Women find empowerment behind the red nose and makeup, revealing the playful and subversive spirit of female clowning. Through poetic and intimate performances, the clowns share stories that go beyond laughter, exploring their role as manipulators of energy and expression.
American filmmaker Julia Loktev, born in the Soviet Union, returned to Moscow in 2021 to make a documentary on the persistence of independent media journalism in Putin’s Russia—just months, as it turned out, before the country’s invasion of Ukraine. Structured in five chapters, Loktev’s film is an extraordinary vérité document of a moment of immense change and anxiety.
Joys, sorrows and life's great tragicomedy in a video diary about motherhood and much more, recorded over nearly 20 years by award-winning British director Victoria Mapplebeck. A deeply personal and completely unsentimental film.
The stories of several women in the Boston music scene and their struggle to achieve equality and success while embracing their identities and finding a voice in the community.
Shot in part at 10,000 feet at Gross Reservoir in Colorado over a span of 12 years, this short film, featuring the indomitable Rennie Harris, shares a dreamscape glimpse into the vernacular dance form, hambone, or “Patin’ Juba.” This work positions the powerful resilience of the Black male body in the face of white surveillance and the survival and evolution of the dance/music form of hambone within and beyond the histories of enslavement.
After graduating from a Dutch art academy, Chinese performance artist Nadh is given exactly one year to find a job—his "search year"—or he must leave the Netherlands. His rebellious nature brings him into conflict with Dutch bureaucracy and with himself. Director Joris Koptod Nioky follows Nadh and holds up a mirror to us: you can conform to the rules, but you can also question or reject them.
The documentary tells the story of Karol Wojtyła, Pope John Paul II, with rare footage and exclusive information. Born in Poland under Nazi and Communist occupation, he faced persecution, KGB surveillance, and miraculously survived an assassination attempt, all without ever giving in to fear. Discover how, through his faith in Christ, acts of evangelization in atheist countries, and the use of art and philosophy, John Paul II inspired millions, strengthened the Solidarity movement, and contributed to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
A cement factory, a crowded urban city, a flooded coastal town, and the Manila Bay intersect to construct the spaces of a developing nation uncertain of its future.
Music documentary about 35 years of work of the unusual punk rock group Zvoncekova Bilježnica. Through the words of the band members themselves, but also of many other musicians, rock journalists, writers, the career of one of the most original Serbian punk rock groups from the nineties is presented...
Mono Melancholia, the first standalone experimental film by Hrisiraj Sengupta, folds together fragments of the director’s own past with images captured for no purpose beyond the quiet act of noticing. Some shots were never meant for a film. They began as personal keepsakes, and now sit beside moments filmed solely for this piece. Every frame was taken quickly on a phone, under the light that was there, without the interference of formal setups. The monologue came later, written as an echo to the images, shaped by the atmosphere of its non-original soundtrack. More than a narrative, it is an instinctive arrangement of memory and mood, a small attempt to make sense of what refuses to be explained.
A different story of the Locarno Film Festival – one of the power struggles between the various stakeholders who helped shape its identity, behind the veneer of Swiss neutrality and the narrative of Swiss exceptionalism.
In 2008, allegations emerged that Malka Leifer, the headmistress of the girls' campus of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish school in Melbourne's inner south-east, had committed grievous crimes against three young students under her care, sisters Dassi Erlich, Nicole Meyer and Elly Sapper. It was the catalyst for a reckoning; but before police investigations could get underway, Leifer fled overseas under the cloak of darkness with the assistance of the school. Thus began an extradition battle that would last for the better part of a decade, and a broader quest for justice that revealed a web of international intrigue, legal loopholes and political corruption as well as a deeper culture of silence around sexual abuse.
As war engulfs South Lebanon, a family flees their home while bombs reduce their town to ruins. Returning to devastation, they find only fragments of what once was, yet among the wreckage, the community clings to a fragile hope that peace and renewal will come.
Kherson, Ukraine's embattled city, has endured invasion, occupation, and liberation. On February 24, 2022, Russian tanks entered Kherson, leading to brutal occupation marked by violence. Despite being outnumbered, local defense forces resisted, and citizens protested under the slogan "Kherson is Ukraine!" An underground resistance formed, led by brave individuals like journalist Valentyna and others who risked arrest and torture to support the cause. After nine months, Ukrainian forces liberated Kherson, but Russian destruction left the city in chaos. Shelling and drone attacks became relentless, and in June 2023, a dam explosion flooded the city, causing further devastation. Despite these challenges, Kherson's spirit remained unbroken, with citizens embracing arts and resilience. By August 2024, drone attacks specifically targeted civilians, yet the city resisted, determined to rebuild and reclaim its identity, refusing to succumb to ruin.