Hungarian Premiere

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.

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.

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.

Sarvnik Kaur is a documentary filmmaker who strives to tell stories that hide the tension and conflict just beneath the surface of the “normal” and “mundane.”’ Her first feature documentary, A Ballad of Maladies, explores the tradition of political resistance in Kashmir through the work of those poets, musicians, and artists who have turned their art into weapons of resistance during periods of heightened state repression and violence in the region. The film was banned from broadcast on the national network, but it won India’s 64th National Film Award for Best First Non-Feature Film in 2017, Best Film at the 11th biennial Film South Asia, and Best Documentary at the 10th IDSFF Kerala. She has spent three years with the Kolis of Bombay, developing her documentary Against the Tide. She is a recipient of multiple grants from the Sundance Film Fund, Catapult Film Fund, IDFA Bertha, San Francisco Film Fund, AlterCine Foundation, and HotDocs Crosscurrents International. She has also been a fellow at Hot Docs Accelerator Lab, IDFA Academy, and the Chicken & Egg Eggcelerator Labs.