Las niñas

Pilar Palomero : 2020
Schoolgirls

"I'm here to confess, Father, for I have sinned. – What sins have you committed, my child? – I don't know." In the Catholic girls' school choir, Celia's voice must not be heard. But her mute acceptance of the conservative dictates of an environment utterly bereft of colour and individuality is soon shaken up by the arrival of a new classmate, Brisa. Standing on the threshold of adolescence, Celia discovers a thirst for life in all its multifaceted glory. A bond quickly develops between the two girls, and together they rail against the authority figures and their rigid rules. In small acts of rebellion, Celia finds the courage to express her growing distrust of the value system governing her world in 1990s Spain, as questions start to form about her own family background – a topic on which her mother has always kept silent. Pilar Palomero's feature debut premiered in the Generation Kplus section at Berlin International Film Festival 2020.

Petite fille

Sébastien Lifshitz : 2020
Little Girl

When she grows up, she will be a girl. This is something Sasha has dreamed of since childhood. Her family soon realises how serious she is. In addition to interviews with the parents, who acknowledge their daughter as such without hesitation, the film depicts the family's tireless struggle against a hostile environment as well as their everyday lives. We see Sasha at play, practising ballet and during a visit to a therapist specialising in gender identities. At school, Sasha is not allowed to appear as a girl but must wear gender-specific boys' clothes. Tenderly filmed images and close-ups of Sasha's face create a gentle intimacy. Sometimes, it is as if she does not understand why everything is so complicated and why she cannot simply be what she is and wear what she wants. A touching portrait of an eight-year-old who questions her gender and who, in doing so, provokes some disturbing reactions from a society still stuck in a biologically deterministic boy-girl way of thinking. Sébastien Lifshitz's documentary premiered in the Panorama Dokumente section at Berlin International Film Festival 2020.

The Roads Not Taken

Sally Potter : 2020

Leo lies in bed. He is confused and lost in his thoughts. People around him no longer take him seriously. With the proverbial tender loving care, Molly, his daughter, accompanies him through New York. Even though her job is on the line, she sticks with this mentally impaired man who no longer knows her name, but whose head is filled with wanderings into parallel versions of his life. The life of a man. Leo with Dolores in Mexico: scenes from their passionate marriage; Leo as a lonely writer on a Greek island. These encounters steer him towards unpleasant truths – and back to Molly. The film explores the many lives a man carries inside him, even when reality seems to be fading away. In the end, it is his daughter's unconditional love that holds together the threads of Leo's hallucinatory trips. Sally Potter's feature premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2020.

Walchensee Forever

Janna Ji Wonders : 2020

The story of the women in the director's family over the last century. The film's unifying element and silent chronicler is Lake Walchensee in Bavaria, where the family opened a café in 1920 which still exists today. Its impressive founder Apa bequeaths the business to her first-born Norma who continues to run it, even in her advancing years. Norma's daughters Anna and Frauke leave the lake to liberate themselves and travel the world as musicians – only to return to live in a commune set up by Rainer Langhans. Frauke pines for the love of her life, dies mysteriously and becomes a shadowy figure for those left behind. Restless Anna moves to the USA, where she unexpectedly falls pregnant and gives birth to a girl. Summoned by the shadows of her past, she returns with daughter Janna to Walchensee where Grandma Norma becomes an important figure for her granddaughter. Filmmaker Janna is searching for answers to questions like: What is the meaning of home? To what extent am I shaped by my origins? What really counts in the end? She finds clues in the bond between four generations of women and their very different approaches to life. Janna Ji Wonders's documentary premiered in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino section at Berlin International Film Festival 2020.

Always Amber

Lia Hietala & Hannah Reinikainen : 2020

At the age of 17, Amber opted for the gender-neutral Swedish pronoun "hen" and began consulting a therapist specialising in gender identities. Together with best friend Sebastian, the two queer youngsters share a world far away from the judging eyes of society. When they are together, anything feels possible. We get to hang out with Amber and Sebastian during this identity building period, when they share everything from dreams and parties to new friendships. But when Amber falls in love with Charlie, something starts to challenge their utopian world. Trust issues begin to emerge, and in the midst of it all Amber has to face going through their transition alone. Possessed of a pop icon-like sense of style, Amber's social-media-savvy circle of friends celebrates a spectrum of fluid identities and the value of the close ties that can only emerge from this freedom. Lia Hietala and Hannah Reinikainen's observational documentary premiered in the Panorama Dokumente section at Berlin International Film Festival 2020.

La déesse des mouches à feu

Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette : 2020
Goddess of the Fireflies

"It sounds like waves. Listen. Waves pushing a boat against a dock. Beautiful, isn't it? Like a tsunami. A giant tsunami." When Cat is high, life becomes a warm, poetic rush. First love, first sexual experiences and her parents' scorched-earth divorce combine to bring the 16-year-old to a turning point. In her new circle of friends, she encounters mescaline, which is known for inducing ecstatic states and soon rules Cat's everyday routine. Such deep intoxication helps to liberate her from the verbal and emotional brutality of conflicts at home, while her clique provides her with support and diversion. It's the mid-90s in provincial Canada – punk rock, Kurt Cobain's suicide and the Mia Wallace look are animating teens to try to get free themselves. An unflinching portrait of a maturing rebel, as strong and as weak as a lost goddess. Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette's feature premiered in the Generation 14plus section at Berlin International Film Festival 2020.

The Trouble with Being Born

Sandra Wollner : 2020

Somewhere in Central Europe, perhaps in the vicinity of Vienna, in the near future. Ten-year-old Elli is an android, as we soon learn. She takes shape through programming and this turns her into a fantasy figure. Firstly for a man she calls "Daddy" with whom she lies by the pool and for whom she dresses up in the house at the edge of the forest. Elli is the vessel for his memories, which mean nothing to her, but everything to him. Together they drift through the summer. One day he runs after a strange echo and gets lost in the darkness while Elli, who follows him, is picked up by strangers. A new identity awaits her, a new ghostly existence – as a blank screen onto which others can project their loss of the paradise that is childhood. The story of a machine and the ghosts we all carry within us. Sandra Wollner's second feature, her graduation film, was winner of the Special Jury Award when it premiered in the Encounters section at Berlin International Film Festival 2020.

Las Mil y Una

Clarisa Navas : 2020
One in a Thousand

Clad in sportswear, 17-year-old Iris dribbles her basketball through the wide courtyards of her social housing estate somewhere in Argentina. She has been expelled from school and spends the warm days and nights with her two best friends – her cousins – in cramped rooms, fiddling with her mobile phone, or on the empty streets of the town. While playing hide-and-seek, the boys disappear with other boys, they strip off in front of the webcam and write passionate texts in which they rail against a heteronormative society. There is a deceptive lightness in the air and the promise that, when it comes to love and sex, anything is possible. When cool and self-confident Renata enters the scene, Iris is fascinated, and it is not long before they begin flirting. But on the estate, the rumours about Renata's past are getting louder and louder. Caught between coming out and cyberbullying, community life and poverty, love and violence, the film captures the transition between the tenderness of childhood and the bitter reality of the adult world. Clarisa Navas's feature debut premiered in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2020.

Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen

Sam Feder : 2020

An unprecedented, eye-opening look at transgender depictions in film and television, revealing how Hollywood simultaneously reflects and manufactures our deepest anxieties about gender. Leading trans thinkers and creatives, including Laverne Cox, Lilly Wachowski, Yance Ford, Mj Rodriguez, Jamie Clayton, and Chaz Bono, share their reactions and resistance to some of Hollywood's most beloved moments. Grappling with films like A Florida Enchantment (1914), Dog Day Afternoon, The Crying Game, and Boys Don't Cry, and with shows like The Jeffersons, The L-Word, and Pose, they trace a history that is at once dehumanising, yet also evolving, complex, and sometimes humorous. What emerges is a fascinating story of dynamic interplay between trans representation on screen, society's beliefs, and the reality of trans lives. Reframing familiar scenes and iconic characters in a new light, the director invites viewers to confront unexamined assumptions, and shows how what once captured the public imagination now elicit new feelings. Disclosure provokes a startling revolution in how we see and understand trans people. Sam Feder's documentary premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2020, and was selected to have its UK premiere at BFI Flare 2020.

The Calming

Song Fang : 2020
Ping jing

Lin only talks of the break-up once, at lunch with her friend in Japan, where her installation is being shown. It goes unmentioned when she visits her parents back in China or stays with her friend in Hong Kong, even though the removal company has taken her things to the new apartment already. Most of the time she's alone though. Lin is a filmmaker and often on the move, each trip blurring into the next. Her gaze is inquisitive wherever she goes, as if collecting material for a film: looking out of the window of the new apartment, observing the girl in the same hospital ward, examining light and foliage in the parks she hikes through. On trains, in cars, on boats, she watches different landscapes pass before her, snowy mountains, neon cityscapes, misty plains, as long as her eyes stay open. The hushed portrait of a woman alone in which looking and feeling go hand in hand. Song Fang's feature premiered in the Forum section at Berlin International Film Festival 2020.

Le sel des larmes

Philippe Garrel : 2020
The Salt of Tears

Driven by his desire to become a cabinet maker, Luc arrives in Paris. Lost in the banlieues, he asks Djemila for directions. In the girl's shyness, Luc glimpses the chance of an adventure. The two meet again but then Luc has to return home to his father, who is also a carpenter. There, he meets Geneviève, whom he knows from the past, and begins a romance with her. When Luc is offered a place at the renowned furniture-making school École Boulle, he follows his dream and moves to Paris, leaving Geneviève behind. Soon, a third young woman enters his small apartment, bringing the freedom of the big city with her. Time and again, Luc succumbs to glittering appearances, but with each conquest he loses something, the value of which he only realises later. Philippe Garrel's feature premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2020.

Kelet

Susani Mahadura : 2020

20-year-old Kelet is a Finnish Somali trans woman living in Helsinki who dreams of becoming a model in Vogue magazine. Trans people, especially those of colour, continue to face disproportionate amounts of violence and discrimination all over the world, including Finland. Trans women of colour are in a clear minority when it comes to public visibility and are especially vulnerable, falling victim to transphobic hate crimes considerably more often than their white or male counterparts. They go through everyday life at the intersection of many different oppressive structures, as they are subjected to transphobia, racism and misogyny in addition to other forms of discrimination and alienation. The threat of violence, the difficulty of finding work, the lack of representation and supportive communities means that the need for works that include positive role models is immense, as is the urgency for change of societal attitudes. Through the story of one individual's exceptional life, Kelet seeks to highlight a number of issues that are of huge importance worldwide in the current political climate: LGBT and especially trans rights, racism, beauty standards and gendered norms in society. Susani Mahadura's documentary was winner of the Audience Award when it premiered at DocPoint Helsinki Documentary Film Festival 2020.

The Cloud in Her Room

Zheng Lu Xinyuan : 2020
Ta fang jian li de yun

Muzi's parents' old apartment is still there. A bed, an abandoned chair, a window falling off its hinges – the remnants of a relationship that has moved on. Her father has started a new family, her mother has friends abroad; it seems like only Muzi cares about this place as she wanders several times through this static past. We follow 22-year-old Muzi as she returns to Hangzhou, where she was born, for the New Year's celebration. She arranges to meet old friends, makes some new ones and visits her parents, with whom she is mostly on friendly terms. It's like she doesn't really fit in anywhere. Muzi is living in limbo: like the apartment, she has stopped, caught between past and future. The director's personal story about the fast pace of change in her country, yet also a universal story about love, relationships, the impossibility of keeping these going and the loneliness this causes. Zheng Lu Xinyuan's feature debut was winner of the Tiger Award when it premiered in competition in the Bright Future section at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2020.