L'Animale

Katharina Mückstein : 2018

Riding their tuned motocross bikes, Mati and her posse of male friends intimidate their neighbourhood and harass the girls. In their village, they rule. But when Sebastian, the leader of the pack, falls in love with Mati and one of the victims of their needling, Carla, unexpectedly turns into a friend, Mati is in danger of losing her standing among her male friends. Meanwhile a deeply hidden secret stands between Mati's parents, and the two of them have a decision to make: what's more important, appearances or reality? A film about the contradictory forces that guide our lives: desire, passion, and reason. Katharina Mückstein's feature premiered in the Panorama Special section at Berlin International Film Festival 2018.

When the Trees Fall

Marysia Nikitiuk : 2018
Koly padayut dereva

The story of a five-year-old girl Vitka with her teenage cousin Larysa and her boyfriend, the young criminal Scar unfolds in a Ukrainian provincial setting. Larysa finds herself at a crossroads after the death of her father. Yearning to be self-made, the village community ostracises her for loving Scar. Larysa discovers her grandmother once sacrificed her love for a young gypsy, abandoning him for traditional values and other people's opinions. Larysa's mother is too psychologically weak to support her daughter. Larysa and Scar plan to escape from a life of crime, misery and their relatives. But are they ready to pay the full price for freedom? As the summer holidays arrive, forty days have passed since Larysa's father died. In a fairy-tale sequence, the young woman traverses a swampy landscape where a group of couples surrender to their sexual desires. Vitka is a little girl who also refuses to toe the line. Rebelling against her grandmother and her rules and regulations, she daydreams her life away in a fantasy land of surreal images. Writer/director Marysia Nikitiuk's script received the Krzysztof Kieślowski ScripTeast Award for the Best script from Eastern Europe at Festival de Cannes 2016. Her feature debut premiered in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2018.

Fortuna

Germinal Roaux : 2018

Fortuna, a 14-year-old Ethiopian girl, has had no news of her parents since the traumatic crossing of the Mediterranean and her arrival in Lampedusa, Italy. As she's welcomed into Switzerland with other refugees, she has to spend the winter with a Catholic community in a hospice located at the heart of a snow-covered massif, at an altitude of over 2000 metres. Whilst waiting for her residency status to be resolved by the Swiss authorities, Fortuna meets Kabir, a 26-year-old African refugee. Lonely and filled with longing to be comforted, she falls madly in love. Their relationship develops in secret, away from prying eyes, until the day Kabir disappears. Germinal Roaux's feature premiered in the Generation 14plus section at Berlin International Film Festival 2018.

Idioten der Familie

Michael Klier : 2018
Family Idiots

Wanting to start a new life, 40-year-old Heli has found an institution in which she can put her younger, mentally disabled sister. Her three egocentric brothers have agreed to the plan and come to share their sister's final weekend at the house where they all grew up on the outskirts of Berlin. The eldest brother is a classical clarinettist who sticks doggedly to his views and is somewhat moralistic; then there's Bruno, the idealist research worker attracted by all things humanitarian and who listens to problems in order to find solutions; and finally there's the younger jazz musician brother who lives more of a bohemian lifestyle. The siblings have returned to their family home, where their two sisters still live, to celebrate the marriage of their eldest sibling, Heli. Of course, everyone still has their individual frustrations and neuroses, they clash sometimes, and they might not always agree, but they are brothers and sisters, and despite the years that have passed and their new adult lives, they find it so easy to be together, because they know each other so well, love each other and are as close as when they were children. And then there is Ginnie, their autistic little sister who they've always looked after. And yet, although their lives have largely focused on a constant desire to protect her, in a sense it is she who "shows" them. They find that the "baby of the litter" has turned into an unpredictable "monster". The fallout brings them closer together than they'd expected. Michael Klier's feature premiered in the New German Cinema section at Filmfest München 2018.

Cellar Door

Viko Nikci : 2018

Racing from young love to tortured loss and back again, a provocative mystery thriller that follows Aidie, a fighter inside and out, as she searches for her son while in the grip of the Church. Aidie wakes up underwater in her bath, unaware of why she is there or what might have happened to her. She's wearing an old-fashioned gingham dress. She doesn't know who or where she is until the repeated incidents she experiences begin to form a vague time-line. It sees her visiting her artist mother; being in a classroom with young giggling children; dancing with her handsome lover Aidan; tussling with a nun; part of a group of unmarried mothers in a home; and finally, being in various stages of pregnancy and childbirth and trying to find her child. The subjective perspective shifts to reveal that we have been given a deeper understanding of an issue that affects countless millions. With a unique point of view on a familiar trauma, the film cuts deep into the character's experience – an exploration of love regained and loss relived. Viko Nikci's feature was winner of the award for Best Irish First Feature when it premiered at Galway Film Fleadh 2018.

A Fine Day

Thomas Arslan : 2001
Der schöne Tag

A day in the life of 21-year-old Deniz who lives in Berlin and works as a voice actress. Deniz has high expectations of herself and of life – too high perhaps. In any case, she is not really happy with her boyfriend Jan. On a beautiful summer's day she meets Jan in a café after a synchronised job. In the subsequent walk, she separates from him. A little confused and disturbed by this move, Deniz roams through summery Berlin for the rest of the day. She tries to understand what she expects from life. After auditioning for a film role, she meets Diego at a subway station. Following a mutual pursuit through the metro network of the city, they get to know each other. They spend the evening together. But Deniz knows that this encounter will have no consequences for her. In the early morning they part. Exhausted from the long distances she has travelled that day, Deniz returns to her apartment. The new day dawns. Her life continues. She is searching again. The third part in his trilogy about Turkish youth growing up in Germany, Thomas Arslan's feature premiered in the Forum section at Berlin International Film Festival 2001.

Anna's War

Aleksey Fedorchenko : 2018
Voyna Anny

Nazi-occupied Ukraine, in November of 1941. The entire family of 6-year-old Anna dies in the mass execution of Jews. The mother covers up Anna with her own body, and the girl miraculously survives. She regains consciousness under a layer of black earth, in a mass grave. For the next few hundred days Anna hides in the disused chimney at the Nazi Commandant's office in a requisitioned schoolhouse. From her shelter she views the war, watching life pass her by until the village is liberated from the Nazis. Her ingenuity, the items left behind by the slowly alternating visitors and the treasures she discovers in the adjacent rooms help her survive. Despite the inhuman conditions Anna keeps her humanity. Many factors help her: memories from the life swept away by war, the cultural foundations laid by her parents and a friend who saves her from loneliness. Aleksey Fedorchenko's feature premiered in the Voices section at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2018.

Facing the Wind

Meritxell Colell Aparicio : 2018
Con el viento

Mónica, 47, has been living in Buenos Aires for 20 years working as a dancer when the news reaches her that her father is on his deathbed back in Spain. By the time she arrives, he's already passed away. Resisting the impulse to return as quickly as possible to her faraway life, she stays to help her mother sell the family home. When it becomes clear that she's not merely bidding farewell to the place of her childhood, the past pushes its way into Mónica's existence with unexpected force; old conflicts and regret about missed chances bubble up, and she realises she has limited time left with her mother. Winter comes. The perpetual silence, the extreme cold and the difficulty of living with her mother are proving tough for Mónica. As still no one ever says much in this family, Mónica works through her inner turmoil primarily via her body, finding an outlet in dance. The film tells the story of a family unable to communicate and is a thoughtful and loving portrait of a traditional rural lifestyle which is beginning to disappear. It's a story about distances. But most of all, it is an inner journey to learn again how to live and love better. Meritxell Colell Aparicio's feature debut premiered in the Forum section at Berlin International Film Festival 2018, and was winner of the Silver Biznaga for Best Spanish Film at Festival de Málaga de Cine Español 2018.

Deep Rivers

Vladimir Bitokov : 2018
Glubokie reki

Day after day in a forgotten corner of the Caucasus Mountains, a family of lumberjacks trudges through the impassable landscape to chop down and bring home wood in order to fulfil their contract with the local sawmill. When the father is seriously injured by a falling tree, his place must be taken by the youngest of the brothers, who left the impoverished region years before. His arrival opens old wounds and fuels conflicts within the family and in the hostile village. Stifled emotions and an oppressive image of a fragmenting society highlight themes of ineffectual communication and xenophobia. Vladimir Bitokov's feature debut was winner of Best Debut at Kinotavr Open Russian Film Festival 2018, and had its international premiere in competition in the East of the West section at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2018.

Los silencios

Beatriz Seigner : 2018

Twelve-year-old Nuria, nine-year-old Fabio and their mother Amparo arrive at a small island in the middle of Amazonia, at the border of Brazil, Colombia and Peru. Their boat is travelling across the water, and the few things we can see in the dark mass in front of it are lit by the lamp that is being used to guide the vessel. We can just make out tiny spots of marshland and lights in the distance. When they arrive, a figure in the dark greets them by saying, "I didn't think you were alive." It's a place of limbo with none of the three bordering countries having sovereignty over it. The refugees are also just in between places. Amparo is waiting to hear about reparations she is due to receive from the oil company where her husband used to work, and their refugee status places them in a bureaucratic hell. They ran away from the Colombian armed conflict in which the father disappeared. One day, he reappears in their new house. The family is haunted by this strange secret and discovers the island is peopled with ghosts. Beatriz Seigner's second feature premiered at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at Festival de Cannes 2018.

History of Love

Sonja Prosenc : 2018
Zgodovina ljubezni

Seventeen-year-old Iva is in the process of coming to terms with the death of her mother. Influenced by this deep personal loss and by the discovery that she didn't know everything about her, the girl slowly immerses herself into a strange, almost dreamlike world far from reality. An elegiac tableau of a family dealing with the loss of the mother in the light of a new discovery about her. We witness the struggle of those who are left behind – people incapable of sharing their loss and connecting with each other in their almost physical pain, who are thus in danger of becoming nothing more than bodies of grief – until something is sacrificed and the family is able to reconnect. Sonja Prosenc's second feature received a Special Jury Mention when it premiered in competition at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2018.