Sunday's Illness

Ramón Salazar : 2018
La enfermedad del domingo

Anabel is a successful businesswoman with a wealthy husband. At a reception in her villa she meets a woman, a member of the catering staff who has been hired for the evening. This woman is none other than her own daughter Chiara, whom she had left over thirty years ago. Chiara was just eight years old at the time. She now approaches her mother with an unusual request: to spend ten days together with her. Anabel agrees and follows her daughter to a remote house in the mountains. She begins exploring the largely uninhabited region; meanwhile Chiara initially does her own thing and seems to pursue a mysterious goal. In the end, unexpected borderline experiences bring mother and daughter closer together and Anabel finds herself having to make the most difficult decision of her life. Ramón Salazar's feature premiered in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2018.

Jibril

Henrika Kull : 2018

At a party, Maryam and Jibril exchange glances. Years later, Maryam happens to meet the same young man again when she is asked to deliver a parcel to someone in prison. The recipient is none other than Jibril, who is serving a sentence of several years. The attraction between this single mother-of-three and the inmate is just as strong as it was when they first met. Maryam plunges enthusiastically into an initially largely platonic romance, which on the one hand may satisfy certain longings on both sides, yet on the other also awakens desire. But having a relationship with someone who isn't there and who doesn't participate in her life, and who she can't even really get to know, is a challenge for Maryam. Jibril too finds his situation as a prisoner increasingly difficult to bear. The two of them, in search of happiness, grapple with the idealisations and projections of each other. In their yearning for one another, they attempt to fill an inner void. The attention they draw from each other ultimately becomes the measure of their self-esteem. Henrika Kull's feature debut premiered in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2018.

Horizonti

Tinatin Kajrishvili : 2018
Horizon

The change in Giorgi's life could not be more radical. The city, art, his regular, middle-class existence and his marriage to Ana are all behind him. Now he is alone. Giorgi goes into isolation on a small barren island in a simple hut by the sea. In an inhospitable environment, surrounded only by a handful of strangers, between chicken farming and duck hunting, he is trying to pick up the pieces of his life. But his wounds are deep, and the shadows of his happy past repeatedly catch up with him. It becomes increasingly unlikely that he will break out of his isolation. Ana has found somebody new. The city is far away, as are all thoughts of the future. Tinatin Kajrishvili's second feature-length drama is a meticulously and consistently told story about the end of a relationship. Her film premiered in the Panorama section at Berlin International Film Festival 2018.

The Silent Revolution

Lars Kraume : 2018
Das schweigende Klassenzimmer

1956. During a visit to a cinema in West Berlin, East German high school pupils Theo and Kurt see disturbing newsreel footage of the uprising in Budapest. Back in Stalinstadt, one of the GDR's flagship workers' settlements, they have the idea of holding a minute's silence in class for the victims of the Hungarian struggle for freedom. Neither the boys, nor their parents, nor the school's administration are prepared for the minor and major reactions that their expression of solidarity unleashes. The school principal tries to dismiss the incident as juvenile mischief and deal with it internally, but the pupils find themselves snared in the political machinery of a state determined to make an example of them. Condemning their act as counter-revolutionary, the education minister demands that the pupils name their ringleader. They are faced with a decision that has dramatic consequences for their future. Lars Kraume's feature premiered as a Special Gala Screening at Berlin International Film Festival 2018.

Des jeunes filles disparaissent

Clément Pinteaux : 2017
Young Girls Vanish

A historical mystery approached in a postmodern fashion: Between 1652 and 1657, fifty-eight girls were devoured by a wolf in Essone, France. Four centuries later, young women are once again disappearing in the same region. Director Clément Pinteaux sets out in search of clues. Crosses on a map indicate the locations where the girls were attacked and found so long ago. Landscapes in fog and rain. A young woman talks about the woman who went missing – a woman who is similar to her and yet different and whose work she continues today. Pinteaux observes the girls in their surroundings, together, on the job. Who will be next? Will there be a next time? Situated between staged and documentary material, the film encounters the girls on an equal footing – tracing moments of potential threat. Clément Pinteaux's short film premiered at Belfort Entrevues Film Festival 2017, and screened at Berlin International Film Festival 2018.

Eva

Benoît Jacquot : 2018

When an elderly writer dies in his bathtub one night, only a single person knows the secret existence of his last manuscript: Bertrand, a young man who is also accidental witness to the writer's death. Bertrand has the deceased's last play performed under his own name and is intoxicated by its success. But the world is soon eager for another work from this supposed young literary genius. In the midst of his attempts to put a new creation to paper, Bertrand encounters an attractive but mysterious woman named Eva. To him, she is much more than merely a high-class prostitute, and their conversations flow directly into the dialogue of his new play. But he finds it impossible to penetrate Eva's emotional armour. Nobody must know what really drives her – least of all this arrogant upstart, whose sexual dependency she exploits but whom she certainly does not trust. Bertrand becomes ensnared in an emotional entrapment that leads to catastrophe. Benoît Jacquot's feature premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2018.

Utøya 22. juli

Erik Poppe : 2018
U – July 22

On 22 July 2011 five hundred young people attending a summer camp on the island of Utøya were attacked by a heavily armed right-wing extremist. The murderous attack claimed the lives of 69 victims. It was a trauma that rocked Norway to the core, and still does to this day. The drama opens with documentary footage of Oslo where, shortly beforehand, the same attacker had exploded a car bomb killing eight people; the scene then shifts to the island. We follow 19-year-old Kaja who is spending a few days of the holiday here with her young sister Emilie. The two are quarrelling because Emilie is in no mood for the camp and has absolutely no desire to go to the barbecue. And so Kaja ends up going alone. Suddenly, the first gunshot is heard. This first shot marks the beginning of a breathless 72-minute-long reconstruction of events, filmed in a single take, as seen through the eyes of the victims. Kaja's desperate search for Emilie. The fear in the eyes of the young people. Their escape into the forest. Their desperate hope of rescue. And the unknown assassin, getting closer and closer. Erik Poppe's feature premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2018.

Black 47

Lance Daly : 2018

Ireland, 1847. After fighting for the British crown in the war in Afghanistan, Martin Feeney returns to his Irish homeland as a deserter. He finds his country in dire straits. Potato blight has destroyed the crops and over a million people have perished in the resulting famine. Martin's family has also been affected: his mother is among the victims and his brother has been sentenced to death by the British occupying forces. Martin's plan to emigrate to the USA with his sister-in-law and her children fails, and witnessing his last remaining relatives wasting away almost robs him of the will to live. In desperation, he begins a bloody vendetta across the social and political hierarchy of Ireland. To stop this wrathful avenger, the British hire Hannah who fought with Martin in Afghanistan. Lance Daly's feature premiered out of competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2018.

Daughter of Mine

Laura Bispuri : 2018
Figlia mia

Ten-year-old Vittoria is growing up in a Sardinian village untouched by tourism. One day at a rodeo she meets the impetuous Angelica, who is completely different to her own caring mother Tina. Vittoria does not suspect that the two women are connected by a secret. Tina has been visiting Angelica for a long time on the run-down farm where Angelica lives a happy-go-lucky life with some old horses and a faithful dog. Tina is not at all happy about Angelica and her daughter Vittoria getting to know each other. In debt, Angelica decides to move to the mainland. Relieved, Tina offers her financial support, but she cannot prevent further encounters between the two. Captivated by this fearless, independent woman, Vittoria begins rediscovering the island with her. Laura Bispuri's second feature premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2018.

Dovlatov

Alexey German : 2018

Leningrad, November 1971. The city is shrouded in fog. Another anniversary of the revolution is being celebrated, but the country is not making any progress – politically, economically or culturally. Sergei has first-hand experience of this stasis. The young writer's manuscripts are regularly rejected by the official media; his view on things and people is not desired. Others are experiencing similar problems, one of them is his friend Joseph Brodsky whom the state forces into exile. Sergei is however determined to stay and lead a normal life with his wife Lena and daughter Katya. He wants to write about discovering reality: about shipyard workers, or the construction of the metro where one day the bodies of thirty children killed during the Second World War are uncovered. The film portrays the world of Russian-Jewish writer Sergei Dovlatov (1941–1990), whose brilliantly ironic texts were forbidden from being printed in the Soviet Union under Brezhnev. Out of a tragicomic rondeau of rebellion and assimilation, pain and fatigue, ensues a portrait of an era of stagnation and its destructive effects. Alexey German's feature was winner of the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution when it premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2018.

Season of the Devil

Lav Diaz : 2018
Ang Panahon ng Halimaw

In the late 1970s, a military-controlled militia is oppressing a remote village in the Philippine jungle. The uniformed men armed with machine guns are responsible for spreading a terror that is both physical and psychological in nature. They create an atmosphere in which neighbours become enemies and seek to eradicate the villagers' faith in legends and spirits. Fearless young doctor Lorena opens a clinic for the poor, but disappears without a trace shortly afterwards. Her husband, the poet, activist and teacher Hugo Haniway, wants to find out the truth of his wife's whereabouts. When he arrives, he is confronted with a community shattered by despotism and violence. Lav Diaz's feature premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2018.

Transit

Christian Petzold : 2018

When a man flees France after the Nazi invasion, he assumes the identity of a dead author whose papers he possesses. Stuck in Marseille, he meets a young woman desperate to find her missing husband – the very man he's impersonating. The German troops are just outside Paris. Georg escapes to Marseille at the last moment. His luggage contains the legacy of a writer named Weidel, who took his own life out of fear of persecution. This legacy comprises a manuscript, some letters and the Mexican Embassy's assurance of a visa. Only those who can prove that they will leave are allowed in this port town, and this means you need an entry permit from a potential host country. Assuming the identity of Weidel, Georg tries to obtain one of the few scarce passages on a ship. Talks between refugees take place in the corridors of his small hotel, the waiting rooms of consulates, and the cafés and bars down at the harbour. Georg befriends Driss, the son of his late comrade Heinz, who died whilst trying to flee. But when he meets the mysterious Marie, his plans change. The film is set in contemporary Marseille where these characters from the past move around. And so, refugees from back then meet refugees from today, history meets the present, and all of their stories combine to create one eternal transit space. Christian Petzold's feature premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2018.

3 Tage in Quiberon

Emily Atef : 2018
3 Days in Quiberon

Robert Lebeck's photographs of Romy Schneider are world-famous. They capture this actress's contradictory nature, her exuberance, melancholy and pain. Lebeck also took the photographs that were to accompany the legendary interview Romy Schneider granted 'Stern' magazine reporter Michael Jürgs in Quiberon in 1981 – in spite of her previous negative encounters with the German press. The actress had retired to this Breton spa town to recuperate with Hilde, her close friend of many years, keeping her company. The interview and black-and-white photos form the basis of this film that captures the special atmosphere of these three days in which Schneider bares her soul – to breaking point. The more the actress exposes herself and allows the person behind the celebrity to come to the fore, the more the group dynamics of the quartet kick in. Hilde is desperate to protect her friend from herself as she begins to break down the cynical reporter's reserve with her disarming honesty. In his photo sessions, Lebeck rediscovers Romy Schneider's many different faces. A multi-faceted portrait emerges of a compelling actress and woman who unsparingly gives her all and yet believes she has seldom truly been seen or understood. Emily Atef's feature premiered in competition at Berlin International Film Festival 2018.

The Tree

André Gil Mata : 2018
Drvo

A man and a child meet under a tree on a river bank, sharing the same memory and a secret. An old man in a city under siege, during a very snowy winter, goes around collecting bottles from his neighbours at night in order to bring back drinking water. He carries them hanging by a rope from a tree branch over his shoulders, slotted behind his neck. When he gets to the mouth of the river, after a lot of walking and rowing in an old boat, and starts filling the bottles, it is suddenly daytime. We see a boy sledding down a slope to his mother. But then the boy wakes up from his dream in a dark attic, calling for his mum. The only thing he hears from outside is a voice barking orders in German, and then marching boots. After the soldiers have left, he goes out into the night with a sack and trudges through the snow from one deserted ruin of a house to another, picking out canned food or clothes. Walking through the woods, he reaches a clearing where a very specific tree is located. It is unmistakably the tree that the old man saw in the first half of the film, as he was rowing down the river. The boy lights a campfire. The old man spots the boy and starts rowing faster, while the boy has also seen the old man and started running away. André Gil Mata's feature premiered in the Forum section at Berlin International Film Festival 2018.

Impermanence

Zeng Zeng : 2018
Yun shui

Monk Can Chen has a cloudy past, and withdraws from a temple bearing a sack of money. Innkeeper Wang Haili labours under an uneasy conscience while being haunted by his dead wife, Su Mei. Retiree Fang Yiguo has abandoned his son Shangqin, only to find out that emotional entanglements and unacknowledged family sins have unavoidable consequences. All three are variously drawn to a Buddhist temple in rural Hunan, China, where each discovers that past sins (theft, murder, abandonment) accrue complex karmic debts, whose consequences are as shocking as they are inevitable. A brilliant interlocking structure only gradually reveals the profound and ineluctable moral universe lying behind these lost and desperate characters' fates. Zeng Zeng's Buddhist riddle of a film, her feature debut, premiered in competition in the Bright Future section at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2018.

Khibula

George Ovashvili : 2017

In 1991 Zviad Gamsachurdia became the first democratically elected president of the newly independent Georgia, yet within a few months he was ousted in a military coup. He sets out for the mountains with a group of loyalists to regroup with his supporters. With their help he will retake power, or so he earnestly hopes. The film uses historical events as a frame to shape an archetypal story told with light melancholy and an unmistakable visual poetic. Set against an imposing Caucasus backdrop, we witness a man fighting for power while waging an internal struggle as he heads to meet his fate. George Ovashvili's feature premiered in competition at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2017.

City of the Sun

Rati Oneli : 2017
Mzis qalaqi

The Georgian town of Chiatura was once a vibrant centre of industry, but the monotonous sound of work in the expansive manganese mines has essentially been replaced by silence. The houses, production halls, theatres, stadiums and the unique system of public cable cars – previously the pride of the town – are now rusting and rotting away. Rampant vegetation turns buildings into ruins, completing the image of omnipresent decay. And yet people have not disappeared entirely from this place. The film's crystal-clear style, in which each shot is given the length it needs, seeks out the photogenic side of decay and explores the specific nature of the lost souls that continue to live here. Rati Oneli's feature-length directorial debut premiered in the Forum section at Berlin International Film Festival 2017.

Volubilis

Faouzi Bensaïdi : 2017

A tale of love in a world of despair, of beauty among the ruins. In the Moroccan city of Meknès, recently married Abdelkader and Malika struggle to make ends meet. He works as a shopping mall security guard, she as a housemaid. They dream of leaving the family house and finally starting a life of their own together. But one day at work, Abdelkader gets mixed up in a violent incident that will turn their lives upside down. The drama contrasts a poor but deeply in love young couple with the rich but inhumane and hypocritical upper class. Abdelkader suffers violence only because he is part of the powerless working class, and the corrupt law and government tramples on the weak as though only natural. A powerful criticism about injustice and discrimination in Morocco. Faouzi Bensaïdi's feature premiered in competition at Venice Days 2017.

Burning Mountains That Spew Flame

Samuel M Delgado & Helena Girón : 2016
Montañas arditens que vomitan fuego

Out in the open, on a mysterious volcanic island, a goatherd is tending his flock. The island's black rock, however, hides the murky depths of a cave complex, as well as shafts that formed in the course of volcanic activity. In these bowels of the earth, which served as a refuge for the resistance during the war but still welcome any lost soul, time has stopped. The enchanting magic of the place exists out of time and geographical location, yet the heart of the island quietly whispers a testimony of local history and mythology. Samuel M Delgado and Helena Girón's short premiered in the Imagina section at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2017.

Waiting for Ana

Giorgi Mukhadze : 2016
Anas molodinshi

Their mother's death becomes the pretext for long-estranged siblings to reconnect. They lead different lives, so much so that they find it hard to communicate. If they could live quietly together in one apartment they might find their way back to each other, but the constant interruption of grieving rituals and mourning relatives makes this impossible. Then something seemingly insignificant from the past helps them break down the barrier dividing them, and they remember how it was when each other's presence brought them joy. Giorgi Mukhadze's short had its international premiere in the Future Frames section at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2017.