Hungarian Premiere

Arsenie. An Amazing Afterlife

In the early 1990s, Solomon emerged as a young director of photography and he started making documentaries aside from filming feature films. Solomon was among the first Romanian film makers who committed themselves to a then compromised genre; today, he is one of the leading political film makers from Romania and active on the international documentary scene. His recent work triggered public debates about the function of documentary film within the public sphere and contributed to re establishing documentary film as an arena for reframing Romania’s recent history. Solomon’s previous work, The Great Communist Bank Robbery (2004), broadcast on Arte and as part of BBC4’s prestigious Storyville series, was awarded Best Film at the History Film Festival in Pessac, France and the Prize for Social Values at Documenta Madrid. His Cold Waves (2007) is a chilling slice of political history that played for 12 weeks in Romanian theatres. It deals with the love and hate story between Radio Free Europe, the Romanian audiences and the communist regime. Kapitalism our secret recipe (2010), speaks of the rise of a new ruling class in the East (produced for Arte and RTBF with Media support). Tarzan’s Testicles (2017), which premiered in Karlovy Vary, is a film about utopias & a metaphoric drama that threads the similar destinies of monkeys & men.

Silent House

Born in Tehran, Iran, Farnaz Jurabchian works as an independent filmmaker based between Tehran and Toronto. She received her BA in French Literature from Tehran University, and worked as writer and translator for art magazines in Iran. She later immigrated to Canada and studied cinema at Concordia University in Montreal. Most of her films revolve around the notion of homeland and characters that each represent a part of society. Her debut mid-length documentary, Overruled, about unauthorized Afghan tennis players was premiered at Hot Docs 2016 and won 5 international prizes. Her autobiographical documentary Silent House had its world premiere at IDFA 2022, and was nominated for the IDFA Award for Best First Feature. With her brother Mohammadreza Jurabchian, Farnaz started an independent film company, F&M Productions, where they work as co-directors and producers.

Mohammad Reza Jurabchian works as an independent filmmaker and cinematographer based in Tehran. He received his BA in photography from Azad University. He was among the best photographers of the year in the 10th Iranian National Biennial of Photography and had several group exhibitions in and outside Iran. He made several short films and documentaries which have been selected for a number of international film festivals. Jurabchian's films are heavily indebted to photography. He tries to depict his relationship with the world around him and his lived experience. He and his sister, Farnaz Jurabchian, started an independent film company, F&M Productions, where they work as co-directors and producers. They directed Overruled and Silent House together.

Ciné-Guerrillas: Scenes from the Labudović Reels

Mila Turajlić is an award-winning director born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Her films have screened at numerous festivals and been released theatrically in Europe and North America. Her film The Other Side of Everything (2017), HBO Europe’s first co-production with Serbia, won 32 awards, including the IDFA Award for Best Documentary Film. Mila’s debut feature doc, Cinema Komunisto (2011) played at over 100 festivals and won 16 awards, including the FOCAL Award for Creative Use of Archival Footage. In her work with archives, Mila delves into questions about the representation of history at the intersection of personal memories and political narratives, seeking to reactivate forgotten histories. Her research-based artistic practice ranges from video installations commissioned by MoMA New York, to live documentary performances. In 2020, Mila was invited to join the AMPAS (Oscars) Documentary Branch. Her most recent project, the documentary diptych Ciné-Guerrillas and Non-Aligned: Scenes from the Labudović Reels, an archival road trip through the cinematic birth of the Third World, premiered in autumn 2022.

A Life Like Any Other

Born in 1988, Faustine Cros graduated from INSAS (Belgium) in editing. In her work, she plays with hybrid forms of documentary, auto-fiction, and experimental film, mixing her own images with family archives. Her graduation film, La Détesteuse was selected and awarded at many international festivals. A Life Like Any Other is her first film produced by Julie Freres at Dérives.

Holding Up the Sky

Pieter Van Eecke is a filmmaker and climate activist based in Brussels. His first feature-length documentary, Samule in the Clouds (2016), was awarded at festivals across the world and won, among others, the Gold Hugo Award at the Chicago Film Festival, the Gold Gentiano at the Trento Film Festival, and the Full Frame Environmental Award. His second feature, Holding Up the Sky, premiered at FIFDH Geneva 2023, and was theatrically released later that year in both Belgium and the Netherlands. His third feature, Planet B, about two young climate activists and members of Extinction Rebellion, premiered at Visions du Réel 2023.

Geographies of Solitude

Jacquelyn Mills is a filmmaker from Cape Breton Island, based in Montréal. Her works are immersive and sensorial, often exploring a healing connection to the natural world. Her award-winning documentary In the Waves (2017) premiered at Visions du Réel. Her most recent work, Geographies of Solitude (2022) premiered at the Berlinale Forum and won three awards. It has since garnered 27 awards, including Best Canadian Feature Film at Hot Docs and Outstanding Artistry in Filmmaking from the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. Jacquelyn is a Sundance Doc Fund Alumni, an IDA Documentary Award and Canadian Screen Award nominee. She has also worked as an editor, sound designer, and cinematographer on many internationally-acclaimed films.

Mountain Man

Arun Bhattarai’s first feature-length documentary The Next Guardian premiered at IDFA at the First Appearance Competition in 2017. Since then it has been screened at more than 40 international festivals (True/False, San Francisco IFF, MOMA DocFortnight, Camerimage, Docs Against Gravity, DOK.fest.München, Ambulante etc.), had theatrical releases and broadcasted around the world. His recent short documentary Mountain Man, premiered at IDFA 2022 in the short documentary competition. The film during its project stage won the Best Pitch Prize at If/Then Global Short Pitch and received funding from the International Documentary Association (IDA). Before becoming an independent filmmaker, he worked as a TV director at the Bhutan Broadcasting Service (BBS) for more than 5 years. His television documentary, Kelden won ‘The Asia Pitch’. He graduated from the 1st edition of DocNomads Joint Master in documentary directing in 2014 for which he was awarded full Erasmus Mundus scholarship in Lisbon, Budapest and Brussels. His second feature-length documentary Agent of Happiness is currently in post-production. The project was pitched and developed at Marché du Film Cannes Film Festival and TFI Network market. The project has also received funding from the Sundance Film Institute and the catapult film fund among others. Arun is a Berlinale Talent 2021.

Flotacija

Eluned Zoë Aiano is a filmmaker, editor, and translator with a background in visual anthropology whose work is generally centred on Central/Eastern Europe. Her short All Her Dying Lovers, an animated documentary made in collaboration with Anna Benner, premiered at Hot Docs and was published on the New York Times Op Docs section. She attended IFDA Academy 2022. She has been selected for various residencies, including the Wapping Artist Residency in Berlin, the Pépinières Européennes de Création residency in Quebec and the ENOA residency with the Aix- en-Provence Opera Festival. She also writes about film and is a regular contributor to the East European Film Bulletin.

Alesandra Tatić is a visual anthropologist and feminist advocate based in France. Her ethnographic fieldwork is global, yet maintains a focus on the Balkans and Mediterranean. Alesandra works with and for the women’s labor movement, exploring feminist power relations, and migration phenomena. As an activist in Sindillar, Barcelona's first union of household and care workers, Alesandra develops grassroots communication strategies with this pan-national feminist community. She co-founded the Wild Pear Arts collective, and co-authored several short documentaries. She is currently a PhD candidate in anthropology at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS).

Mighty Afrin: In the Time of Floods

The films of Angelos Rallis push the boundaries between raw reality and fiction. He draws inspiration from his own life experiences and revolve around unconventional family constructs, post-traumatic behaviour, loss and fate. His visual and artistic approach resides somewhere between contemplative cinema, theatre and creative documentary with fictional aesthetics. The long takes and extended durations permit the director to depict the characters, framed by their immediate environment, in detail. His work induces a sense of slowness so that the viewer has time to understand and connect with the characters and to become immersed in the events unfolding before them.

Bottlemen

Nemanja Vojinović studied film directing at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, where he graduated in 2012 as co-author of the film Where’s Nadja, with colleagues from his class. His short documentary film Reality, Fuck Off won awards at regional and international festivals. He follows his feature documentary debut Las Distancias (2017), with Bottlemen. He is a member of DokSerbia – Union of Serbian documentary filmmakers.

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