Tower. A Bright Day.

Jagoda Szelc : 2017
Wieża. Jasny dzień.

Mula lives with her husband, sick mother and daughter Nina in a countryside house. At the weekend before Nina's First Holy Communion, her brother with his family come for a visit together with Kaja – Mula's younger sister, who disappeared suddenly six years earlier. Kaja is Nina's biological mother. Mula is afraid that unstable Kaja might want to take her daughter away. The rest of the family, who at first keep their distance from Kaja, start to believe that this might be a new beginning for them and a chance for the sisters to reconcile. All this makes Mula even more frustrated and she decides to kick Kaja out. On the day of the first communion the sisters put their differences aside. However, there is another, more important reason why Kaja came home in the first place. Jagoda Szelc's feature was winner of the awards for Best Debut Director and Best Screenplay when it premiered in competition at Gdynia Film Festival 2017.

Dark River

Clio Barnard : 2017

Sheep shearer Alice returns to her family's farm in Yorkshire after an absence of 15 years, following her father Richard's death. There, for the first time since her departure, she will encounter her brother Joe, who has been left behind taking care of their sick father and the property. Alice is back to claim the tenancy to their farm, which comes as a surprise to Joe, and so a conflict will emerge between them. At the same time, more landlords are starting to consider Alice as a threat. As she tries to salvage her relationship with her brother, she's also fighting her traumatic memories, since their father regularly raped her as a teenager. Using the tenancy as an excuse, Alice aims to confront and unearth the past. She needs to release this tension and take Joe along with her on her devastating journey. It is important for her to reach closure, even if it seems almost impossible. Alice returns more unprotected than ever, to a male-dominated environment where she has to exorcise her own demons and evolve on a personal level. Clio Barnard's third feature premiered at Toronto International Film Festival 2017.

Gutland

Govinda van Maele : 2017

Early one summer morning a young man, with a secret stashed away in a duffel bag, emerges from the forest. In a nearby village he asks around for work, but the farmers, suspicious to the point of hostility, are not very forthcoming. Only when Lucy, the mayor's unruly daughter, takes a liking to him, does the village change its attitude: he is promptly offered a job as a farmhand and a caravan to live in. As time passes and he is gradually integrated into the community, it emerges that he's not the only one with a past to hide. Something sinister is lurking under the immaculate surface of this picturesque little world – and it is slowly drawing him in. Govinda van Maele's fiction feature debut premiered at Toronto International Film Festival.