North Bergen, North Bergen

Footage shot in and around North Bergen, New Jersey presented in a minimalist series of fixed camera angles and long-takes accompanied by the ambient noise of city streets.

I Lived, But...

An extremely lovely tribute to Ozu, on the 20th anniversary of his death. It uses a combination of footage from vintage films and new material (both interviews and Ozu-related locations) shot by Ozu's long-time camera-man (who came out of retirement to work on this). Surprisingly (or perhaps not), it focuses less on Ozu's accomplishments as a film-maker than on his impact on the lives of the people he worked with..

A Train Arrives at the Station

“This film was a gift to me. I make no claims for it, nor do I offer any apologies. It comes from work on The Thoughts That Once We Had. There was one shot we had to cut whose loss I particularly regretted. It was a shot of a train pulling into Tokyo Station from Ozu’s The Only Son (1936). So I decided to make a film around this shot, an anthology of train arrivals. It comprises 26 scenes or shots from movies, 1904-2015. It has a simple serial structure: each black & white sequence in the first half rhymes with a color sequence in the second half. Thus the first shot and the final shot show trains arriving at stations in Japan from a low camera height. In the first shot (The Only Son), the train moves toward the right; in the last shot, it moves toward the left. A bullet train has replaced a steam locomotive. So after all these years, I’ve made another structural film, although that was not my original intention.”

Tear on the Cheek

Collage film juxtaposing footage of Nazi Germany and the occupation with contemporary Yugoslavia.

System Shock: How the MP3 Changed Music

This is the story of the MP3, an audio breakthrough that brought a billion dollar industry to the brink of collapse, but also paved the way for our modern digital lives. Germany 1995, a PhD student makes a technological breakthrough when he discovers how to compress audio without losing sound quality. He calls his new file type an "MP3". Within just a few years, and with the help of a nascent tech community, illegal MP3s begin filling up the hard drives of millions of computers around the world. It's the beginning of our modern digital age and internet culture. Featuring interviews with infamous music executives, artists, and techies, System Shock chronicles how the MP3 crushed the music industry and gave rise to the billion-dollar sharing economy.

We Summon You

A record of the unveiling of the monument to the victims of December '70 that took place in front of gate 2 of the Gdańsk Shipyard. Witnesses to the December events describe their experiences.

Alone in the World

The first documentary realized by Danuta Halladin after her studies announces one of the main themes of her future films: children and childhood. Alone in the World is a story about orphanages.

How An Opener Works

A portrait of a working man - Stefan Piętowski, a craftsman who, at the age of 85, sums up his professional life. In order to do so, he organizes "The History of One Working Life" exhibition.

Winners

Young people with disabilities are provided with health care and vocational training. Is it enough to prepare them for their independent life? We get to know some charges of the Rehabilitation Center in Konstancin.

Extravíos

Il silenzio è complicità

Generation Iron 5: Persia

Documentary about bodybuilding’s rise in the Persian regions, feat. 2022 Mr Olympia Hadi Choopan.

Ecos do Qatar

La meg være ung!

This documentary presents clips from a rich Scandinavian film heritage in order to visualise clichés related to the different eras as well as commenting upon tenacious preconceptions about youth. News headings and documentary footage throw the movie clips into perspective. Some 200 film titles have constituted the research material. Among the many interesting features revealed is the fact that young girls and boys play very different roles in the films, even in the case of rebellion and protest, which is a generally “young” quality. What do boys on one hand, and girls on the other, rebel against, and how are their protests and provocations expressed in the films?

The Foundation Pit

A found footage film compiled from countless YouTube videos in which the people of Russia make a direct appeal to president Putin. A kaleidoscope of the mood in the country – from submissive pleas to pure rage about injustice and rampant corruption.

Golda Maria

In 1994, film producer Patrick Sobelman recorded the testimony of his grandmother Golda Maria Tondovska, a Polish Jewish survivor of the Shoah.

Home Movies #10 Wedding and Pregnancy

Always Amber

Amber belongs to a queer generation which no longer wants society to dictate their identity. The teenagers proudly inhabit a spectrum of fluid identities and master their first loves and losses.

The Secret Diary of 'Amarcord'

A tongue-in-cheek documentary that goes "behind the scenes" during the production of Federico Fellini's film "Amarcord" (1973).

Nardjes A.

Accompanying activist Nardjes with his camera, Karim Aïnouz documents the youth culture, which is confidently taking to the streets for a democratic future in Algeria, whose independence their parents and grandparents have already fought.