: title cards, or more broadly any form of speech that precedes a film to control the audience's experience. By repeating this sentence, "the film you are about to see," I wanted to subvert these repressive words that intend to control the audience’s experience. Then came images from films, for rhythm and editing reasons, but also to authenticate these texts which can sometimes seem like jokes but are actually taken from real archives…. The history of cinema teaches us that most of these title cards had the opposite effect to those expected: they mainly advertised the films they claimed to control! This is a good example of the paradox of what's forbidden: what is forbidden creates desire. This paradox can come from an external whole, as it can come from ourselves. We spectators also create our own barriers and our own escapes: we know whether we want to see a certain thing or not. So, what is the place of the critical gaze, and to what extent can it be created, or dissolved, in this paradoxical projection in cinema?' - Maxime MARTINOT

The Veiled City is a sci-fi city symphony inspired by London's Great Smog of 1952. Merging reality with fiction, the film invites us to understand the smog in the context of the present-day climate crisis. 'I was interested in working with archive material in a way that allowed me to reappropriate the footage while not completely separating it from its original context. I approached the edit with an overall story arc in mind, but the actual script emerged from working with the material itself—we cut a first assembly guided by visual storytelling and music, and I wrote the script in response to this first cut. I feel that combining fictional and documentary conventions creates the space to explore subjective and poetic aspects of shared reality. My hope is that by taking a creative and psycho-geographic approach to a subject like the Great Smog of 1952, I can create a cinematic experience that explores the new set of emotional and intellectual complexities we all now face as a species.' - Natalie CUBIDES-BRADY

This film is about haunting memories of Asia's late 20th-century modernisation, beginning with a 1965 United States embargo on the hair trade, known as the 'Communist Hair Ban'.    'Wigs were vital for the rise of the Asian economy in the post-war era. In the heyday of the 1960s, it was the number four export in Hong Kong's export-oriented industrialisation. Between Mao's China—the largest source of hair supplies, and the insatiable Western market, Hong Kong functioned as the gateway. In 1965, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed an embargo on "Asiatic hair" to cut off foreign currency to Communist China in the hair trade. The highly racialized category of "Asiatic hair" was later revised as "communist hair," to enable the wig industry to develop in U.S. allies, including mainly South Korea and Japan, which led to a significant reconfiguration of light industry in East Asia. Departing from the moment of the communist hair ban, through stories of movement, diaspora and migration, this project examines the role of Hong Kong as a transient space that mediates and sanitises the connection between different worlds. The relationship between U.S. Imperialism and East Asia order in the Cold War era.' - WANG Bo  

Surveillance footage of factory gates from Chinese companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange is recontextualised through a historical lens, spanning a century of cinematic history to explore the evolution from workers' rights to contemporary capitalism's labour dynamics. 'Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895), by Louis Lumière is often referred to as the first batch of motion pictures ever made. The film shows a vast mass of, mostly female, workers pouring out of the gates of the Lumière Factory. The Lumière siblings chose to film this scene, artist Ho Rui An, argues, because workers being freed from the disciplinary confines of the factory was the perfect way to capture motion, in the physical sense, as well as transformation workers undergo when, shedding their class identity, they leave the factory behind and resume their personal lives. This is because, as Marx put it, the worker "feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home." Whereas factory gates kept these two worlds separate, the artist finds that current security cameras offer a different perspective, one that allows one a peek into the world inside the gates.' - Tabakalera

After twenty years of absence, director Elvis Lu returns home to confront the true reason for his departure: his unwavering belief in the psychic powers of his elder brother, A-zhi. Documenting each day, he realises that the actual source of familial strife may be his departure. 'My mother asked me to go back home, and I understood that she was getting ready to die. Suddenly, I felt that I wasn't ready to lose her, and I realised that I didn't have much time left to face the family problems that had haunted me for so long. I decided to return home and film our daily life, creating a family video that we had never had. This process has somehow eased the feelings of anger and emptiness that lingered within me for so long. Coming back to my family was complicated, but it also somehow led me to come back to myself.' - Elvis LU

As the latest instalment of the Ten Years franchise, the omnibus film Ten Years Myanmar is a collective effort from five Myanmar filmmakers to speculate on the future of the country that has been torn apart since the coup in 2021.   Production Note: The result is five very different scenarios and visions, some grim and some more hopeful, and all together will inspire the Myanmar and international audience to stay resilient in times of adversity. All five of the filmmakers have continued to live and work in Myanmar, even after many fellow filmmakers have left, and this film also serves as a model for those working in environments where freedom of expression is limited in how to express their thoughts and feelings, some of which may be controversial.

Armenia and Azerbaijan are engaged in a multi-secular conflict. A war breaks out again. In Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, men are at the front, while women hide in the cellars. Director Silva Khnkanosian sets out to find them. After 44 days of battles, the radio announces the capitulation of Armenia. We must leave.

Growing up, a difficult home life was all the filmmaker and her sisters knew. Now as adults and with their parents on the cusp of separation, the filmmaker explores the meanings of their given names, allowing her sisters to tell their stories in their own words and make sense of the love, pain and anger they still carry.   'Growing up with volatile, violent, and distant parents, I've only known of life in extremes. I remember my four sisters and I were constantly yearning for our parent's time, attention, validation, and flawed love. This was to no avail, but my sisters and I ended up forming an irrevocably tight bond that only we could understand. Years later, now as adults, we are all trying to adjust to and cope with the impending dissolution of our family as we know it. Many things have changed, but this understanding between us remains. With our lives on the cusp of an uneasy metamorphosis, through I Look into the Mirror and Repeat to Myself, I hope to make sense of the heartbreak, love, pain, and anger we sisters still carry with us. In the film, I question the meaning of our given names, my place among my sisters, and allow my sisters to tell their stories in their own words.' - Giselle LIN

In my senior year, I filmed myself and my friends as we went through the college entrance exam under pressure. As a university student, I still grapple with anxiety. Then one day, I got a call from my high school friend saying she was not doing well. I decided to write a letter to her. ‘Throughout our lives, we have been constantly reminded that we would transform into butterflies as we become adults. We were led to believe that adolescence was merely a pupal stage, where all our dreams and hopes would take flight upon metamorphosis. However, my friends and I didn’t quite experience that butterfly-like transformation. Instead, we found ourselves undergoing a different kind of growth, akin to a dragonfly that, unlike the complete metamorphosis of a butterfly, only changes in size as it matures.’ - HONG Daye  

Two lifelong rivals Ratima and Kalima have been appointed caretakers of their empty village. Now in the twilight of their lives, they must forget their past and help each other survive a long and harsh winter.   'Life in Nepal today is defined by poverty, gender roles, remoteness, urban-rural divide, caste, and "untouchability." All these manifest in the lives of Ratima and Kalima. They are considered "low caste," the "untouchables" of society, they have little material wealth, and their identity in society is still tied to their common, but already dead husband.   'From the outside, it is as if they are doomed to isolation and drudgery. Yet, upon close observation, we find their lives have a quiet, pastoral dignity, and a sense of freedom in contrast to city-dwellers. Their activities and experiences also defy our preconceived ideas about rural women and the relationships they have in life.   'Ratima and Kalima resemble many of our family members closely. Both of us have family members who refuse to leave village life—which we find tough and unrewarding—and settle with us in the city. Through an intimate portrait of Ratima and Kalima's lives and circumstances, we want to create a wider interest in grassroots cultures and issues in Nepal today.' - Rajan KATHET and Sunir PANDEY

Peter Kerekes thinks that Slovakia lacks sufficient tradition and the ability to govern itself. While dreaming of low corruption and robust social systems, he is too lazy to move and does not like Scandinavian winters. That is why he decided to bring the Scandinavian political system to Slovakia. 'I once said in a pub as a joke, that a country that cannot democratically help its development and reach a degree of normality, has only one option: to invite the assistance of a foreign army. That was when I returned from a month-long stay in Finland. I was thrilled about the country. I thought that, if Finnish administrators, inspectors, and judges were deployed in Slovakia, our country would at last embark on the path to democracy. Twenty years ago Slovakia was unprepared to govern itself. With the current pace, we are likely to reach democracy in about 200 years. People are not used to bearing responsibility for their own decisions; we have no continuity of governance, institutions, and no respect for authorities. That is the result of those who have been pretending to be the authority for years.' - Peter KEREKES

This film follows three former Czechoslovakian regime terrorists, reenacting their acts while sharing their present lives. Stano sought to bomb a Communist party platform, Fero plotted a president's assassination, and Vladimír blew up billboards and distributed protest flyers. Blending reality and fiction, the film explores heroism, humour, and rebellion amidst totalitarianism with ironic subtlety. 'In Velvet Terrorists, there is one scene that's especially important to me. It's a film done by three directors [with Ivan Ostrochovský and Pavol Pekarcik] and it was very, very complicated to make it together. There were so many moments when I just wanted to leave. To say:“Ok guys, I will just be the producer.”But there was one moment when I fell in love with the film. When Vladimir and the young woman he has recruited to train to test a lie detector, she is asking him if he is training somebody to be a terrorist. He says yes. She asks if it's a woman. He says yes. She asks: “Are you in love with her?” Because she is in love with him. And then she just makes this loud gulping noise. It’s not a statement, just a silent moment of this hidden affection. It made me want to stay.' - Peter KEREKES

Arum's parents, part of South Korea's 386 generation, aimed to secure democracy. But Arum's perspective shifts at 18 with the Sewol ferry disaster. Even her father's involvement in its aftermath prompts her to question inherited democracy. Reflecting on events like #MeToo and impeachment, Arum ponders her generation's role in shaping South Korea's political landscape.   'Constrained by my father's public service, I held back from joining protests, inspired yet unable to live up to my mother's feminist ideals. This film mirrors my quest for a political voice, threading the line between critiquing and championing the efforts of previous generations. I aspire for it to spark conversations about forging the democracy of tomorrow.' - NAM Arum

A director reflects on his past amid the violent city of Medellin. He recalls his debut film's pre-production, casting from the queer scene, and the heroin-overdose death of the 21-year-old protagonist. The documentary explores the dreams and fears of an annihilated generation, and the struggle to carry on making cinema.   'To go through my life, is to talk about war, religion, cinema, and about when I met Camilo Najar, Sharlott, MH, Alejandro Paz, Julian David, Mendigana and Juan Perez. To talk about them is to evoke the film we could never make together Anhell69, the annihilation and the "Non-Future" of my generation, caused by suicide and drugs, and also by the oppression of a conservative and violent society, which tries to exterminate anything that would challenge the status quo. We are finally making Anhell69, not how we first imagined, but in the manner life is allowing us to do it, me and my remaining friends, the protagonists of the film. Anhell69 is the immortalisation of our recollections, our memory, our life before death, and maybe a warning for the generations and governments to follow'. - Theo MONTOYA

A poetic essay film depicting an undocumented immigrant's disillusionment in the US, prompting a return to an estranged homeland. The narrative unravels a family curse, tracing back through post-9/11 America, the US occupation of the Philippines, and the Spanish empire's spiritual conquest. The film is a diary exploring migration causes, though deviating from its expected course.   '"How does an undocumented documentary filmmaker document themself?" This question has become an endless project of observing and representing myself and family waiting for sensible immigration reform in the United States. As time passed, I watched the disintegration of our American dreams. From August 1993 to 2019 we were held hostage by the systemic and psychological borders that trapped us in a perpetual post 9/11 era. And then, I left…and flew 7000 miles from LA to Manila, leaving everything behind. Nowhere Near is a poetic memoir through the lens of an exile returning to an estranged homeland. The film begins with an investigation into my family curse. A curse that followed us for generations, rooted in the soil of my grandma's coastal province, where my ancestors once ruled the land they inherited from Spanish colonisers. It is a land still bearing the remnants of colonial violence, first from Spain then America then our own onto each other.   'My grandma likes to tell the story of MacArthur and the US troops landing Her local beach. She brags, that just down the front steps of her ancestral home. The American encampment stretched as far as her eyes could see. There was a big tent that functioned as a ballroom and bar, it was carpeted and there was a jazz symphony orchestra, is how she describes it. Her older sisters and cousins would wander there to go dancing. Even today there is a rotting concrete slab on that plot of land that the Americans left behind.   'This film is about looking for that plot of land for answers it might still contain. Look for the concrete slab she says'. - Miko REVEREZA

Crossing Voices recounts the adventure of Somankidi Coura, an agricultural cooperative founded in Mali in 1977 by migrant workers from West Africa living in France. The story of this improbable utopia of returning to the country follows a tortuous path that sheds light on the ecological stakes and struggles on the African continent since the 1970s.

KIX chronicles the vibrant life of Sanyi, an adventurous 8-year-old in Budapest, who finds freedom in the city streets. Surrounded by filmmaker friends, he navigates childhood with wild abandon. However, a tragic incident on his 16th birthday thrusts him into the spotlight as a misunderstood youth, caught between youthful recklessness and societal neglect.   'KIX is characterised by video art, trash, and music videos. It's a balancing act between observational vérité and active interaction between subjects and filmmakers, displaying an incredible immediacy that tends to confront rather than explain. The film actively reflects upon the relationship between subject and filmmakers and witnessing the evolution on both sides raises the core questions of documentary filmmaking: does observation change the observed and in KIX's case, the observers?' - Bálint RÉVÉSZ and Dávid MIKULÁN 

Richland offers a prismatic portrayal of the nuclear company town's identity, proud of its role in the Manhattan Project. The film examines societal normalisation of past violence, blending archival past with present observations. It meditates on home, safety, whiteness, and deep time, exploring the community's reliance on its nuclear heritage.   'I am a first-generation American whose parents fled Ceaucescu's Romania as political asylum-seekers. Through the process of making my first feature film, an intimate five-year project excavating my own family's hidden history, I learned how to facilitate people’s confrontations with painful histories with care and empathy. Since then, I've come to understand my work as a filmmaker and as a form of delicate mediation between people and their pasts.   'While a number of journalists, writers, and anti-nuclear activists have taken on the Hanford story, it is often told through an investigative lens where the aim is to expose and criticise the nuclear weapons industry. As I embarked on a multi-year process of patient relationship-building and community listening in Richland, I didn't want to shy away from the tremendous environmental and human costs of nuclear arms manufacturing, but, at the same time, I also wanted to represent the stories of Hanford workers—people whose politics often diverge drastically from my own—with dignity and generous listening.   'Richland does not provide easy answers, a policy position, a simple critique of the nuclear industry, or interviews with nuclear experts. Instead, it does the messier work of creating a patiently unfolding space where divergent voices and positions can co-exist, investing in a cinematic form that gently holds multiple entangled histories in one place. We are living at a moment in history that is deeply structured by human denial, and it is in the shadow of this moment that this project about feelings and belief systems feels urgent. Rather than creating an onscreen world of pro-nuclear vs. anti-nuclear binaries and easily digested soundbites, my intention with Richland is to inhabit a more uncomfortable, intimate, and ambivalent space that ultimately points to the ways that each of us holds denial close'. - Irene LUSZTIG

Uwe Johnson's final study in the English town of Sheerness featured a map of Mecklenburg, his childhood home he never revisited post-emigration. Conceived as a geobiography, this film follows Johnson's texts to locations from his life, encountering people and landscapes linked to his work, sometimes closely, sometimes more loosely. 'My re-encounter with the writer Uwe Johnson was special for me: it seemed as if a survivor of the war had tried to write against forgetting. The present in 2018, however, was characterised by historical oblivion and the hopes of the 1990s for a more peaceful world had long since vanished after the apparent end of the Cold War. There had been Chechnya and Georgia, and Russia had recently annexed Crimea… 'This is how I approached the content. Johnson's relationship to the landscapes of his homeland, his coming to terms with the post-war period, his "going and staying." I had already filmed many landscapes in his regions and I often experienced that the people I met in the villages only became at home here after 1945. And I had always pointed out in my films that the north and east of Germany were always particularly affected by the devastation of wars and divisions and that everything was often completely desolate; this was the case from the 30-year war, death and the devil, right up to the effects of the Second World War in the last century. The affinity with Uwe Johnson's world became more and more apparent in many facets. That's why, impressed by the poetic power of Johnson's texts, I wanted to make this film. 'The pandemic caused repeated interruptions after filming began. The current developments of 2020 to 2023 were suddenly very closely linked to Uwe Johnson's work. The dashed hopes of women in Belarus and the announcement of Russian manoeuvres. Finally, on February 24, 2022, the expansion of Russia's invasion to the whole of Ukraine. Now, at the beginning of 2023, it seems as if there had never been an end to the war.' - Volker KOEPP

Artists: Chunni LIN, HUANG Pang-chuan, Yujun WANG Like the documentary nature of movies, historical clues are always found in details. In 1996, some 8mm films labelled 'Deng Nan-guang 8mm' were donated to the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute, comprising street scenes in Japan and Taiwan in the 1930s and 1960s and family scenes. These curled and sour film strips recorded ordinary life but also concealed secrets to unravel.   Created by two filmmakers and a musician, the 'lecture performance' based on these films guides the audience to decode the symbols on the camera, the codes on the films, and the clues of the historical documents, revisiting film history and actual scenes and leading into the beautiful era at the origin of small-gauge film. #HistoryOfTechnology #Kodachrome #TheFishTripInColour

Speaker: SU Ui-tiok 9.5mm home movies pervaded after ‘Pathé-Baby’ emerged in 1922, and watching, showing, and shooting movies became the bourgeoisie’s DIY recreation activity 100 years ago. A new generation of cinephiles emerged thanks to amateur cinema magazines and clubs: filmmaking was ‘serious leisure’, a trend that also pervaded Taiwan in the 1920s and 1930s.

The co-curator conceived and selected these precious 9.5mm footage from Taiwan and Japan, showing the origins of the spectatorship of ‘watching movies at home’ and the spirit of amateur cinema. Beyond a glimpse of traces of ethnographic images, travelogue films reflect the development of ‘Pathé-Baby’ across regions. From inside to outside the frame, these footage shot under Japanese rule represent multiple interwoven perspectives of Japanese and Taiwanese people. #TriptoHualienAndTaitung1935   #LiuNaou #GrafZeppelinof1928

I am a film reel forgotten in Taiwan. I have recorded a happy family life and have been to places, including scenic riverbanks and lively expositions. When the war broke out, everyone left, and I was the only one left, lying quietly in a film can for 90 years. Now that I am awake, I just want to announce to everyone: I am not a film made by Deng Nan-guang!   After the death of the renowned photographer Deng Nan-guang (1907-1971), small-gauge films presumably shot by him were donated to the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute in 1996. The present film is a re-creation based on these archival images, reconstructing the scene of amateur image-making under the Japanese colonial period from a contemporary perspective.

In a world dominated by the Internet and a corporatocratic empire, an unemployed individual, forced to enroll in the Empire's Optimisation of Biological Function Assistance Program. Amid the dark age, he learns from others that rebuilding subjectivity is possible, even in seemingly impossible situations, offering hope in a superficially resplendent era. 'Is it possible to create a documentary film about a future world? This question has nothing to do with reality or fantasy, but rather about the fact that at this time, we live in societies of extreme economic inequality created by the Empire. If we do not envision possibilities for the future, then the future will be the same as now—or even become a Dark Ages of greater inequality.' - CHEN Chieh-jen

Focused on the 2018-2020 excavation of Todos los Santos Church on Heping Island, Taiwan, this film delves into maritime exploration and colonisation of Taiwan. The director combines archaeological findings with a cross-disciplinary musical performance, capturing the delicate excavation process. Furthermore, the film traces a creative journey from the site to historical events in Asia. 'It took four years to complete this documentary, capturing the archaeological excavations on Heping Island and subsequent analyses. Filming behind the scenes of the archaeologists’ work really inspired me; they focus on such minute details of material fragments, distinct from the macro-narratives of history. These are narratives brought together through material matters. None of us has experienced the distant times and spaces connected through the material fragments, such as the 17th-century monastery on Heping Island, the Cambodian-Dutch war, or the fort’s destruction in Malacca. We rely on contemporary technologies to imagine a vast space and time beyond our lived experience. In this film, we attempt to present a journey of imagination through the intersection of contemporary art, sound art and archaeology.' - HSU Chia-wei

All and Nothing explores the intricate life of late conceptual artist Li Yuan-chia, tracing his journey from WWII-era China to Taiwan, 1950s Milan, Bologna, and Swinging Sixties London, culminating in his 1971 establishment of the L.Y.C. Museum & Gallery in rural Cumbria. The film captures his essence as a journeyman and artist. 'Thank you Li Yuan-chia, you are the most important person in our heart, and we are your invisible friend. We are all a small dot in the vast ocean because we cross the barriers of space and time and we have a surreal relationship. We wouldn't say it's a metaphysical spiritual exchange, I think we completely change each other's lives. 'When we saw the words you left behind before your life had vanished, and watched you concentratedly working, we just want to tell you that we believe we found what you thought you had lost. If it was your fate to be lonely, misunderstood, and for your life to fade away, and perhaps no one would ever remember all the things you did, would you still make the same choices? We would because we have found you.' - LIAO I-ling and CHU Po-ying

An ex-Red Guard and anti-Communist soldier during the Korean War, started a three-generation family next to Taoyuan Air Base. Despite the base's historical significance during Japanese occupation and the Cold War, the Taoyuan Aerotropolis project will erase its rich history by 2025, marking another loss in Taiwan's disappearing past.   'The three generations cover old-timers who witnessed the cruelty of war, baby boomers, and Generations Y&Z. They relate to and identify with their respective period of history, yet they live their lives next to the history-rich air force base, basking in the disappearing warmth of familiarity as they are subject to the pressure of relocation and a mixture of feelings ranging from bewilderment, anger, and reluctance to let go. Under the banner of national modernisation and the white-washing "public good," however, these families from the disappearing compound still hold on to their diminishing reality—until households and homeowners alike are all removed from the scene, and history turns the page of annihilation. Not entirely, though. The loud noises are still heard when aeroplanes fly across.' - LEE Li-shao

Chu Chen, 27, lead singer of an indie band, is a dedicated performer who also manages a lighting and sound company for a living. Driven by a fear of inherited misfortune, he rushes through life on and off stage, seeking freedom when not immersed in his passionate performances. 'Chu consistently projects a generous and goal-oriented image in public. This has piqued our curiosity about how he grapples with his internal struggles, confronting anxiety arising from an uncertain disease. Thus, we've decided to embark on a filming journey with him.' - LIN Chih-wen, LIAO Ching-wen, and CHUNG Hyeuh-ming

Life is a cycle. When we die, we are reborn into a new life. This is a film heading slowly toward ‘zero point zero’.

Moe Satt, from a mixed religious background, captures cultural signals through intense observation of hands engaged in various tasks. The film explores the significance of hands in Myanmar, blending secular and religious perspectives, and emphasising the importance of minute gestures in mundane contexts.   'In this video, I recorded the hand movements of people around me, from labourers working on the streets and in the markets, to friends and local artists. Do you think hand gestures can tell a story? About sadness, success, and other things? There are moving hands, working hands, eating hands, communicating hands. I collect many stories about the hands of others.' - Moe Satt

This film offers a unique window into Yangon, a city undergoing immense change. Through narrated poetry and juxtaposed images from Yangon’s urban landscape, this documentary depicts a city that holds the hopes and aspirations of a diverse population. 'Cities are the masks of modern civilization and capital cities are the hearts of nations. A city is a centre of fascination for the people living in a nation. Most cities are vibrant, new and magnificent. They may not only prophesy the future, but also showcase the past as museums. In the late 19th century, Yangon used to be the heart of South East Asia, in other words, it encapsulated a past replete with the most beautiful city in the region. Nowadays, the future of Yangon is all-inclusive reforms through democratisation. I believe that this is the best time to document the poetic lives of those living in Yangon.' - Shin Daewe  

A journey of self-discovery on the Yangon circular train.

This is a film-concert of the Dakh Daughters musical and theatrical band, a modern political cabaret in which the art becomes a way of understanding the events of the revolution and the war in Ukraine. The film was created with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation. 'Living through a pivotal moment in the history of their country, the Maidan Revolution of 2014, art became a way for the Dakh Daughters to reflect upon those events and face the harsh reality of today's Ukraine with wisdom and hope. This political cabaret draws its magic from combining the joie de vivre and the horror of the devastating war—even if we don't see it, its shadow is always there, darkened by the bright stage lights.' - Irena STETSENKO  

Using video diary footage, Parallel World chronicles the 12-year journey of Elodie, a French-Taiwanese girl with Asperger syndrome. Through Elodie's drawings and clay works, the audience can take a glimpse of her whimsical world. The film, a mother's love letter to her daughter, follows them on a journey of self-seeking and self-recognition.   'I became a mother when Elodie was born, and this new identity prompted me to contemplate culture, identity, and national boundaries. The film Somewhere Over the Cloud is a result of the contemplations. As Elodie continued to grow, I found myself examining how an individual connects with the outside world once again.   'Elodie was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. She has dysgraphia but possesses a talent for drawing. As a mother, I want to equip my child with the skill sets required for her to survive in society, yet at the same time, I wonder what makes us human; wonder if I can truly understand my child's inner needs. I observe how creativity is gradually undermined when individuals are pressured by society to conform to a standard mold. But what is a normal person anyway? Isn't normality just an averaged-out result of a lot of random people?   'At the age of fifteen Elodie went to her father's country to begin a new phase of her life. I became a "Zoom Mom": The videos recorded during the past ten years have been a source of reflection on our lives. For more than 10 years, I had to freeze my emotions to continue walking the tightrope as a special child's mother and translating all these complex feelings into a documentary proved to be my outlet.   'All special children are gifts from God. These words, pictures, and videos are my self-therapy and what I would like to share with the world. Let them become the most profound love and blessing for my child.' - HSIAO Mei-ling  

Vietnamese migrant Nguyen Quoc Phi dreamt of starting a business in his home country. In 2017, he was shot nine times by police officer Chen Chung-wen for a reported car theft. Public support for Chen came from Nguyen's resistance and drug use. However, questions about Nguyen's death challenge the perception of the imperfect victim. 'Our attitude towards minority groups distinguishes us from totalitarian regimes. While Taiwan is proud of its commitment to human rights, it appears to be premised on specific race and class distinctions. Nguyen’s death serves as an entry point to address structural problems. The 700,000 Southeast Asian migrant workers lack a voice, but positive changes can be initiated with your professional abilities, resources, and votes. Thank you for watching this film. Let's work together to make Taiwan a truly coexistent and prosperous country.' - TSAI Tsung-lung

We stepped on Orchid Island (Lanyu) because of an ancient chant, which is the earliest sound of the Tao people recorded by Japanese scholar Kitasato Takeshi in the 1920s. Our filming journey, a 3-hour boat ride from the southeast coast of Taiwan, became a heartfelt exploration of the island's intersections between old and new, tradition and modernity.  'Pongso no Tao〜   Island of People is a documentary about the life stories of several Tao friends in Lanyu, and it is also the most challenging work I have encountered since I started filmmaking. It's difficult because of Orchid Island's remoteness. A friend who also filmed on Orchid Island said that it is not easier to go to Lanyu than to go to Japan. In summer, the tourist season, friends on the island are busy making a living, and have no time for anything else. In winter, under the strong attack of the northeast monsoon, it is not easy to land on the island. In total, we have visited Lanyu 6 times, and the longest time we stayed there was two months in a row. 'I admire the Tao people of the past, who, in an era of scarce resources and difficult natural environment, relied entirely on their own hands and physical strength to cut wood to build boats, reclaim wasteland to plant crops, and build houses. The precious cultural assets they left behind are the pride of the Tao people today. 'The Taiwanese government has always considered Lanyu to be a remote area. In recent years, the island has been unable to cope with the demand of the tourism industry. However, the issues that are urgently needed to be resolved, such as the livelihood of the Lanyu people, land issues, and the education and employment of young people, are the deep concerns of the Tao people, and they are also the aspects that we care about.' - TSAO Wen-chieh and LIN Wan-yu

The documentary explores the concept of 'underground' in former (Czecho-)Slovakia, examining its meaning and its link to civil defense structures under the city. A biology student now manages some of these sites. Testimonies from an architect, a filmmaker, and a singer further illuminate the multifaceted nature of the underground world. 'At the beginning, I had an idea to talk about people who were opposing the communist regime in my country, former Czechoslovakia, but they were not part of the official underground—dissident group. They lived in small towns, they weren't in the centre of the action, in Prague or Bratislava, they were somewhere in the regions and they had their own sometimes obscure ways of expressing their inner freedom. They didn't attract the attention of the establishment and therefore nobody knew about them. This seemed to me at the time a sympathetic form of resistance. Also, I wondered what actually happened to all of the nuclear shelters after the end of the Cold War. Back in elementary school, we had to practise all sorts of ridiculous exercises with gas masks. I found people in Bratislava at the Ministry of the Interior who kept these shelters in standby mode, even if ordinary people already forgot about them. I connected those mysterious spaces with the narrative of undercover, invisible dissidents who could use them for self-expression.' - Viera ČÁKANYOVÁ

Eduard Kirchberger, a writer in the First Czechoslovak Republic, embodied various personas like Karel Fabián (one of Kirchberger's pseudonyms). His daughters struggle to distinguish real memories from those in his books. Čákanyová blends documentary and animation in a tragicomic portrayal of Kirchberger's attempt to escape history and self.   'I wanted to visualise his story freely (approach freedom offered by text), avoid the concreteness of reality, given by the descriptive character of technology in both feature and documentary films and make room for some inner imagination.' - Viera ČÁKANYOVÁ

As filmmaker she is not fascinated by stories of individuals that are emotionally strong and heart-catching. Čákanyová wants to offer her audiences a wider perspective in order to inspire them to new ideas.  'Through my film Slovaks can look at themselves from the perspective of Michael— someone who is somewhat odd, even nasty at times, but is not stupid; who happens to come from a superpower, a country that is culturally and politically incomparably more influential than Slovakia. Such person looks around without our Slovak sentiment and uses a language that is lingua franca. He points out the provinciality and pretentiousness that are deeply ingrained in us. We hardly see beyond the tip of our nose, we wage petty wars; we are xenophobic and not generous enough. It is ridiculous. What saves it all is just nature and animals.' - Viera ČÁKANYOVÁ

In a village on the Indo-Myanmar border, seventy years after Indian independence, news arrives that electricity might come. People are sceptical, and let down too often before. A woman dreams of a better future, a century-old man of sovereignty. As the village waits, life flickers between hope and frustration, idealism and pragmatism.   'It is a region we have visited several times over the past 15 years, engaging with communities, trying to understand, and searching for ways to express what we saw on the ground.   'When we heard about the rural electrification drive in the region, we felt that exploring this would allow us to delve deep into the intricacies of life here. At the same time, it opened a window to the struggle for basic amenities like electricity—a struggle that is shared by millions on our planet. Looking at this journey could be a way to understand how things work (or don't work) in this part of the world, and how people cope with a life rife with uncertainties.   'The treatment of our film is guided by an urge to reframe stories of marginalisation of indigenous communities, and to present Tora as a living, thriving entity rather than essentializing the people here as victims of underdevelopment or violence. In a world of increasing cacophony and polarisation, we want to express ourselves with gentleness, allowing small gestures, everyday conversations to reveal the lived philosophy of a people, their dreams and anxieties.' - Anupama SRINIVASAN and Anirban DUTTA

In 2020, the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 swept the globe with panic and death, keeping the whole world hostage in fear and isolation. 220 kilometres from Wuhan, China, villagers in 47KM lived through the turmoil guided by ancestral prophecies and lifestyle, continuing their ordinary existence in those extraordinary times.

Stagnation in the body cannot keep up with the changes in real life. When the memory of the trembling hand is constantly haunting, when the cavity is filled by artificial materials—if the body remembers, how should it respond to years of traumatic past? Three interviewees describe the indescribable body changes and try picking up the hints and signs. 'Our bodies remember what they want us to forget.' - CHAN Hau-chun  

Performance artist Florence and documentary filmmaker Tze Woon are lovers. They propose to exchange each other's distressing memories before they met and attempt to reenact each other's experience with their own art form—could they really walk closer towards each other through the process?   'Putting on his tattered shoes, even if it's ill-fitting on me, I tried to feel the shape of his feet imprinted on the sole, but I can't feel his body heat anymore. I rubbed to warm it up, to reenact that feeling again. I lifted the shoes up easily, despite them looking big and heavy, and I found him kneeling down, supporting the weight. I am not sure what he expects when he entrusts his memories to me, maybe none. No matter how real the moment I re-perform his memory, I can never really replicate the danger he endured at the time.  For me, my memory is too persistent. If only I could hand it over to someone who can never fully understand, perhaps his interpretation may surprise me. Holding the pairs of worn-out shoes that we are reluctant to throw away, we will keep cherishing.  'However, I seemed to understand something when I tried to learn his creative language. Holding the worn-out shoes that we were reluctant to throw away, we embrace them with care.' - Florence LAM   '"As a man, how would you ever understand the unique experience of the female body?" Indeed, body and sexuality are fundamentally incomprehensible, so is creative expression. Florence and I hold a completely different view towards the truth, could we walk into each other's memory through our own creative medium? Despite being sceptical, at least we stepped into each other's shoes and tried to take one step forward.' - CHAN Tze Woon

On the 25 year anniversary of Hong Kong's handover from the UK to Mainland China, directives for 'a new era' promising stability and prosperity are found on murals and public slogans. Meanwhile, uneasy thoughts cast shades on daily life. Old feelings arise, a pressure builds—conjuring distant voices from the concrete, never quite getting their point across. Something calls for repair but we can't just talk it out can we?

The documentary explores army cooks' impact on war outcomes, showcasing how feeding thousands shapes victories and defeats. It depicts food prep as strategic, reflecting a world where ideals are fought for around the kitchen table. Through eleven meals spanning from World War II to Chechnya, the film spans nations, illustrating culinary battles from France to Russia.   'If someone was to write it's a pacifist film, it's not true. If someone was to write it's a film that celebrates the army and the military, it's also not true. There are so many different situations and I was curious to see how human beings go about solving them. I would ask them the same questions and always get different answers. Sometimes you have to be a pacifist because you are a member of some dictator's army, but sometimes you have to grab a gun and fight for your homeland.' - Peter KEREKES

Only played by men, Buzkashi has been a popular sport in Central Asia for centuries. The aim of the game is to steal the trophy of a dead goat from the rival team of riders while on horseback. Atirkül, a woman with an enterprising spirit, enters this tough masculine world to form her own team.   'Atirkül, our central character, is a vivid reflection of women's resilience and hope. She heeds the call of the wild, yet finds joy in Christian Dior fashion, and does not shy away from "stealing men's brains." At times, she stumbles, but she consistently rises, firm in her pursuits. It is the unwavering spirit embodied by Atirkül that has inspired the making of this film.   'Today, regrettably, Kyrgyzstan is viewed as one of the most challenging places for women. Through this cinematic journey, my aspiration is to depict my country not solely through its hardships but also through the enduring qualities of tenacity, love, and partnership that define our society. This film is a humble tribute to the strength of our women and the shared dreams of our people to overcome adversity'. - Janyl JUSUPJAN

In a Mbyá-Guarani community between Brazil and Argentina, everyone knows Canuto, a man who many years ago suffered the dreaded transformation into a Jaguar, and then died tragically. Now, a film delves into his story. Why did this happen to him? But more importantly—who in the village should play his role?   'We have crafted this film with the intention of bringing the viewer into a journey with us. The journey crosses frontiers: Brazil/Argentina, fiction/documentary, human/animal, person/character. Our main character, who lived in the 80’s, since his childhood showed the signs of the dreaded disease which is the transformation into a jaguar, a dangerous animal. The story concerns the risks of stepping outside humanity, outside the bonds that unite a community, and connects people. We find, in the act of filmmaking itself, key elements that help us understand what that transformation means. And with that, we approach the drama of telling that story, with the strong complicity of the entire Mbyá-Guarani community that lived through the events narrated, decades ago. Along the way, we find unexpected things: a child actor who is the closest incarnation of the character we could possibly hope for, a phantasmagoric wooden structure in the centre of the community that makes us think about the world outside, and the colonial story of violence that crosses the community, and events that reshape the lives of everyone involved.' - Ariel KUARAY ORTEGA and Ernesto DE CARVALHO

Leaving her native village to follow her dream of becoming an actress, Hiam Abbass also left behind her mother, grandmother and seven sisters. Thirty years later, her filmmaker daughter Lina returns with her to journey through the vanished places among the scattered memories of four generations of daring Palestinian women.   '"We don't belong to a place; we belong to the story of the place". In the film, I embody the fourth generation of women present on screen, and the first to be born outside of Palestine. I carry the memory of the women in my family and the history of exile and dispossession they faced. By telling their story, I reclaim the personal, historical and visual legacies that I have inherited. I question these legacies, confront them and intertwine them together in order to answer a question that haunts me: how does a woman find her place when caught between worlds?   'By making this film, I follow the same path as the women in my family. Passing on our story has always been central. With our words, we fight against erasure and oblivion. That is why I feel a constant urge to share these stories. By re-inventing the history of my family, I hope to not only reclaim my heritage, but to seize and preserve the images of a world rapidly disappearing. Images that stand as proof of a denied existence'. - Lina SOUALEM

In a 250-square-kilometre online community, individuals simulate survival scenarios through avatars. A film crew enters, forming connections with participants who gradually reveal their true selves. Blending virtual experiences with real-life stories, the documentary explores the implications of virtualisation and the evolving nature of human interaction in a digital world.   'We started our research during our studies at the Beaux-Arts. Our first intention was really just to experiment. We did not intend to make a documentary or a film in any way, but mostly just wanted to observe. The idea was to connect to a game and to go and see what was going on there, by observing, without playing. We weren't really aware of what was going on in these online games at the time. At some point we came across a player who wasn't using any of the game's tools and was just hanging out. When we saw that this was possible, to stop in a game, to simply take in the landscape and look around, to sit down with people in a virtual world, to just pause, to talk about other things, to not play in fact, we realised that it was perhaps possible to make a documentary here. That's how it started I think.' - Guilhem CAUSSE

This story follows Ly, among Madagascar's last peasant orators. Amid political promises, he defends cultivated land from urban encroachment. His children, aided by his eldest daughter and artists, stage a defining show of farmers' struggles. Manipulating puppets, they aim for mass media attention, turning the film into a powerful tool against manipulation.   'I dreamt of a "Kabary" film! A film built, in its very form, around the humour and oral culture of my fellow peasants and my ancestors. The 'Kabary' is an argumentative speech, a baroque and metaphorical reading of reality, resulting from observation of nature and human beings which, after a few wanderings, makes sense in the end. I dare to alternate between lightness and seriousness. In Antananarivo, to express the absurd or even despair, we usually say "mampihomehy," "that makes one laugh". Laughing at injustice rather than crying, resisting rather than pitying.' - Nantenaina LOVA

Mojtaba, Hamzeh and Zar are among other individuals who have been thrown into prison and ideologically interrogated in Iran. In this documentary, the director wants them to interrogate him as agents of the Islamic Republic might. He would like the real torturer in Iran to see himself through the film as if in a mirror.   'I ask Iranian political refugees in France to interrogate me on camera as an agent of the Iranian regime would. My initial intention was to take this recording to Iran to show it to an interrogator working for the regime and to confront him with his own violence. Would it be possible to awaken his conscience? My Worst Enemy raises questions regarding filmmaking and ethics. Is there something wrong about proposing such a re-enactment to a political refugee? What are the risks for him and for me? What is the nature of the pact with the audience? Is it possible to change a system from the inside?' - Mehran TAMADON

Forever explores the enduring power of art at Paris' Père-Lachaise cemetery. Through the eyes of visitors, it reveals the tranquil beauty of the graveyard. The cemetery emerges as both a resting place and a source of solace and inspiration for the living. Michael GUILLÉN: 'If it is true that the etymological root of religion is the Latin "religare"- which means "to tie, to fasten, to bind"- then perhaps it is memory itself that binds the living to the dead, accounting for what I've long accepted as the religiosity of memory. Honigmann skillfully captures the nature of that religiosity, its faithfulness, its evocation.’ The 35mm print of the film is offered by the EYE Filmmuseum.

Taghi, Homa and Mazyar were arrested and interrogated by the Iranian regime. All three testify with their bodies, with their gestures and tell what it means to resist, and what it means to break. Is there any hope that the torturer will one day reconnect with his conscience? 'It is a film based on the testimonials of those who have been brutally treated by the Iranian regime. It seeks to understand how the most repressive aspects of this totalitarian system rely on imprisonment and torture. What does the torturer do? What are his gestures and practices? How can the fight be carried out? These are questions that have haunted me since the first feature film I made in Iran on the regime's militia. Once again, I am trying to understand power by looking at it from the perspective of those who have directly experienced the violence meted out by the Iranian regime.' - Mehran TAMADON

Belgian engineer Gustave Verniory went to Chile in 1889 to build the railway through the Mapuche territory. Freely based on Verniory's diary, director Ignacio Agüero explores the act of filming and proposes a singular way of seeing this tumultuous past and the natural and human geography of his country. 'When Gustave Verniory arrives in Chile to work as an engineer on the railroad construction in the Araucania territory, in the south of the country, he gets off at a station—Angol Station—which no longer exists. He travels in the past and abroad the present. In between, everything he built at the end of the 19th century was destroyed as soon as Pinochet's dictatorship began. If this had been fiction, Verniory would have arrived, in the film, at a station reconstructed by set builders. But it is a documentary, so he arrives at a station in ruins. 'Based on the texts from the book Ten Years in Araucania, Verniory's diary, the film explores, through the character as well as through the actor portraying him, the railroad's penetration of the wilderness and the introduction of capitalism into Chile's indigenous territory. It does so with the economics of a documentary: period clothing for just one person, a single horse, and a film crew that simultaneously act as both crew members and extras. 'Thus, the film is able to explore history through the cinema's playful possibilities, becoming a fascinating experience for those making it as well as those watching.' - Ignacio AGÜERO

A poetic essay film on the colonial gaze and the magic lantern. This early type of image projector was used in Belgian colonial propaganda, showcasing the good works of the Church, State, and industry. Lantern projections were an effective way of selling the colonial project to a somewhat reluctant Belgian public. 'This tension between aesthetic experience and the reverberations of colonial ideology is central to the film. In composing an associative fabric of assemblages and collages, the film attempts to map the colonial gaze from a broken view, how it persists across time and shapes the way we view, think of, and speak about the past…. Perhaps the only way to be able to show these images is when they are set in motion within a poetic space that aims to do justice to the realities of oppression from which they were taken…. To mark a beginning, I felt I had to start putting images and words together from the get-go, seeing montage not as a final stage of the filmmaking process, but rather as a way of beginning, montage as a way of writing.' - Hannes VERHOUSTRAETE

Structured around a dancer's routine, the film unfolds in four stages: hope, fear, anger, and longing for stability. It interweaves these emotions with those of locals of Matsu, the military, and first-time-visiting photographers from Taiwan island.   'Perhaps out of a reactionary mood, I told myself not to film historical tragedies or emphasise soldiers and war. Instead, I wondered if there were stories of the people of Matsu. Thus, chasing after the figure of a dancer, I embarked on the exploration of Matsu.' – CHEIN Wei-ssu

Mentioning Diao-yu-tai evokes an immediate patriotic response in Taiwan due to the territorial dispute between China and Japan, sparked by a 1968 oil field survey in the East China Sea.   'I wouldn't say I'm shooting the Diao-yu-tai; it's more like the Diao-yu-tai is capturing me, or perhaps it is reflecting me. I never thought the Diao-yu-tai was important to me, and even now, after researching so much about the island, the more I understand it, the less I want to engage with it. I just wish it could peacefully lie there.' - Singing CHEN

In 1998, Wuqiu was marked as a Nuclear Waste Disposal site despite protests. Islanders question the choice: ‘Why dump it here? Why not bury gold?’ As a military zone, public access is denied, leaving us defenseless if the government acts further.   'However, today, we still use the sparse population of the outlying islands as an excuse, attempting to further exploit the scarce remaining pristine land. If not for the shadow cast by nuclear waste, the islanders' lives would have been tranquil and content. But the imminent shadow of radiation quickly covered the island and shadowed people's hearts.' – Zero CHOU

Liuqiu, a tiny island on the outskirt of the Taiwan Strait, which means ‘floating ball’. Surrounded by more floating balls—’hotels-on-the-sea’ where Chinese fishermen stay. The film depict fate, humanity and destiny of these floating balls.   'Originally a joyful overseas holiday, but once the filming began, everyone except the cinematographer felt ill. Spending eight to nine hours on a dirty, oily boat, unable to use the restroom or eat, only continuously smoking and bonding with them. Then, those lacking sleep started vomiting first. Some places seem nearby, just a short ride by boat, but can people really settle there? This is where I began contemplating the fate of the outlying islands.' - LEE Chih-chiang

When fishing at sea, he always glimpses Guishan Island. Childhood memories and the villagers' distinct qualities were buried there during the village’s relocation. 'Now, we hide our homesickness in dreams'. Witnessing the island's tourism deeply affects displaced islanders.   'I originally thought my relationship with Guishan Island was close... but it was wishful thinking, my own imagination. Should I stand in their shoes or mine? What exactly defines my standpoint? I'm quite uncertain. Is this film meant to speak for them or to make everyone want to visit the place? Eventually, I realised everything was filmed for my nostalgia.' - LEE Yung-chuan

When a boat sets off, passengers may anticipate their destination's appearance. Some believe imagination can transport them, while others need firsthand experience. The story of Keelung Islet documents both a process and a state of consciousness.   'Emotions change faster than the body, so nothing can be permanently recorded. Sometimes I think, if only I could simplify myself, would things be better? But I refuse to give up. When everything is filled with trash, why do you still demand excellence? The place where the island is located is a transient world, so perfection and imperfection always coexist…' – Jimmy WU

The film was shot in two periods. Initially, during Kuo's visit to Ching-wen rebuilding his parents' home, unplanned as a documentary. Later, funding came, but Ching-wen left for Taipei. Kuo returned to Orchid Island, capturing memories of Ching-wen.   'Over these years, moving between Taiwan and Orchid Island, I shared many joyful moments with Ching-wen. I hoped to document his life on the island and even wrote a script for him. Yet, after years of waiting, when I finally received a bit of funding to film, he had to leave Orchid Island.' – KUO Chen-ti

West Island lies south of Penghu, under a square kilometre in size. At its peak, around 200 people lived here, but by 1999, only few remained. It's uncertain if their departure was coincidental. Both the island and its inhabitants have faded into obscurity.   'You just need to stand at the highest point on the island. In the morning, you can watch the sunrise, and in the afternoon, you can watch the sunset there. Standing at one spot, you can see the entire island in 360 degrees. It feels like the area where you can land is very small, but your vision is incredibly vast.' - CHU Hsien-che

Director Nishimura, residing in Miharashi Hills Town, finds fascination in the shifting shadows cast upon its streets. Entranced by their ever-changing shapes, he observes how they intensify under the summer sun, creating a vivid contrast. Each silhouette holds unique qualities, seemingly containing the town's secrets.   'The streets of Miharashi Hills Town were scanned by LiDAR which is a laser scanner installed on an iPad. What I scanned were the shadows of houses, poles, trees, and vinyl greenhouses cast on the asphalt-paved streets. More exactly, the surfaces of the streets were scanned, and the scanned data were transformed into 3D models with shadow textures. Scanning 2D flat shadows in 3D space sounds a bit strange, however, I found that it is a very practical way to make a seamless image of shadows cast on a long street. Once they became 3D models, it was easier for me to move a camera more freely on them. As I scanned the shadows, I walked along the side of a street, holding the iPad with my hands. LiDAR measures objects up to 5 metres ahead. That is the reason why the boundaries between the light and dark sections appear like torn edges of paper. Those jaggy edges show how the shadows were scanned. The sounds were recorded in the town: residents' chatter and cicadas singing in summer.   'There are many ways to describe realities. Showing the realities from a different perspective is the theme of my works.' - NISHIMURA Yoshiki

A landscape film comprised of nightscapes, drawings, and excerpts from poems by the literati of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). 'In my neighbourhood, the mountain is snug and the stream murmurs, every night lulling the vibrance of day into serenity. One night, crouching on a cold rock in the midst of the dark blue brook, I saw the sky in the water. The indigo gleam of the flowing moon dyed my senses and I became one with the sky and the water and the crisp air in between. Since then, taking a walk by the stream is like strolling in someone else's dream. The soft breeze from the mountain sways my hair gently, and I wait for my sleep to be broken. 'I put a lot of effort into recording the sound separately during filming, but the sounds continued to be annoying during the editing process. The senses I felt seemed to be dulled and diminished. One day, I accidentally turned off the sound and only looked at the images, drawings, and writings I had taken, and I actually felt even more inspired. So I removed the sound later.' - SOHN Kooyong

Fireworks filmed at a summer festival in Japan using a Super 16 camera captured images on the optical soundtrack area. In a 16mm projector, the photocell reading precedes the image projection by 26 frames. Footage from 2 rolls was cut into 26-frame shots, alternating between rolls to separate sound and visuals, creating a distinct rhythm in the film.

Moderator: SU Ui-tiok Speaker: LI Chao-jung (Researcher) In 1928, Ting Ray-yü (1901-1973), born in Lukang, Changhua, moved to be a doctor in mines run by Japanese in British Malaya. Upon World War II in 1939, he and his family returned to Taiwan separately. Recruited unexpectedly in 1943, he stayed abroad for 3 years. The 8mm films comprise shots of pre-war daily life and trips, farewell as the war approached, and worrisome group photos taken before parting.   Retrospectively, personal and historical aspects intersect in these images of cherished family memories, as traces of an era beyond the grand narrative. In early 2000's, these films were donated to the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute. This screening shows selected sequences along with a presentation by a researcher, revealing life trajectories of Taiwanese people under Japanese rule. #MalayanMountainMineClub  #KatoriMaruBigShipLeavingPortRibbonThrowing #ParadeForTripartitePact1940

In 1997, the sudden abolition of licenced prostitution in Taipei City compelled 128 licenced prostitutes to take to the streets. Bailan, a protesting sex worker, fell into a coma in 2005. Using intricate takes and archive footage, this film unfolds her life after the abolition of legal prostitution. It portrays the oppression of everyday people by policy and politics, while also highlighting the warmth in relationships among people and with cats. 'In the current era of image inflation, looking back to re-edit DV footage with a resolution of only 720×480 from almost two decades ago was not meant to negate my past self. Rather, it was done to face my regrets properly and attempt to provide fair treatment to my materials. For me, Lauchabo refers to both cats and humans. It is both a cat's name and the name of this group, "thàn-chia̍ h-cha-bó," women who make a living with their bodies. I hope that some of their moments can be remembered.' - TSAI Yann-shan

Taman-taman (Park): Two Indonesian poets meet at Tainan Park, using daytime experiences to craft poetry. Inspired by encounters and emotions, their creations take shape through night-time chanting, imagination, and action. Taman-taman (Park) unfolds a journey resembling an ancient fable, with untold stories hidden in the endless night. The storytellers become integral parts of the narratives as well.   'If we describe it with landscape painting, no matter how realistic it is, the painter cannot bring the scenery in front of them into the exhibition hall. However, looking at the landscapes that the painter has selected, modified, and embellished, sometimes the soul can be taken to a further place. Or, the painting itself is already an independent scenery, whether as a whole or in detail; it makes people yearn for or fear. Sometimes, when looking at landscape paintings, imagining the painter facing the scenery across this canvas, gradually, it also becomes a part of the scenery.' - SO Yo-hen  

For more than two decades, Mama Yang, a Taiwanese immigrant, has dedicated her life to corresponding with inmates in New York's prison system. Filmed over ten years, the documentary follows Mama Yang's extraordinary life journey as she tells the stories of a group of people who encounter each other in a world of loneliness. 'This film tells the characters who have to find love despite the tragedies in their lives. What attracted me to Mama Yang was her passion for inmates serving long-term imprisonment. However, Mama Yang's fragile side is revealed when facing her granddaughter's pain over losing her father. This wall of isolation blocked them. The touching story inspired me to spend 10 years of my life filming this documentary in the U.S. and Taiwan. The film is closely related to the world. There are more than 280 million people who have migrated to live in other countries. In the time of pandemic and the chaos of war, many people have lost their beloved ones. Through the love shown in this documentary, I hope the audience can grasp the power of love from the struggles in life'. - Jasmine Chinghui LEE

The soldier's written words breathe life into the desolate and shell-covered Tong-Sha Island, transforming it into a vivid landscape. It's a place where many men seem symbolically bound, unvisited yet too precious to forsake.   'Being used to a certain way of looking, listening and understanding, we are often presumptuous about our judgments. As a filmmaker, I made the same mistake at the beginning of the shoot. I didn’t choose the subject; it is the subject that chose me.' - LEE Meng-zhe

What do the islands want to convey? We hear nothing but silence. The souls of these islands long for the past, yet forever trapped in this space. The film symbolises their struggles, offering silent contemplation without firm conclusions.   'Originally, this project aimed to speak from a so-called borderland perspective. Now, I'm somewhat concerned that such a viewpoint might be delusional. At least, for the "Northern Three Islands", if we talk about respecting the land, and respecting nature, then we should also learn true abandonment. Perhaps from my perspective... their silence might indeed be the most appropriate voice.’ - SHEN Ko-shang

Old folks waiting for a good coffin, children waiting to leave the island, soldiers anticipating military retirement... Trees waiting for wind, wind seeking rocks, rocks waiting for man’s return, and I’m waiting for the movie to end.   'This is my hometown. When I first picked up the camera to praise you, what I saw was your abandoned face. Only 16 minutes, yet my feelings were so heavy and fearful. That island, the island I want to return to but don't know how... I think this is a movie that (Kinmen) islanders dare not see...' - HUANG Ting-fu

Green Island's link to political prisoners remains indelible despite its modern tourism. To depict the multi-faceted appearance of the island, the film centres on 3 characters: a local islander, a former prisoner’s daughter, and an artist with depression.   'We adopt a semi-documentary, semi-dramatic approach to showcase the culture and current status of Green Island while recreating the atmosphere of political exiles detained there in the past. By interweaving the recorded subjects in various contexts and dialogues, the film generates a sense of time and space intertwining. This blend precisely captures the enigmatic ambiance presented by present-day Green Island after the wave of tourism.' - HSU Juei-lan

After twenty years of absence, director Elvis Lu returns home to confront the true reason for his departure: his unwavering belief in the psychic powers of his elder brother, A-zhi. Documenting each day, he realises that the actual source of familial strife may be his departure. 'My mother asked me to go back home, and I understood that she was getting ready to die. Suddenly, I felt that I wasn't ready to lose her, and I realised that I didn't have much time left to face the family problems that had haunted me for so long. I decided to return home and film our daily life, creating a family video that we had never had. This process has somehow eased the feelings of anger and emptiness that lingered within me for so long. Coming back to my family was complicated, but it also somehow led me to come back to myself.' - Elvis LU

With 20 years of shrimp farming expertise in Taiwan, Du ventured to Myanmar, unaware of the challenges ahead—white powders and guns. Sue, a Burmese-Chinese woman with shrimp farming dreams, married Jojo and took over her father's farm. United by ambition, Du and Sue aimed to create a 'Diamond Marine World'. 'Taiwan is close to Mainland Southeast Asia. A lot of Southeastern Asian labourers come to work in Taiwan. Taiwanese people often look at economically disadvantaged Southeast Asian countries through estranged, discriminatory glasses. I traveled along the Mekong River through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam for three months in 2015. During that time, I met many Taiwanese people working away from home and became curious about their work and lives in Southeast Asia. 'In Diamond Marine World, the chef from Taiwan, "Du," with his Burmese employees, "Sue," and "Jojo," work together for an opportunity to become rich. Each of them made their sacrifices and choices in the quest for success. They have also lost their trust due to inner demons and conflicts. What is the definition of success in different cultures and systems of values? To become wealthy or to live in the present? In this film, I think the audience can eventually catch sight of humanity and understand this estranged country, Myanmar.' - HUANG Hsiu-yi

In 2022, a highway was about to cut across my hometown. I documented the unearthing of graves and interviewed villagers about their memories of the dead. Their narrative enables me to sketch the portraits for the deceased. As I gaze upon them, they seem to question the path and the choices lying ahead of us.    'The highway surged into my hometown with relentless momentum, beyond my power to oppose or obstruct. Thus photography becomes a form of rebellion and silent testimony. With each click of the shutter, the questions raised by this rapid construction grow more profound and more elusive. The highway hastens the comings and goings of people. I cannot dictate the starting point of my journey through life, but I can choose where to return. For me, returning to my hometown is a life action, because hometown is an eternal mystery.' - HU Sanshou

Mrs. O. is suffering from dementia. Her story is told through a combination of documentary footage and her video journals. She uses a digital camera to document daily activities, memories, thoughts, and event commentaries. Through an individual story of gradual memory loss, Alda reflects the attitude of the post-communist society towards its recent history. 'I found Mrs. Oldriska by random search on the internet when I was searching for information about different malfunctions of memory. She had a blog, where she published short diary notes and simple poems. According to her profile, she suffered from Alzheimer's type of dementia. I found it interesting how she reflects on her past through the experience with the disease, what remains in the memory and what just fades and how different memories deform or reform the past, not just in some individual life, but also in so-called collective memory of a society, or country. I wrote the script of the film Alda based on our discussions and her diaries, and I used her expressions, her way of talking and reflecting reality. It is her voice-over in the film. A lot of ideas emerged spontaneously or as a result of improvisation during the recording. The lady in the picture is an actress, because for Mrs. Oldriska the shooting would be extremely exhausting, and she was OK with this kind of solution. While I was writing the script for Alda, I lent a small digital camera to Mrs. Oldriska and asked her to record for me some situations from her everyday life. I thought it might help me with the writing, and that maybe I could use some of it in the film. But when I saw the footage, it was a separate movie by Mrs. Oldriska herself. I ended up editing the material to 75 minutes and named the film Olda. With no previous experience in filmmaking, she uses the camera in a very spontaneous way, sometimes fighting with the technical limits of the device, sometimes even forgetting about the shooting itself. The result is a diary-style film dealing with aging, pain, and solitude in a raw, non-aestheticized manner. These two films are in a way complementary and they refer to different ways of approaching reality in documentary filming—an author's point of view versus the pure record of what appears to be so-called "authentic reality.' - Viera ČÁKANYOVÁ

Arum's parents, part of South Korea's 386 generation, aimed to secure democracy. But Arum's perspective shifts at 18 with the Sewol ferry disaster. Even her father's involvement in its aftermath prompts her to question inherited democracy. Reflecting on events like #MeToo and impeachment, Arum ponders her generation's role in shaping South Korea's political landscape.   'Constrained by my father's public service, I held back from joining protests, inspired yet unable to live up to my mother's feminist ideals. This film mirrors my quest for a political voice, threading the line between critiquing and championing the efforts of previous generations. I aspire for it to spark conversations about forging the democracy of tomorrow.' - NAM Arum

Two lifelong rivals Ratima and Kalima have been appointed caretakers of their empty village. Now in the twilight of their lives, they must forget their past and help each other survive a long and harsh winter.   'Life in Nepal today is defined by poverty, gender roles, remoteness, urban-rural divide, caste, and "untouchability." All these manifest in the lives of Ratima and Kalima. They are considered "low caste," the "untouchables" of society, they have little material wealth, and their identity in society is still tied to their common, but already dead husband.   'From the outside, it is as if they are doomed to isolation and drudgery. Yet, upon close observation, we find their lives have a quiet, pastoral dignity, and a sense of freedom in contrast to city-dwellers. Their activities and experiences also defy our preconceived ideas about rural women and the relationships they have in life.   'Ratima and Kalima resemble many of our family members closely. Both of us have family members who refuse to leave village life—which we find tough and unrewarding—and settle with us in the city. Through an intimate portrait of Ratima and Kalima's lives and circumstances, we want to create a wider interest in grassroots cultures and issues in Nepal today.' - Rajan KATHET and Sunir PANDEY

A 24-year-old medical student, showing signs of schizophrenia, goes untreated due to family denial. Her brother, eight years younger, questions but remains silent. Years later, he records family interactions, revealing his sister's deteriorating condition. Finally, after 25 years, treatment begins. Despite progress, she succumbs to lung cancer in 2021, leaving unanswered questions for her family.   'My sister was smart, good at drawing, and had great potential. I believe that schizophrenia is not a mental illness but a brain illness, and there is no need to be ashamed or hide it. However, I could not understand the actions of my parents, who could be considered experts. I now know what it's like to feel really troubled because you don't have anyone to talk to. I started recording the facts because they disappeared. It's a boring video that looks like a home video, but I made it because I wanted to help prevent the same thing from happening again.' - FUJINO Tomoaki

Lesya, imprisoned for a crime of passion, faces seven years in an Odessa women's correctional facility. With her newborn, she enters a world filled solely with women—inmates, nurses, and wardens. Uniforms blur identities in this world of wives, widows, daughters, sisters, pregnant women, and children, making it hard to tell who is who.   'I also wanted the film to deliver an authentic collective testimony of the convicted mothers, not only through their conversations with Iryna but also through the silent scenes—the loneliness they feel when their children are taken away and they despairingly finish their birthday cake; the flashes of happiness when the women briefly forget they're in prison. Visually, these scenes are treated almost like a photograph—a memory of a moment independent of space and time. I believe that what defined the women's relationship towards me was curiosity. I did not ask them to do anything; I did not order them around. I simply observed and listened to them, and what they were willing to share with me, I translated into this film.' - Peter KEREKES

Farah, born during the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, captures moments of joy and defiance in her daily life and is forced to migrate to her private planet to be free. She buys other people's memories in super 8mm films and records and archives her own, to create an alternative history of Iran.   'When we share a memory with others, it moves from private to public. This story is woven tightly with a resistance to forgetting. At a time when power structures strive to narrate history in ways that hide important and popular segments, it becomes all the more crucial to share personal details and micro-narratives.' - Farahnaz SHARIFI

Crossing Voices recounts the adventure of Somankidi Coura, an agricultural cooperative founded in Mali in 1977 by migrant workers from West Africa living in France. The story of this improbable utopia of returning to the country follows a tortuous path that sheds light on the ecological stakes and struggles on the African continent since the 1970s.

In 1985 Buenos Aires, the trial of Argentina's last dictatorship unfolds, reminiscent of Nuremberg after WWII. Recorded on U-matic tapes, 90 days reveal testimonies of horror and a final verdict: 'Never Again'. The film delves into defenders, political positions, and victims' voices, narrating tales of torture and pain, encapsulating life and death within a courtroom.   'The 90 days that the trial lasted were entirely recorded by the public television with two cameras on U-matic cassettes. The search for and access to the trial archive, 530 hours of footage, began in 2013. Dreaming about a documentary film that narrates what happened there, and at the same time tells the story of the Argentine horror and its justice process.    'It was not easy to find the material. At the public television channel, which was in charge of the recording, they denied me any kind of collaboration for fear of political reprisals. At the General Archive of the Argentine Nation (AGN), which has the material in custody, they suggested that in order to avoid inconveniences I should look for the material at the University of Salamanca in Spain, which also has a copy of the material in custody. It seemed incredible. More than three decades after the trial, it still raised fears and reservations in small officials unable to make a decision and take the risks.   'In 2019, after much walking, I learned, through my friends at the Luisa Hairebedian Foundation that the archival material, the 530 digitised hours, are in the custody of Memoria Abierta NGO. We met with the team, agreed on the guidelines to work together and then, finally, we were ready to start visualising the archive…. The Trial is the first cinematographic work that deals exhaustively with the archive of the Trial of the Juntas, the cornerstone of the process of justice for crimes against humanity in Argentina and it is an invaluable document for Humanity'. - Ulises DE LA ORDEN

Leaving my birth island wasn't departure but escape. Years later, I arrive on another barren island, strangely familiar. Seeking a man willing to unveil his violence, I realise that he also holds the key to my deepest fears, echoing in the violence of my own past. Now his story will never be separated from mine.   'While working on this film, I found myself in a very delicate position as Ernesto's facilitator, the man who grappled with facing violence that he carried out against his family, the violence he said he had inherited from his father. At the same time, I was confronted by the struggle of my own, coming to terms with the past that I had fled two decades ago.   'Like Ernesto, I too am an islander. As a woman born and raised on the Greek island of Crete, my story is vastly different from Ernesto's, yet what we seemed to share were the memories of our fathers and patterns of violence that reigned in our families.   'Suddenly, once a stranger, Ernesto became a familiar figure. Alternating between the roles of the victim and the perpetrator in the film, he reenacts scenes from his childhood, playing his mother and himself who suffered at the hands of his father. Then, in other scenes, which he directs, he is already an adult who commits violent acts against his wife.   'Far from merely condemning Ernesto, I sought to draw parallels between our stories as a bridge of intimacy and understanding. This bridge is built slowly and delicately in the film, and it is left fragile, exposing our shared vulnerabilities. Through the narrative of the other, he who is most distant, I looked for answers in my own narrative, switching between the mirror and the magnifying glass. I allowed myself to lean on his recollections of violence to navigate the tumultuous waters of my own memories of it. As this project unfurled, my story became louder, intertwining with Ernesto's, until it brought home to me that we were interdependent in the process of healing'. - Efthymia ZYMVRAGAKI

Celsa covers her skin with roots and leaves from her jungle-like garden. She wants to heal. She still feels prison and torture endured 45 years ago in a concentration camp in Paraguay. However, the past echoes; the country is ruled by the son of the former dictator's right-hand man.   'For me, Guapo'y is the confirmation that stories find us. They are voices and tracks that rise up thanks to their protagonists' drive. With her kindness and simplicity, Celsa teaches me the importance of fighting together, and that healing cannot be carried out without encountering oneself first, one's images and memories. Celsa's journey represents the need of the Paraguayan people. The need not to forget and not to allow oblivion to be enacted by current leaders who defend the worst years of a country's history, years of horror and silence. Guapo'y is an urgent tale of an aching body that needs to heal'. - Sofía PAOLI THORNE

In May 2008, Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar's Ayeyarwaddy Delta, claiming 140,000 lives. Despite a filming ban, young Burmese filmmakers clandestinely visited devastated villages after the storm, capturing surreal scenes of loss and resilience. Their emotional footage reveals the profound impact of Nargis, depicting a world where life and death intertwine, altering countless lives forever. For security reasons, the filmmakers couldn't reveal their names and they used pseudonyms. But for the first time, they screened the film with their real names at the 2nd Wathann Film Festival in 2012. One of the directors Pe Maung Same said the screening of Nargis for the first time in Myanmar was their apology to those who were in the film. 'I feel ashamed that we couldn't use our real names due to security reasons when people in the movie dared to show their faces in front of the camera. I want to apologise to them. I want them to understand us. Things are open now and we get the chance to apologise by screening the film here,' he said.

In a Yangon clinic, patients with mental disorders find solace under an artist couple's care. The duo, blending medicine and art, helps patients express their struggles creatively. The husband, a physician, contemplates a film reflecting the clinic's reality but fears consequences. The wife, a psychiatrist, grapples with her own need for healing while treating others.   'This is a country where the civil war has not only been going on for seven decades but continues till today. This is a poor society in which the basic needs of thirty million people are never met. If we apply a broader definition of "psychiatric disorders" to the population, more than half of them have mental or psychological problems. But this film is not about "psychiatric patients" nor "psychiatric clinics." It tries to testify and document the chaotic phase the country is going through. Most people try to make themselves sleep better; having lost their freedom in this crazy and cruel life, they struggle to carry on with the help of the injections that help them sleep.' - Midi Z

Focused on the 2018-2020 excavation of Todos los Santos Church on Heping Island, Taiwan, this film delves into maritime exploration and colonisation of Taiwan. The director combines archaeological findings with a cross-disciplinary musical performance, capturing the delicate excavation process. Furthermore, the film traces a creative journey from the site to historical events in Asia. 'It took four years to complete this documentary, capturing the archaeological excavations on Heping Island and subsequent analyses. Filming behind the scenes of the archaeologists’ work really inspired me; they focus on such minute details of material fragments, distinct from the macro-narratives of history. These are narratives brought together through material matters. None of us has experienced the distant times and spaces connected through the material fragments, such as the 17th-century monastery on Heping Island, the Cambodian-Dutch war, or the fort’s destruction in Malacca. We rely on contemporary technologies to imagine a vast space and time beyond our lived experience. In this film, we attempt to present a journey of imagination through the intersection of contemporary art, sound art and archaeology.' - HSU Chia-wei

All and Nothing explores the intricate life of late conceptual artist Li Yuan-chia, tracing his journey from WWII-era China to Taiwan, 1950s Milan, Bologna, and Swinging Sixties London, culminating in his 1971 establishment of the L.Y.C. Museum & Gallery in rural Cumbria. The film captures his essence as a journeyman and artist. 'Thank you Li Yuan-chia, you are the most important person in our heart, and we are your invisible friend. We are all a small dot in the vast ocean because we cross the barriers of space and time and we have a surreal relationship. We wouldn't say it's a metaphysical spiritual exchange, I think we completely change each other's lives. 'When we saw the words you left behind before your life had vanished, and watched you concentratedly working, we just want to tell you that we believe we found what you thought you had lost. If it was your fate to be lonely, misunderstood, and for your life to fade away, and perhaps no one would ever remember all the things you did, would you still make the same choices? We would because we have found you.' - LIAO I-ling and CHU Po-ying

We stepped on Orchid Island (Lanyu) because of an ancient chant, which is the earliest sound of the Tao people recorded by Japanese scholar Kitasato Takeshi in the 1920s. Our filming journey, a 3-hour boat ride from the southeast coast of Taiwan, became a heartfelt exploration of the island's intersections between old and new, tradition and modernity.  'Pongso no Tao〜   Island of People is a documentary about the life stories of several Tao friends in Lanyu, and it is also the most challenging work I have encountered since I started filmmaking. It's difficult because of Orchid Island's remoteness. A friend who also filmed on Orchid Island said that it is not easier to go to Lanyu than to go to Japan. In summer, the tourist season, friends on the island are busy making a living, and have no time for anything else. In winter, under the strong attack of the northeast monsoon, it is not easy to land on the island. In total, we have visited Lanyu 6 times, and the longest time we stayed there was two months in a row. 'I admire the Tao people of the past, who, in an era of scarce resources and difficult natural environment, relied entirely on their own hands and physical strength to cut wood to build boats, reclaim wasteland to plant crops, and build houses. The precious cultural assets they left behind are the pride of the Tao people today. 'The Taiwanese government has always considered Lanyu to be a remote area. In recent years, the island has been unable to cope with the demand of the tourism industry. However, the issues that are urgently needed to be resolved, such as the livelihood of the Lanyu people, land issues, and the education and employment of young people, are the deep concerns of the Tao people, and they are also the aspects that we care about.' - TSAO Wen-chieh and LIN Wan-yu

Ms. Oldřiška, diagnosed with Alzheimer's, lives with her dog in an apartment in Brno in the Czech Republic. Using a basic camera, she captures daily challenges, visits from her friend and son, and her apartment's reconstruction. The film explores ageing, pain, solitude, and the love for both people and animals. 'I found Mrs. Oldriska by random search on the internet when I was searching for information about different malfunctions of memory. She had a blog, where she published short diary notes and simple poems. According to her profile, she suffered from Alzheimer's type of dementia. I found it interesting how she reflects on her past through the experience with the disease, what remains in the memory and what just fades and how can different memories deform or reform the past, not just in some individual life, but also in so-called collective memory of a society, or country. I wrote the script of the film Alda based on our discussions and her diaries, and I used her expressions, her way of talking and reflecting reality. It is her voice-over in the film. A lot of ideas emerged spontaneously or as a result of improvisation during the recording. The lady in the picture is an actress, because for Mrs. Oldriska the shooting would be extremely exhausting, and she was OK with this kind of solution. While I was writing the script for Alda, I lent a small digital camera to Mrs. Oldriska and asked her to record for me some situations from her everyday life. I thought it might help me with the writing, and that maybe I could use some of it in the film. But when I saw the footage, it was a separate movie by Mrs. Oldriska herself. I ended up editing the material to 75 minutes and named the film Olda. With no previous experience in filmmaking, she uses the camera in a very spontaneous way, sometimes fighting with the technical limits of the device, sometimes even forgetting about the shooting itself. The result is a diary-style film dealing with aging, pain, and solitude in a raw, non-aestheticized manner. These two films are in a way complementary and they refer to different ways of approaching reality in documentary filming—an author's point of view versus the pure record of what appears to be so-called “authentic reality.' - Viera ČÁKANYOVÁ

In 2019 Donbas, amid the looming threat of a new Russian invasion and echoes of past gunfire, five teenagers contemplate their future. Rebelling against their wartime reality, they seek adventure, navigating minefields and dreaming of escape from both conflict and small-town monotony. An unexpected chance to journey to Nepal sparks hope for realising their dream of world exploration. 'We wanted to show that this light can actually fight against darkness…. That's why we will not fade away. It's also about this light inside all Ukrainians.' - Alisa KOVALENKO

This is a video diary of the surreal lockdown made by the filmmaker couple who were trapped in a small, rented apartment in Shanghai. In the face of endless madness, the camera gradually breaks free from the window and observes a vast social isolation unprecedented in the country's history.   'We urgently need to think about images by images. In Shanghai at that time, the large amount of short video media from the society became the most effective weapon against the bureaucratic machine. We regarded it as a "short video activism movement".' - Badlands Film Group

This film delves into the secretive realm of a Chinese juvenile reform school, revealing its strict regulations and severe penalties. Despite the harsh environment, it offers a compassionate portrayal of troubled teens, showing how love and friendship can endure. At Peach Reform School, discipline is enforced through extreme measures, shaping and challenging the humanity of its students.   'Living together with the teens continuously over three years, my camera and myself became a tree hole, a safe haven for teens to release emotions and disclose highly sensitive issues. A film with vision, sensitivity, compelling characters and cinematic flair, but above all, with a vivid reflection of the social phenomena studied in Foucault's Discipline and Punish, and with a purpose to raise the issue of how can we save those troubled teens before they lose themselves in such a "disciplinary society"?' - JIANG Chunhua

Only played by men, Buzkashi has been a popular sport in Central Asia for centuries. The aim of the game is to steal the trophy of a dead goat from the rival team of riders while on horseback. Atirkül, a woman with an enterprising spirit, enters this tough masculine world to form her own team.   'Atirkül, our central character, is a vivid reflection of women's resilience and hope. She heeds the call of the wild, yet finds joy in Christian Dior fashion, and does not shy away from "stealing men's brains." At times, she stumbles, but she consistently rises, firm in her pursuits. It is the unwavering spirit embodied by Atirkül that has inspired the making of this film.   'Today, regrettably, Kyrgyzstan is viewed as one of the most challenging places for women. Through this cinematic journey, my aspiration is to depict my country not solely through its hardships but also through the enduring qualities of tenacity, love, and partnership that define our society. This film is a humble tribute to the strength of our women and the shared dreams of our people to overcome adversity'. - Janyl JUSUPJAN

Growing up, a difficult home life was all the filmmaker and her sisters knew. Now as adults and with their parents on the cusp of separation, the filmmaker explores the meanings of their given names, allowing her sisters to tell their stories in their own words and make sense of the love, pain and anger they still carry.   'Growing up with volatile, violent, and distant parents, I've only known of life in extremes. I remember my four sisters and I were constantly yearning for our parent's time, attention, validation, and flawed love. This was to no avail, but my sisters and I ended up forming an irrevocably tight bond that only we could understand. Years later, now as adults, we are all trying to adjust to and cope with the impending dissolution of our family as we know it. Many things have changed, but this understanding between us remains. With our lives on the cusp of an uneasy metamorphosis, through I Look into the Mirror and Repeat to Myself, I hope to make sense of the heartbreak, love, pain, and anger we sisters still carry with us. In the film, I question the meaning of our given names, my place among my sisters, and allow my sisters to tell their stories in their own words.' - Giselle LIN

In my senior year, I filmed myself and my friends as we went through the college entrance exam under pressure. As a university student, I still grapple with anxiety. Then one day, I got a call from my high school friend saying she was not doing well. I decided to write a letter to her. ‘Throughout our lives, we have been constantly reminded that we would transform into butterflies as we become adults. We were led to believe that adolescence was merely a pupal stage, where all our dreams and hopes would take flight upon metamorphosis. However, my friends and I didn’t quite experience that butterfly-like transformation. Instead, we found ourselves undergoing a different kind of growth, akin to a dragonfly that, unlike the complete metamorphosis of a butterfly, only changes in size as it matures.’ - HONG Daye  

A documentary about a swimming pool in the city of Kosice, dubbed where 'history used to go to bathe'. Spanning 1936 to 2003, it intertwines pool anecdotes with 66 years of Central and Eastern Europe's history. Individual tales form a mosaic reconstructing history, emphasising that people's lives shape, not merely reflect, the historical backdrop. 'I did it at a particular moment when I had no chance of financing this movie. It was a complicated time in Slovakia. So instead of complaining, I just wrote down my ideal film. After all, if you can't make it, you write it…Later, the situation changed, but it still helped me a lot. What ended up in the finished film wasn't identical, I kept maybe 30%, but the ideas were nearly the same. People said different things and there were different situations, because reality surprises you all the time. But because I was so well prepared, I knew what I wanted to talk about - even despite its rather complicated structure. And also, because I wrote it all down, I was free to improvise. I had the film in my head already.' - Peter KEREKES

Armenia and Azerbaijan are engaged in a multi-secular conflict. A war breaks out again. In Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, men are at the front, while women hide in the cellars. Director Silva Khnkanosian sets out to find them. After 44 days of battles, the radio announces the capitulation of Armenia. We must leave.

This documentary, composed of various video clips and footage, is an exploration to search for some missing jigsaw pieces in history. Something that turned someone into a hero, or an absolute jerk. Some things are hidden under the carpet, from Hiroshima to Teresa Teng to the Space Race, an Olympic and the moon.   'Some things have been tricked. In the commonly known narratives, there are secrets hidden between the lines that no one has ever seen. What's repeated every single day by human beings is killing each other. Although they become sad and miserable for it, they never stop killing each other, not even for a single day. "War is over" is just another propaganda. Killing never stops; it continues and escalates callously.' - Thunska PANSITTIVORAKUL

A poetic essay film depicting an undocumented immigrant's disillusionment in the US, prompting a return to an estranged homeland. The narrative unravels a family curse, tracing back through post-9/11 America, the US occupation of the Philippines, and the Spanish empire's spiritual conquest. The film is a diary exploring migration causes, though deviating from its expected course.   '"How does an undocumented documentary filmmaker document themself?" This question has become an endless project of observing and representing myself and family waiting for sensible immigration reform in the United States. As time passed, I watched the disintegration of our American dreams. From August 1993 to 2019 we were held hostage by the systemic and psychological borders that trapped us in a perpetual post 9/11 era. And then, I left…and flew 7000 miles from LA to Manila, leaving everything behind. Nowhere Near is a poetic memoir through the lens of an exile returning to an estranged homeland. The film begins with an investigation into my family curse. A curse that followed us for generations, rooted in the soil of my grandma's coastal province, where my ancestors once ruled the land they inherited from Spanish colonisers. It is a land still bearing the remnants of colonial violence, first from Spain then America then our own onto each other.   'My grandma likes to tell the story of MacArthur and the US troops landing Her local beach. She brags, that just down the front steps of her ancestral home. The American encampment stretched as far as her eyes could see. There was a big tent that functioned as a ballroom and bar, it was carpeted and there was a jazz symphony orchestra, is how she describes it. Her older sisters and cousins would wander there to go dancing. Even today there is a rotting concrete slab on that plot of land that the Americans left behind.   'This film is about looking for that plot of land for answers it might still contain. Look for the concrete slab she says'. - Miko REVEREZA

In a 250-square-kilometre online community, individuals simulate survival scenarios through avatars. A film crew enters, forming connections with participants who gradually reveal their true selves. Blending virtual experiences with real-life stories, the documentary explores the implications of virtualisation and the evolving nature of human interaction in a digital world.   'We started our research during our studies at the Beaux-Arts. Our first intention was really just to experiment. We did not intend to make a documentary or a film in any way, but mostly just wanted to observe. The idea was to connect to a game and to go and see what was going on there, by observing, without playing. We weren't really aware of what was going on in these online games at the time. At some point we came across a player who wasn't using any of the game's tools and was just hanging out. When we saw that this was possible, to stop in a game, to simply take in the landscape and look around, to sit down with people in a virtual world, to just pause, to talk about other things, to not play in fact, we realised that it was perhaps possible to make a documentary here. That's how it started I think.' - Guilhem CAUSSE

Richland offers a prismatic portrayal of the nuclear company town's identity, proud of its role in the Manhattan Project. The film examines societal normalisation of past violence, blending archival past with present observations. It meditates on home, safety, whiteness, and deep time, exploring the community's reliance on its nuclear heritage.   'I am a first-generation American whose parents fled Ceaucescu's Romania as political asylum-seekers. Through the process of making my first feature film, an intimate five-year project excavating my own family's hidden history, I learned how to facilitate people’s confrontations with painful histories with care and empathy. Since then, I've come to understand my work as a filmmaker and as a form of delicate mediation between people and their pasts.   'While a number of journalists, writers, and anti-nuclear activists have taken on the Hanford story, it is often told through an investigative lens where the aim is to expose and criticise the nuclear weapons industry. As I embarked on a multi-year process of patient relationship-building and community listening in Richland, I didn't want to shy away from the tremendous environmental and human costs of nuclear arms manufacturing, but, at the same time, I also wanted to represent the stories of Hanford workers—people whose politics often diverge drastically from my own—with dignity and generous listening.   'Richland does not provide easy answers, a policy position, a simple critique of the nuclear industry, or interviews with nuclear experts. Instead, it does the messier work of creating a patiently unfolding space where divergent voices and positions can co-exist, investing in a cinematic form that gently holds multiple entangled histories in one place. We are living at a moment in history that is deeply structured by human denial, and it is in the shadow of this moment that this project about feelings and belief systems feels urgent. Rather than creating an onscreen world of pro-nuclear vs. anti-nuclear binaries and easily digested soundbites, my intention with Richland is to inhabit a more uncomfortable, intimate, and ambivalent space that ultimately points to the ways that each of us holds denial close'. - Irene LUSZTIG

Leaving her native village to follow her dream of becoming an actress, Hiam Abbass also left behind her mother, grandmother and seven sisters. Thirty years later, her filmmaker daughter Lina returns with her to journey through the vanished places among the scattered memories of four generations of daring Palestinian women.   '"We don't belong to a place; we belong to the story of the place". In the film, I embody the fourth generation of women present on screen, and the first to be born outside of Palestine. I carry the memory of the women in my family and the history of exile and dispossession they faced. By telling their story, I reclaim the personal, historical and visual legacies that I have inherited. I question these legacies, confront them and intertwine them together in order to answer a question that haunts me: how does a woman find her place when caught between worlds?   'By making this film, I follow the same path as the women in my family. Passing on our story has always been central. With our words, we fight against erasure and oblivion. That is why I feel a constant urge to share these stories. By re-inventing the history of my family, I hope to not only reclaim my heritage, but to seize and preserve the images of a world rapidly disappearing. Images that stand as proof of a denied existence'. - Lina SOUALEM

A filmmaker decides to recover the transhumance path that the shepherds in his town used to take to get to the mountains, but he cannot find anyone still alive to tell him the exact route. His idea is also to film it with his family's old super-8 camera but he discovers that, after 41 years of disuse, it no longer picks up sound. The forgotten path and the mute camera will become, along with a donkey called Paolo, the protagonists of a journey full of memories, question marks and silence. '...perhaps we are filmmakers of memory. We work with highly fragile material. And I say it without nostalgia. I see more and more of the future in the past. Sometimes I used to say it as a joke, but it has turned out to be true: my first film was about a house. The next one I did was about a tree and this last one has a path as its main character. The path that connects the house with the tree. And that's all my memory. Gaston Bachelard said that the first images, the ones we all remember at the end of our lives, are those three: a house, a tree and a path. And it's funny that this film plays with forgetfulness: sometimes we see an image without sound, and then we hear a sound without an image... the senses are deactivated, as they are in our memories. Often what we remember is a voice but not its face, and then we see a landscape clearly but not its music... that's how the film progresses, like a path into the fog. And as always, when one sense disappears, another develops. I think this film is made for the sense of touch, which is why the hand that films appears so often, feeling for texture, touching memory.' - Oskar ALEGRIA

In a world dominated by the Internet and a corporatocratic empire, an unemployed individual, forced to enroll in the Empire's Optimisation of Biological Function Assistance Program. Amid the dark age, he learns from others that rebuilding subjectivity is possible, even in seemingly impossible situations, offering hope in a superficially resplendent era. 'Is it possible to create a documentary film about a future world? This question has nothing to do with reality or fantasy, but rather about the fact that at this time, we live in societies of extreme economic inequality created by the Empire. If we do not envision possibilities for the future, then the future will be the same as now—or even become a Dark Ages of greater inequality.' - CHEN Chieh-jen

During World War II, Taiwan was part of the Japanese Empire. This documentary explores the experiences of Taiwanese soldiers, doctors, and overseas residents in Southeast Asia during that time. Using cross-generational memory dialogues, family letters, diaries, and videos, the film addresses the complexities of Taiwan's historical memory and diverse identities during that period.   'As an intermediary who immigrated from Malaysia to Taiwan, it gives me the courage to make this film. Although I do not deny that personally, there is anger and incomprehension towards the 70 years of silence in Taiwanese society; in Malaysia, we live with constant reminders from our elders to remember the cruelty that has happened to us. I believe that humanity can be shaped; unless we accumulate maturity in our thinking through intergenerational dialogues, we will continue to be mediocre. This is the beginning of my personal resistance, refusing to become a mediocre person.' - LAU Kek-huat

An ex-Red Guard and anti-Communist soldier during the Korean War, started a three-generation family next to Taoyuan Air Base. Despite the base's historical significance during Japanese occupation and the Cold War, the Taoyuan Aerotropolis project will erase its rich history by 2025, marking another loss in Taiwan's disappearing past.   'The three generations cover old-timers who witnessed the cruelty of war, baby boomers, and Generations Y&Z. They relate to and identify with their respective period of history, yet they live their lives next to the history-rich air force base, basking in the disappearing warmth of familiarity as they are subject to the pressure of relocation and a mixture of feelings ranging from bewilderment, anger, and reluctance to let go. Under the banner of national modernisation and the white-washing "public good," however, these families from the disappearing compound still hold on to their diminishing reality—until households and homeowners alike are all removed from the scene, and history turns the page of annihilation. Not entirely, though. The loud noises are still heard when aeroplanes fly across.' - LEE Li-shao

Chu Chen, 27, lead singer of an indie band, is a dedicated performer who also manages a lighting and sound company for a living. Driven by a fear of inherited misfortune, he rushes through life on and off stage, seeking freedom when not immersed in his passionate performances. 'Chu consistently projects a generous and goal-oriented image in public. This has piqued our curiosity about how he grapples with his internal struggles, confronting anxiety arising from an uncertain disease. Thus, we've decided to embark on a filming journey with him.' - LIN Chih-wen, LIAO Ching-wen, and CHUNG Hyeuh-ming

Chen Da, born in 1905, learned traditional Taitung-style songs as a boy. Working as a cowherd and fisherman, he travelled from Hengchun to Taitung. He began his career as a wandering minstrel at 20. Homage to Chen Da portrays his life and singing in various settings, including his hometown and the well-known musical venue in Taipei, Scarecrow Restaurant.

The film captures the 1979 ritual of Burning the Wang Ye Boat in Sucuo Village, Tainan County. Wang Ye, believed to ward off diseases and evil spirits, is celebrated through building, parading, and burning a wooden boat. Without interviews or dialogue, the visual narrative invokes spirituality and imagination through depictions of people, fire, and the god.   'This film is not a documentation of folk traditions, but a reconstruction of how the villagers enact their pilgrimage and interact with their gods of spirits. The religious rituals in Taiwan are always noisy and seemingly chaotic, yet with a strong force of life. To make the meaning of the ritual easier to grasp, the film tries to reveal passion and paranoia of the pilgrims and turn it into a spectacle of joy and pathos. This is the only thing I expect to achieve in the film.' - CHANG Chao-tang

After a military coup in Myanmar on February 1, 2021, a Burmese teenager, initially depressed, decides to join a friend's media group for revolution, reigniting hope and steering his own path.   'Before the coup, I was just a filmmaker who loved making and watching films and at that time I was trying to make my first feature film. And then a coup happened, the film industry couldn't run anymore. All Burmese people's hopes and dreams were ruined.   At that time, I was thinking if I can't make my first feature film, I will try to do my first documentary about the coup. So I started recording myself for a long time and Journey of a Bird was born. The documentary is about the struggle of the young generation of Myanmar but I don't want to make heavy drama stuff. Just in a natural way. Of course, the world already knows how cruel the policies and soldiers of Myanmar are, but they also need to know about how military coups make a lot of chaos in our generation.'

In Yangon, dreams end with a military takeover in February 2021. Amid darkness, a film emerges, capturing the struggle through written words, recorded voices, and images—a portrayal of losing ground.   'I grew up in Yangon. In February 2021, my dreams came to an end. My mother said: 'Son, wake up. The military has taken over the country.' The days got darker. The window in my narrow room and the piece of sky I watched seemed to be the only freedom left. I wanted to say something about this new undercurrent in my life.' - LG Anonymous LG Team

A couple escape to the jungles after the protest against the 2021 Myanmar military coup. Amidst the chaos and uncertainty, they find comfort in a newly adopted cat named ‘Poopy’.

The People's Defense Force attempts to retrieve a comrade's body from a battle during Myanmar's Spring Revolution. Two members lose legs, leading to a heart-wrenching funeral with an empty coffin.

 Adolescents abandon their daily routines and don uniforms in an effort to oppose the terrorist administration. Green is a hue of liberation.

Using video diary footage, Parallel World chronicles the 12-year journey of Elodie, a French-Taiwanese girl with Asperger syndrome. Through Elodie's drawings and clay works, the audience can take a glimpse of her whimsical world. The film, a mother's love letter to her daughter, follows them on a journey of self-seeking and self-recognition.   'I became a mother when Elodie was born, and this new identity prompted me to contemplate culture, identity, and national boundaries. The film Somewhere Over the Cloud is a result of the contemplations. As Elodie continued to grow, I found myself examining how an individual connects with the outside world once again.   'Elodie was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. She has dysgraphia but possesses a talent for drawing. As a mother, I want to equip my child with the skill sets required for her to survive in society, yet at the same time, I wonder what makes us human; wonder if I can truly understand my child's inner needs. I observe how creativity is gradually undermined when individuals are pressured by society to conform to a standard mold. But what is a normal person anyway? Isn't normality just an averaged-out result of a lot of random people?   'At the age of fifteen Elodie went to her father's country to begin a new phase of her life. I became a "Zoom Mom": The videos recorded during the past ten years have been a source of reflection on our lives. For more than 10 years, I had to freeze my emotions to continue walking the tightrope as a special child's mother and translating all these complex feelings into a documentary proved to be my outlet.   'All special children are gifts from God. These words, pictures, and videos are my self-therapy and what I would like to share with the world. Let them become the most profound love and blessing for my child.' - HSIAO Mei-ling  

The documentary explores the concept of 'underground' in former (Czecho-)Slovakia, examining its meaning and its link to civil defense structures under the city. A biology student now manages some of these sites. Testimonies from an architect, a filmmaker, and a singer further illuminate the multifaceted nature of the underground world. 'At the beginning, I had an idea to talk about people who were opposing the communist regime in my country, former Czechoslovakia, but they were not part of the official underground—dissident group. They lived in small towns, they weren't in the centre of the action, in Prague or Bratislava, they were somewhere in the regions and they had their own sometimes obscure ways of expressing their inner freedom. They didn't attract the attention of the establishment and therefore nobody knew about them. This seemed to me at the time a sympathetic form of resistance. Also, I wondered what actually happened to all of the nuclear shelters after the end of the Cold War. Back in elementary school, we had to practise all sorts of ridiculous exercises with gas masks. I found people in Bratislava at the Ministry of the Interior who kept these shelters in standby mode, even if ordinary people already forgot about them. I connected those mysterious spaces with the narrative of undercover, invisible dissidents who could use them for self-expression.' - Viera ČÁKANYOVÁ

Eduard Kirchberger, a writer in the First Czechoslovak Republic, embodied various personas like Karel Fabián (one of Kirchberger's pseudonyms). His daughters struggle to distinguish real memories from those in his books. Čákanyová blends documentary and animation in a tragicomic portrayal of Kirchberger's attempt to escape history and self.   'I wanted to visualise his story freely (approach freedom offered by text), avoid the concreteness of reality, given by the descriptive character of technology in both feature and documentary films and make room for some inner imagination.' - Viera ČÁKANYOVÁ

As filmmaker she is not fascinated by stories of individuals that are emotionally strong and heart-catching. Čákanyová wants to offer her audiences a wider perspective in order to inspire them to new ideas.  'Through my film Slovaks can look at themselves from the perspective of Michael— someone who is somewhat odd, even nasty at times, but is not stupid; who happens to come from a superpower, a country that is culturally and politically incomparably more influential than Slovakia. Such person looks around without our Slovak sentiment and uses a language that is lingua franca. He points out the provinciality and pretentiousness that are deeply ingrained in us. We hardly see beyond the tip of our nose, we wage petty wars; we are xenophobic and not generous enough. It is ridiculous. What saves it all is just nature and animals.' - Viera ČÁKANYOVÁ

In autumn 2013, Ukraine's suspension of EU accession talks sparked civil unrest, leading to President Yanukovych's resignation and conflict in the east. Filmmakers documented these events closely, presenting a mosaic of poignant images and personal stories in their collective documentary. Chapters organised by theme and approach depict Ukraine's complex state, metaphorically termed 'Rough Cut'. 'Three months of revolution. From indignant protest to national unity. From pots on their heads to batons and body armor. From the euphoria of victory to the mourning of the fallen Heavenly Hundred. Revolution as an explosion of revived dignity, as the euphoria of freedom, as the pain of awareness at the cost, as the birth of the modern history of Ukraine. This year we have decided not to have an opening film, because all our attention is focused on the changes taking place in our country today. We have asked the directors who filmed the Ukrainian protests to share their best shots with us. The episodes of these upcoming films about the Euromaidan were formed in a kaleidoscope of revolution, which needs no comment. We offer you a chronicle of the Ukrainian protest. Experience the three months of fighting with us, feel and see the revolution through our eyes.' - Docudays UA

In Shan State, Myanmar, ancient culture clashes with six decades of civil war. Once a renowned folk singer, Nan Mya Han now channels loss through metaphorical verses. A documentary intertwines her songs with scenes of rituals, delving into decay and impermanence amid political turmoil. It's a poignant, mesmerising exploration of a people's resilience amidst upheaval.   'In our country, people believe that if someone had experienced scary and frightening events, the guardian souls from the body would run away and that person would never have a dream anymore. In order to become cured of that, the soul has to be summoned back.   'Song of Souls is not only the voice of a mother who is moaning and bewailing for her vanishing children but also the sound of calling my own souls as a filmmaker.' - Sai Naw Kham

Farah, born during the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, captures moments of joy and defiance in her daily life and is forced to migrate to her private planet to be free. She buys other people's memories in super 8mm films and records and archives her own, to create an alternative history of Iran.   'When we share a memory with others, it moves from private to public. This story is woven tightly with a resistance to forgetting. At a time when power structures strive to narrate history in ways that hide important and popular segments, it becomes all the more crucial to share personal details and micro-narratives.' - Farahnaz SHARIFI

In a village on the Indo-Myanmar border, seventy years after Indian independence, news arrives that electricity might come. People are sceptical, and let down too often before. A woman dreams of a better future, a century-old man of sovereignty. As the village waits, life flickers between hope and frustration, idealism and pragmatism.   'It is a region we have visited several times over the past 15 years, engaging with communities, trying to understand, and searching for ways to express what we saw on the ground.   'When we heard about the rural electrification drive in the region, we felt that exploring this would allow us to delve deep into the intricacies of life here. At the same time, it opened a window to the struggle for basic amenities like electricity—a struggle that is shared by millions on our planet. Looking at this journey could be a way to understand how things work (or don't work) in this part of the world, and how people cope with a life rife with uncertainties.   'The treatment of our film is guided by an urge to reframe stories of marginalisation of indigenous communities, and to present Tora as a living, thriving entity rather than essentializing the people here as victims of underdevelopment or violence. In a world of increasing cacophony and polarisation, we want to express ourselves with gentleness, allowing small gestures, everyday conversations to reveal the lived philosophy of a people, their dreams and anxieties.' - Anupama SRINIVASAN and Anirban DUTTA

Outside Kolkata, a few jute mills crank on, virtually unchanged since the Industrial Revolution. Powered by steam and sweat, work is a dance to the rhythms of the century-old machines. The film follows the weft and warp of jute work, weaving the ‘fibre of the future’ with the dreams and desperations of its workers.   'I've used the concept of 'multiple pluralism' approaching the film from many sides to create a multi-layered picture of the century-old jute factories and the surrounding townships. When the relentless mechanical activity comes to a standstill, even if briefly, it releases the despairs or dreams of the workers, but not without humour or surprise. And we are left with images of sheer tenacity, dignity and resourcefulness of the working class. This is my cinematic ode to the unsung heroes who have built our nation, but today they are forgotten, discarded just as the eco-friendly jute fibre which they weave into textiles for our sustainable living.' - Nishtha JAIN

KIX chronicles the vibrant life of Sanyi, an adventurous 8-year-old in Budapest, who finds freedom in the city streets. Surrounded by filmmaker friends, he navigates childhood with wild abandon. However, a tragic incident on his 16th birthday thrusts him into the spotlight as a misunderstood youth, caught between youthful recklessness and societal neglect.   'KIX is characterised by video art, trash, and music videos. It's a balancing act between observational vérité and active interaction between subjects and filmmakers, displaying an incredible immediacy that tends to confront rather than explain. The film actively reflects upon the relationship between subject and filmmakers and witnessing the evolution on both sides raises the core questions of documentary filmmaking: does observation change the observed and in KIX's case, the observers?' - Bálint RÉVÉSZ and Dávid MIKULÁN 

In a Mbyá-Guarani community between Brazil and Argentina, everyone knows Canuto, a man who many years ago suffered the dreaded transformation into a Jaguar, and then died tragically. Now, a film delves into his story. Why did this happen to him? But more importantly—who in the village should play his role?   'We have crafted this film with the intention of bringing the viewer into a journey with us. The journey crosses frontiers: Brazil/Argentina, fiction/documentary, human/animal, person/character. Our main character, who lived in the 80’s, since his childhood showed the signs of the dreaded disease which is the transformation into a jaguar, a dangerous animal. The story concerns the risks of stepping outside humanity, outside the bonds that unite a community, and connects people. We find, in the act of filmmaking itself, key elements that help us understand what that transformation means. And with that, we approach the drama of telling that story, with the strong complicity of the entire Mbyá-Guarani community that lived through the events narrated, decades ago. Along the way, we find unexpected things: a child actor who is the closest incarnation of the character we could possibly hope for, a phantasmagoric wooden structure in the centre of the community that makes us think about the world outside, and the colonial story of violence that crosses the community, and events that reshape the lives of everyone involved.' - Ariel KUARAY ORTEGA and Ernesto DE CARVALHO

This story follows Ly, among Madagascar's last peasant orators. Amid political promises, he defends cultivated land from urban encroachment. His children, aided by his eldest daughter and artists, stage a defining show of farmers' struggles. Manipulating puppets, they aim for mass media attention, turning the film into a powerful tool against manipulation.   'I dreamt of a "Kabary" film! A film built, in its very form, around the humour and oral culture of my fellow peasants and my ancestors. The 'Kabary' is an argumentative speech, a baroque and metaphorical reading of reality, resulting from observation of nature and human beings which, after a few wanderings, makes sense in the end. I dare to alternate between lightness and seriousness. In Antananarivo, to express the absurd or even despair, we usually say "mampihomehy," "that makes one laugh". Laughing at injustice rather than crying, resisting rather than pitying.' - Nantenaina LOVA

Leaving my birth island wasn't departure but escape. Years later, I arrive on another barren island, strangely familiar. Seeking a man willing to unveil his violence, I realise that he also holds the key to my deepest fears, echoing in the violence of my own past. Now his story will never be separated from mine.   'While working on this film, I found myself in a very delicate position as Ernesto's facilitator, the man who grappled with facing violence that he carried out against his family, the violence he said he had inherited from his father. At the same time, I was confronted by the struggle of my own, coming to terms with the past that I had fled two decades ago.   'Like Ernesto, I too am an islander. As a woman born and raised on the Greek island of Crete, my story is vastly different from Ernesto's, yet what we seemed to share were the memories of our fathers and patterns of violence that reigned in our families.   'Suddenly, once a stranger, Ernesto became a familiar figure. Alternating between the roles of the victim and the perpetrator in the film, he reenacts scenes from his childhood, playing his mother and himself who suffered at the hands of his father. Then, in other scenes, which he directs, he is already an adult who commits violent acts against his wife.   'Far from merely condemning Ernesto, I sought to draw parallels between our stories as a bridge of intimacy and understanding. This bridge is built slowly and delicately in the film, and it is left fragile, exposing our shared vulnerabilities. Through the narrative of the other, he who is most distant, I looked for answers in my own narrative, switching between the mirror and the magnifying glass. I allowed myself to lean on his recollections of violence to navigate the tumultuous waters of my own memories of it. As this project unfurled, my story became louder, intertwining with Ernesto's, until it brought home to me that we were interdependent in the process of healing'. - Efthymia ZYMVRAGAKI

A director reflects on his past amid the violent city of Medellin. He recalls his debut film's pre-production, casting from the queer scene, and the heroin-overdose death of the 21-year-old protagonist. The documentary explores the dreams and fears of an annihilated generation, and the struggle to carry on making cinema.   'To go through my life, is to talk about war, religion, cinema, and about when I met Camilo Najar, Sharlott, MH, Alejandro Paz, Julian David, Mendigana and Juan Perez. To talk about them is to evoke the film we could never make together Anhell69, the annihilation and the "Non-Future" of my generation, caused by suicide and drugs, and also by the oppression of a conservative and violent society, which tries to exterminate anything that would challenge the status quo. We are finally making Anhell69, not how we first imagined, but in the manner life is allowing us to do it, me and my remaining friends, the protagonists of the film. Anhell69 is the immortalisation of our recollections, our memory, our life before death, and maybe a warning for the generations and governments to follow'. - Theo MONTOYA

For more than two decades, Mama Yang, a Taiwanese immigrant, has dedicated her life to corresponding with inmates in New York's prison system. Filmed over ten years, the documentary follows Mama Yang's extraordinary life journey as she tells the stories of a group of people who encounter each other in a world of loneliness. 'This film tells the characters who have to find love despite the tragedies in their lives. What attracted me to Mama Yang was her passion for inmates serving long-term imprisonment. However, Mama Yang's fragile side is revealed when facing her granddaughter's pain over losing her father. This wall of isolation blocked them. The touching story inspired me to spend 10 years of my life filming this documentary in the U.S. and Taiwan. The film is closely related to the world. There are more than 280 million people who have migrated to live in other countries. In the time of pandemic and the chaos of war, many people have lost their beloved ones. Through the love shown in this documentary, I hope the audience can grasp the power of love from the struggles in life'. - Jasmine Chinghui LEE

Over twelve years, Leonard Retel Helmrich chronicles an Indonesian family in Jakarta's slums, revealing societal issues like corruption, religious conflicts, and economic disparity. His revolutionary camera work in this film continues the themes of his previous documentaries, and while connected, each film stands strong on its own, requiring no prior viewing to enjoy.     'I shot Position Among the Stars with the same method as the previous two documentaries, 'Single Shot Cinema,' which I developed myself. Since I follow my main characters very closely, I'm centre stage at every event, so I can shoot the situation from inside out. I have opted for this method since I realise that as an observer, I am part of the event that I am observing. As a human being I don't experience reality as a series of shots, but as one continuing event, so I shoot the situation from that perception.' - Leonard Retel HELMRICH

On February 1st, 2021, a military coup unfolded in the Republic of Myanmar. This visual documentary explores the reflections on art, revolution, and freedom through the travel diaries of two women filmmakers: one Burmese and the other French. Both have witnessed the country in distinct lights.   'This ambivalence made us question the meaning of freedom. Are there conditions? Limits? Is it fair? With this film, we've tried to understand our differences, from one country to another, from one individual to another; what links us to others, our passions, our gender, or even our need for freedom. Presented as a personal diary in visual form, we explore what it is like to feel foreign, to feel lonely or surrounded by others, to feel strong. We attempt as well to understand the role our pictures play in our lives as women film directors. February 1st is the result of creative collaboration from two parts of the world, a collective voice facing geopolitical events that concern all of us. In the end, who takes over the reins of power in this film?' - Leïla MACAIRE

In the aftermath of Myanmar's military coup, life under the junta's terror has remained largely hidden from the world's cameras. In an act of resistance, the anonymous Myanmar Film Collective created a film blending reality and fiction, featuring first-person perspectives and chilling citizen journalism footage.   'This film is a reaction to the "spring-like dream" of freedom in Myanmar that lasted for merely ten years. It is about enthusiasm and hope of a young generation brutally crushed. Perversely, it is a nightmare that the older generations had hoped would never occur in this country again. The filmmakers in this collective currently living in Myanmar decided to express this confusing, nightmarish time and the state of hopelessness through the medium of film, and weave short documentary and partly fictionalised anonymous hybrid films together.' - The Myanmar Film Collective

In an impoverished outskirt of Yangon where the healthcare needs of the neighbourhood is great, a doctor tries to deal with the patients' problems and also his own.   'This is one of my very first films, I had a coworker, Jeu, who used to do photoshoots at weddings. He followed me around with a camera. And a Yangon Film School student, The Maw Naing, who started learning editing. In 2010, it was illegal to carry a camera on the streets and could land you in trouble with the authorities. We decided to make a film within the clinic and when we went out, we were very careful. We were first thinking of filming only me, the doctor, but it was impossible to film the doctor without the patients. By the time we made that film, there were already two separate military coups in Myanmar. The film was made 10 years after the second military coup. Almost all signs of resistance were crushed, and the people were defeated. With poverty, diseases, and darkness everywhere, people have lost almost all hope. Now, along with another military coup in 2021, this dreadful situation has returned. It is like reliving the memories and the era of hardship. I hope the film will shed light on the situation in Myanmar even after 14 years.' - Aung Min

Amidst the ancient city of Mrauk Oo, a group of young boys earn a living by collecting plastic among the ancient pagodas. With the introduction of a modern electronic device, conflict arises and grows among the boys.   'It is one of TEN MEN Production's teaching films. With the aid of workshop members from Rakhine, Mrauk Oo state, we shot among the ancient pagodas, and the boys making a living by collecting plastic among those ancient pagodas. It was done using non-actors and were only given simple instructions. Within the five days of workshop, the actors developed deep connections with the roles and were able to express themselves. When the movie was made in 2015, Mrauk Oo was a relatively peaceful town but now the city is on the brink of becoming a warzone in Myanmar's civil war.' - Aung Min and Than Kyaw Htay

In a Myanmar fishing village near Ngapali Beach, a lifelong fisherman battles generations of hardship under dictatorships. He dreams of breaking the sea's vicious cycle for his grandson, shaping a poignant tale of their bond with the ocean.    'The fisherman has suffered his entire life under both the Burmese socialist regime and the military dictatorship. In 2016, with the democratic transition on the way, he recalled the memories of abuse under dictators and Yangon fish merchants. In the same village, young boys eagerly await their chance at sea but the older generation is reluctant to pass it on. They see it as a life of sin and exploitation by the various dictators. With the return of dictatorship in 2021, the military has prohibited fishing and blockaded this region. The generation-long fishing tradition faces extinction, along with the village.' - Aung Min

Myanmar, a young boy haunted by the seal of sin, pursues an impossible love and loses himself.    'When I was 19, I tried to kill myself for love. But I didn't succeed. I was too afraid to die, afraid to live…When it is dark in our lives, we tend to flee to even darker places. We often imagine that our darkness will disappear there. I am obsessed with this thought. Where there is light you can see things, with darkness you can tell things. In the darkness everything is more raw, more naked. Our fears as well as our desires. It seems to me that we get a little closer to the truth. Dark is the story of my country, drowned after a short break in the cruellest of dictatorships, my country victim of a tight closure to the rest of the world, surrounded by a multitude of wars, especially on all its borders.' - Than Lwin Oo

Vietnamese migrant Nguyen Quoc Phi dreamt of starting a business in his home country. In 2017, he was shot nine times by police officer Chen Chung-wen for a reported car theft. Public support for Chen came from Nguyen's resistance and drug use. However, questions about Nguyen's death challenge the perception of the imperfect victim. 'Our attitude towards minority groups distinguishes us from totalitarian regimes. While Taiwan is proud of its commitment to human rights, it appears to be premised on specific race and class distinctions. Nguyen’s death serves as an entry point to address structural problems. The 700,000 Southeast Asian migrant workers lack a voice, but positive changes can be initiated with your professional abilities, resources, and votes. Thank you for watching this film. Let's work together to make Taiwan a truly coexistent and prosperous country.' - TSAI Tsung-lung

In early 2022, a local informant secretly recorded Russian troop movements in the occupied Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, while the workers of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Station shared their experiences during the Russian military takeover of their facility. This film, produced for The Reckoning: Ukraine Testifies project, meticulously documents and probes Russian war crimes in Ukraine. 'As the Russian army had occupied the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant and the Chornobyl Zone in February 2022, what had previously seemed to be totally unthinkable was actually our new reality. I've been closely following the developments during the five-week-long occupation of the Chornobyl Zone. Soon after this territory was liberated, I travelled there to document Russian war crimes in Chornobyl as part of The Reckoning Project - an international team of documentarians and lawyers who employ their skills to ensure accountability of the Russian war criminals and facilitate future court cases against the Russian Federation in criminal courts.' - Oleksiy RADYNSKI

This is the story of a woman soldier, Oksana Yakubova, who returns from war. Talking to psychologists, battling her PTSD and panic attacks, she tries hard to get back to normal life. The documentary shows her path from the beginning of her rehabilitation process till her way to a normal family life and work. 'Today, hundreds of Ukrainian warriors come back from the war and they don't get psychological help to avoid post traumatic stress disorder. We met Oksana Yakubova in spring 2017 when she decided to start her rehabilitation. We collected many hours of footage from psychological and hypnosis sessions and physical rehabilitation. Our crew was with Oksana until she came back to her civil work and this in fact was our last day of shooting. Documentary camera had a really healing effect and helped Oksana to stay in this world'. - Alina GORLOVA

After a military coup in Myanmar on February 1, 2021, a Burmese teenager, initially depressed, decides to join a friend's media group for revolution, reigniting hope and steering his own path.   'Before the coup, I was just a filmmaker who loved making and watching films and at that time I was trying to make my first feature film. And then a coup happened, the film industry couldn't run anymore. All Burmese people's hopes and dreams were ruined.   At that time, I was thinking if I can't make my first feature film, I will try to do my first documentary about the coup. So I started recording myself for a long time and Journey of a Bird was born. The documentary is about the struggle of the young generation of Myanmar but I don't want to make heavy drama stuff. Just in a natural way. Of course, the world already knows how cruel the policies and soldiers of Myanmar are, but they also need to know about how military coups make a lot of chaos in our generation.'

In Yangon, dreams end with a military takeover in February 2021. Amid darkness, a film emerges, capturing the struggle through written words, recorded voices, and images—a portrayal of losing ground.   'I grew up in Yangon. In February 2021, my dreams came to an end. My mother said: 'Son, wake up. The military has taken over the country.' The days got darker. The window in my narrow room and the piece of sky I watched seemed to be the only freedom left. I wanted to say something about this new undercurrent in my life.' - LG Anonymous LG Team

A couple escape to the jungles after the protest against the 2021 Myanmar military coup. Amidst the chaos and uncertainty, they find comfort in a newly adopted cat named ‘Poopy’.

The People's Defense Force attempts to retrieve a comrade's body from a battle during Myanmar's Spring Revolution. Two members lose legs, leading to a heart-wrenching funeral with an empty coffin.

 Adolescents abandon their daily routines and don uniforms in an effort to oppose the terrorist administration. Green is a hue of liberation.

As the latest instalment of the Ten Years franchise, the omnibus film Ten Years Myanmar is a collective effort from five Myanmar filmmakers to speculate on the future of the country that has been torn apart since the coup in 2021.   Production Note: The result is five very different scenarios and visions, some grim and some more hopeful, and all together will inspire the Myanmar and international audience to stay resilient in times of adversity. All five of the filmmakers have continued to live and work in Myanmar, even after many fellow filmmakers have left, and this film also serves as a model for those working in environments where freedom of expression is limited in how to express their thoughts and feelings, some of which may be controversial.

Stagnation in the body cannot keep up with the changes in real life. When the memory of the trembling hand is constantly haunting, when the cavity is filled by artificial materials—if the body remembers, how should it respond to years of traumatic past? Three interviewees describe the indescribable body changes and try picking up the hints and signs. 'Our bodies remember what they want us to forget.' - CHAN Hau-chun  

Performance artist Florence and documentary filmmaker Tze Woon are lovers. They propose to exchange each other's distressing memories before they met and attempt to reenact each other's experience with their own art form—could they really walk closer towards each other through the process?   'Putting on his tattered shoes, even if it's ill-fitting on me, I tried to feel the shape of his feet imprinted on the sole, but I can't feel his body heat anymore. I rubbed to warm it up, to reenact that feeling again. I lifted the shoes up easily, despite them looking big and heavy, and I found him kneeling down, supporting the weight. I am not sure what he expects when he entrusts his memories to me, maybe none. No matter how real the moment I re-perform his memory, I can never really replicate the danger he endured at the time.  For me, my memory is too persistent. If only I could hand it over to someone who can never fully understand, perhaps his interpretation may surprise me. Holding the pairs of worn-out shoes that we are reluctant to throw away, we will keep cherishing.  'However, I seemed to understand something when I tried to learn his creative language. Holding the worn-out shoes that we were reluctant to throw away, we embrace them with care.' - Florence LAM   '"As a man, how would you ever understand the unique experience of the female body?" Indeed, body and sexuality are fundamentally incomprehensible, so is creative expression. Florence and I hold a completely different view towards the truth, could we walk into each other's memory through our own creative medium? Despite being sceptical, at least we stepped into each other's shoes and tried to take one step forward.' - CHAN Tze Woon

On the 25 year anniversary of Hong Kong's handover from the UK to Mainland China, directives for 'a new era' promising stability and prosperity are found on murals and public slogans. Meanwhile, uneasy thoughts cast shades on daily life. Old feelings arise, a pressure builds—conjuring distant voices from the concrete, never quite getting their point across. Something calls for repair but we can't just talk it out can we?

This documentary, composed of various video clips and footage, is an exploration to search for some missing jigsaw pieces in history. Something that turned someone into a hero, or an absolute jerk. Some things are hidden under the carpet, from Hiroshima to Teresa Teng to the Space Race, an Olympic and the moon.   'Some things have been tricked. In the commonly known narratives, there are secrets hidden between the lines that no one has ever seen. What's repeated every single day by human beings is killing each other. Although they become sad and miserable for it, they never stop killing each other, not even for a single day. "War is over" is just another propaganda. Killing never stops; it continues and escalates callously.' - Thunska PANSITTIVORAKUL

In 2018, the filmmaker discovered a 16mm footage online, capturing a white family's trip to South Africa during the 1960s. The seemingly innocent scenes triggered an insatiable investigation. In a meticulous desktop sequence, Nagata dissected the footage, revealing hidden Apartheid narratives, and transforming the private archive into a poignant exploration of South Africa's troubled past. 'The footage, which at the beginning seemed quite spontaneous because of its private and familiar aspect, gradually became a striking document on the colonial past of a country. The curious scenes depicted on it, which at first seemed vaguely uneasy, shortly began to haunt us with its uncomfortable frame choices and awkward triggered gestures. The violence underneath the footage material then came up. How to deal with these images from our particular worldview in Brazil? That is the question we pose when we choose the structure of a desktop movie to investigate the origins of this material, whose traces were puzzlingly hidden on the internet.' - Janaína NAGAT

Manifesto compiles shocking found footage from Russian teens' social media, juxtaposing innocent content with alarming scenes like school shootings. The film depicts mobile phones as shields, turning youths into observers and accusers. It unveils a dark mosaic of societal issues, culminating in a disturbing ending, highlighting the unintended perpetuation of aggression and oppression to the next generation.

The documentary explores army cooks' impact on war outcomes, showcasing how feeding thousands shapes victories and defeats. It depicts food prep as strategic, reflecting a world where ideals are fought for around the kitchen table. Through eleven meals spanning from World War II to Chechnya, the film spans nations, illustrating culinary battles from France to Russia.   'If someone was to write it's a pacifist film, it's not true. If someone was to write it's a film that celebrates the army and the military, it's also not true. There are so many different situations and I was curious to see how human beings go about solving them. I would ask them the same questions and always get different answers. Sometimes you have to be a pacifist because you are a member of some dictator's army, but sometimes you have to grab a gun and fight for your homeland.' - Peter KEREKES

A filmmaker decides to recover the transhumance path that the shepherds in his town used to take to get to the mountains, but he cannot find anyone still alive to tell him the exact route. His idea is also to film it with his family's old super-8 camera but he discovers that, after 41 years of disuse, it no longer picks up sound. The forgotten path and the mute camera will become, along with a donkey called Paolo, the protagonists of a journey full of memories, question marks and silence. '...perhaps we are filmmakers of memory. We work with highly fragile material. And I say it without nostalgia. I see more and more of the future in the past. Sometimes I used to say it as a joke, but it has turned out to be true: my first film was about a house. The next one I did was about a tree and this last one has a path as its main character. The path that connects the house with the tree. And that's all my memory. Gaston Bachelard said that the first images, the ones we all remember at the end of our lives, are those three: a house, a tree and a path. And it's funny that this film plays with forgetfulness: sometimes we see an image without sound, and then we hear a sound without an image... the senses are deactivated, as they are in our memories. Often what we remember is a voice but not its face, and then we see a landscape clearly but not its music... that's how the film progresses, like a path into the fog. And as always, when one sense disappears, another develops. I think this film is made for the sense of touch, which is why the hand that films appears so often, feeling for texture, touching memory.' - Oskar ALEGRIA

Celsa covers her skin with roots and leaves from her jungle-like garden. She wants to heal. She still feels prison and torture endured 45 years ago in a concentration camp in Paraguay. However, the past echoes; the country is ruled by the son of the former dictator's right-hand man.   'For me, Guapo'y is the confirmation that stories find us. They are voices and tracks that rise up thanks to their protagonists' drive. With her kindness and simplicity, Celsa teaches me the importance of fighting together, and that healing cannot be carried out without encountering oneself first, one's images and memories. Celsa's journey represents the need of the Paraguayan people. The need not to forget and not to allow oblivion to be enacted by current leaders who defend the worst years of a country's history, years of horror and silence. Guapo'y is an urgent tale of an aching body that needs to heal'. - Sofía PAOLI THORNE

On April 1, 1945, US troops invaded Okinawa, sparking a brutal WWII battle. Many civilians hiding in caves were misled into believing they would face American brutality if they surrendered and chose suicide. In caves, Mitsuo Matsunaga narrates their tragic end in a monotone, revealing the underground agony of Okinawa's inhabitants. 'GAMA was shot entirely in Okinawa but its production was initially made possible through a partnership with the Toyonaka Performing Arts Center. When I came to a dead end while researching underground sites in Toyonaka, I learned that there was a connection between Toyonaka and Okinawa. My area of research started to go in the direction of underground spaces in Okinawa and I descended into Okinawa's underground. Knowing nothing about the limestone caves myself, Matsunaga Mitsuo, who appears in GAMA, spoke to me about the memories of these caves that had been handed down to him. 'Towards the end of shooting, he said, "I'm Matsunaga Mitsuo, of the generation born after the war," in referring to himself. For some reason I winced upon hearing it. After I let it sink in, it resonated within my body as if they were pointing me to the direction in which this work should go. These memories were passed down to him, and we are allowed to observe one part of these inherited memories as they are left behind in the form of this film. I think that this process itself is what GAMA is about.' - ODA Kaori (Excerpted from the festival catalogue of the 2023 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival)

FREM offers a stark response to the urgent climate crisis and rapid AI growth and a reaction to the current wave of post-humanist, anthropocentric thinking. This experimental documentary hauntingly depicts King George Island's extreme beauty, serving as a futuristic portrayal of our changing world. 'I wanted to "visualise" the mental processes of an artificial brain using the limited resources that the film medium offers: image and sound. The way in which artificial intelligence thinks is something foreign to us. The greatest challenge of this film was to communicate this special, in a certain way disquieting experience, and to create a non-human character/entity in such a way that viewers could identify with it, to establish a link with its perspective.' - Viera ČÁKANYOVÁ  

Čákanyová shot this video diary during her stay at a Polish Antarctic station in 2017, where she filmed FREM, featuring an artificial neural network as its main character. In the diary, she converses with an artificial intelligence, exploring film, art, and the meaning of life, revealing a way of thinking free from humanity and emotionality. 'I got to the Antarctic while shooting my debut feature FREM. Out of an intense inner need, I kept an audiovisual diary mapping my experience of this special place. It was a form of mental hygiene, a part of my daily schedule as well as of my cinematographic obsession. The handheld, POV camera mediates my personal physical experience—I am a wanderer in a vanishing natural ecosystem marked by advancing climate change. I document the inexhaustible and suggestive morphologies of matter—glaciers, sea, animals, and weather. Every day, I watch the melting glaciers, fascinated by their unrepeatable structures in the changing light conditions. Providing an absurd opposite to the pure natural landscape, visual fragments of past locations, civilization scenes primarily from location scouting in China, appear in my subconscious mind in the insomnia of polar days, giving me anxiety for the future.' - Viera ČÁKANYOVÁ

This is a film-concert of the Dakh Daughters musical and theatrical band, a modern political cabaret in which the art becomes a way of understanding the events of the revolution and the war in Ukraine. The film was created with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation. 'Living through a pivotal moment in the history of their country, the Maidan Revolution of 2014, art became a way for the Dakh Daughters to reflect upon those events and face the harsh reality of today's Ukraine with wisdom and hope. This political cabaret draws its magic from combining the joie de vivre and the horror of the devastating war—even if we don't see it, its shadow is always there, darkened by the bright stage lights.' - Irena STETSENKO  

Life is a cycle. When we die, we are reborn into a new life. This is a film heading slowly toward ‘zero point zero’.

Moe Satt, from a mixed religious background, captures cultural signals through intense observation of hands engaged in various tasks. The film explores the significance of hands in Myanmar, blending secular and religious perspectives, and emphasising the importance of minute gestures in mundane contexts.   'In this video, I recorded the hand movements of people around me, from labourers working on the streets and in the markets, to friends and local artists. Do you think hand gestures can tell a story? About sadness, success, and other things? There are moving hands, working hands, eating hands, communicating hands. I collect many stories about the hands of others.' - Moe Satt

This film offers a unique window into Yangon, a city undergoing immense change. Through narrated poetry and juxtaposed images from Yangon’s urban landscape, this documentary depicts a city that holds the hopes and aspirations of a diverse population. 'Cities are the masks of modern civilization and capital cities are the hearts of nations. A city is a centre of fascination for the people living in a nation. Most cities are vibrant, new and magnificent. They may not only prophesy the future, but also showcase the past as museums. In the late 19th century, Yangon used to be the heart of South East Asia, in other words, it encapsulated a past replete with the most beautiful city in the region. Nowadays, the future of Yangon is all-inclusive reforms through democratisation. I believe that this is the best time to document the poetic lives of those living in Yangon.' - Shin Daewe  

A journey of self-discovery on the Yangon circular train.

The soldier's written words breathe life into the desolate and shell-covered Tong-Sha Island, transforming it into a vivid landscape. It's a place where many men seem symbolically bound, unvisited yet too precious to forsake.   'Being used to a certain way of looking, listening and understanding, we are often presumptuous about our judgments. As a filmmaker, I made the same mistake at the beginning of the shoot. I didn’t choose the subject; it is the subject that chose me.' - LEE Meng-zhe