In his documentary essay film, Chilean Patricio Guzmán takes a double look at the past: On the one hand there are the astronomers who look up to the sky in the Atacama Desert and explore the origin of the universe, on the other there are the women who search in the desert sand around the observatories for the mortal remains of their loved ones who have become victims of the military dictatorship. A journey into the light.

Propelled from society by tragic turns, the people of Darwin (population 35) must now find ways to coexist in a place without a government, a church, jobs, or children. The near-ghost town's survival depends on a fragile, gravity-fed waterline that descends from the mountains where top secret weapons are being tested. One "accidental" drop of a bomb, they half-joke, could wipe out their entire town. "Darwin" is a documentary film de Nick Brandestini about an isolated community at the end of a weathered road in Death Valley, California, and tells the story of a uniquely American place and yet a place that is unique even within America.

Coming of age in Barrow, Alaska - the northernmost community of the United States - has become a little more complicated for the local youth than it was for their ancestors who originally named this place “Ukpiagvik” (“where we hunt snowy owls”). They are the twenty-first century descendants of a culture that has endured for millennia on this isolated, but rapidly changing tundra. The harvest of the agvik (bowhead whale) remains the heart of their culture. "Children of the Arctic" is a year-in-the-life portrait of Native Alaskan teenagers navigating between both being modern American teenagers and the inheritors of an endangered culture.

On the barrier island of Sapelo, two young brothers are growing up in the last remaining enclave of the Saltwater Geechee people. Their greatest joy is exploring the wilderness like their adoptive mother, Cornelia Walker Bailey, did as a child. As Sapelo’s storyteller and elder matriarch, she works to preserve what remains of this island community established by her ancestors. At the dawn of adolescence, the brothers inherit her hope, but their bond is tested as they begin to face the wider world. The documentary by Nick Brandestini was awarded the Sesterce d'or for Best Feature Film at Visions du Réel 2020.

As soon as school is over, Sasha’s otherwise relaxed and complicit mother pressures him to enroll at the university. Sasha, however, lives in the moment. Plus he currently wants to hone his graffiti skills with his friend Max. And maybe get to know his father. But then, he meets the dazzling Zhenya. Carried by the light and the ease of the summer in Kaliningrad, they fathom their feelings, talents and fears together. In her sensitive debut, Julia Trofimova tells of young people in today’s Russia who cannot possibly please everyone. Parents’ need for security is countered by a variety of possible paths and identities.

Rashomon is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made: Three men take shelter at one of the gates leading to Kyoto, waiting for the rain to stop. We are under the Heian era (9th - 12th centuries). To pass the time, they discuss an event that took place recently: the discovery of the body of a samurai, probably killed by the bandit Tajomaru. The three men were in fact called to testify at the trial. They each report what they said at the trial, and what they saw. Four versions are opposed, the widow - who was allegedly raped by the bandit - also having her own. So what happened?

A heavy-metal-loving teenager’s holiday plans fall through at the last minute, meaning he must spend the summer with the person who annoys him most: his mum. The comic actor Simon Bird makes a fine directorial debut with a tender portrait of the relationship between a prickly teenager and his mother over one summer. Beautifully played by Monica Dolan and Earl Cave (son of Nick), the two veer from loathing to love and back again as they both struggle to identify how their lives will move forward. Gentle, wry and affectionate, it marks Bird out as an idiosyncratic new UK voice.

On the French Polynesian island of Tahiti, the High Commissioner of the Republic and French government official De Roller (Benoît Magimel) is a calculating man with flawless manners. His somewhat broad perception of his role brings him to navigate the high end «establishment» as well as shady venues where he mingles with the locals. Especially since a persistent rumour has been going around: the sighting of a submarine whose ghostly presence could herald the return of French nuclear testing.

Money and love worries of swimming teacher Aldo and rum factory worker Monica in Melaza, the cradle of Cuban sugarcane. With tangible love for Cuba, the director takes a fresh look at his struggling characters: you can also learn to swim in a piscina without water. In the Cuban village of Melaza, named after the once flourishing sugarcane fields, time stands still. Even when all kinds of things happen, nothing ever changes. The State pretends to take care of everything, but it shuts the rum factory and makes swimming lessons impossible. There's no use complaining, think the inhabitants, that’s just how it is. Melaza is the heartwarming love story of Aldo and Monica, a photogenic couple who live in a much too small cottage with their fat daughter and grumpy grandma. They try very hard to earn some extra money. Their attempts finally get the couple into deeper and deeper trouble. But together, the lovers manage to pull through it. New talent Carlos Lechuga tells his critical story with humour and sparse dialogue, taking us on a journey to the beauties of rural Cuba. Far from the hotels and from Havana, but with a reality familiar to everyone who has ever been to Cuba - or faced a shortage of cash. (Filmfestival Rotterdam)

The unemployed samurai Sanjuro (stunning as usual: Toshiro Mifune) travels through 19th century Japan to a remote mountain village, where two hostile family clans fight for supremacy by all means. Sanjuro skillfully takes advantage of the rivalries, takes sides here and there and plays both groups against each other in his daring intrigue game.

Vincent Fleury, a taxi driver who has been rejected by his wife, embarks on an adventure from which he hopes to benefit: in exchange for a sum of money which will enable him to pay child support for his son, he agrees to set out for Crete with an unknown person, Thelma, to help her find the ex-lover who had spurned her. During their trip across Switzerland, Italy and Greece, they flirt – but at the last minute Thelma always holds back. Vincent is at a loss to understand until he discovers that she is a trans woman who, in order to keep him with her has been lying from the very beginning. Torn between love and repulsion, Vincent has to make a choice.

Embrace of the Serpent tells the epic story of the first contact, encounter, approach, betrayal and, eventually, life-transcending friendship, between Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman, last survivor of his people, and two scientists that, over the course of 40 years, travel through the Amazon in search of a sacred plant that can heal them. Inspired by the journals of the first explorers of the Colombian Amazon, Theodor Koch-Grunberg and Richard Evans Schultes.

On the barrier island of Sapelo, two young brothers are growing up in the last remaining enclave of the Saltwater Geechee people. Their greatest joy is exploring the wilderness like their adoptive mother, Cornelia Walker Bailey, did as a child. As Sapelo’s storyteller and elder matriarch, she works to preserve what remains of this island community established by her ancestors. At the dawn of adolescence, the brothers inherit her hope, but their bond is tested as they begin to face the wider world. The documentary by Nick Brandestini was awarded the Sesterce d'or for Best Feature Film at Visions du Réel 2020.

Coming of age in Barrow, Alaska - the northernmost community of the United States - has become a little more complicated for the local youth than it was for their ancestors who originally named this place “Ukpiagvik” (“where we hunt snowy owls”). They are the twenty-first century descendants of a culture that has endured for millennia on this isolated, but rapidly changing tundra. The harvest of the agvik (bowhead whale) remains the heart of their culture. "Children of the Arctic" is a year-in-the-life portrait of Native Alaskan teenagers navigating between both being modern American teenagers and the inheritors of an endangered culture.

Propelled from society by tragic turns, the people of Darwin (population 35) must now find ways to coexist in a place without a government, a church, jobs, or children. The near-ghost town's survival depends on a fragile, gravity-fed waterline that descends from the mountains where top secret weapons are being tested. One "accidental" drop of a bomb, they half-joke, could wipe out their entire town. "Darwin" is a documentary film de Nick Brandestini about an isolated community at the end of a weathered road in Death Valley, California, and tells the story of a uniquely American place and yet a place that is unique even within America.

As soon as school is over, Sasha’s otherwise relaxed and complicit mother pressures him to enroll at the university. Sasha, however, lives in the moment. Plus he currently wants to hone his graffiti skills with his friend Max. And maybe get to know his father. But then, he meets the dazzling Zhenya. Carried by the light and the ease of the summer in Kaliningrad, they fathom their feelings, talents and fears together. In her sensitive debut, Julia Trofimova tells of young people in today’s Russia who cannot possibly please everyone. Parents’ need for security is countered by a variety of possible paths and identities.

On the French Polynesian island of Tahiti, the High Commissioner of the Republic and French government official De Roller (Benoît Magimel) is a calculating man with flawless manners. His somewhat broad perception of his role brings him to navigate the high end «establishment» as well as shady venues where he mingles with the locals. Especially since a persistent rumour has been going around: the sighting of a submarine whose ghostly presence could herald the return of French nuclear testing.

Rosa, a Mozambican peasant, is accused by the family of her husband of having caused his suicide by refusing to obey him. She is suspected of having a "spirit-husband". In order to prove her innocence, Rosa submits herself to two trials: one by a traditional healer, the other in court. She is absolved twice. Nevertheless, the dead man relatives continue to persecute her and she is punished in a cruel way. The film is interpreted by the real players of this story, the dead man by his twin brother. During the shooting, the director decided to install a second camera to follow the never ending plot of revenge. Such a complex editing has no parallel in African cinema.

On the final journey back from high in the Andes down to the Amazon jungle, the director remains haunted by the film she has just completed about the Huaorani Indians and the anthropologist Laura Rival. A farewell to this alien people, strange and unfathomable, but also to her own people who are no easier to understand – the white helpers, researchers, filmmakers… Destroyers?

Youngho tries to find a way between his dream of becoming an actor and his parents' expectations. While his girlfriend leaves to study in Berlin, the young man sees the opportunity for a fresh start.

One of the highlights of Vera Chytilová’s filmography is the grotesque moral «Daisies» (1966). The surrealistic narrative about a pair of young women who decide to be as corrupt as the world around them does not arise from concrete socio-political realities. As a result, the biting account of conformity, petty-bourgeois narrow-mindedness, and the limits of light-heartedness has timeless qualities. Daisies marked the beginning of Chytilová’s collaboration with Ester Krumbachová, who contributed to the eccentric costumes and script. The collage-like visual component then gave a lot of space for experimentation to the cinematographer Jaroslav Kucera. It is still an original gem of Czech cinema of the 1960s, which infuriated the communist officials of the time.

A heavy-metal-loving teenager’s holiday plans fall through at the last minute, meaning he must spend the summer with the person who annoys him most: his mum. The comic actor Simon Bird makes a fine directorial debut with a tender portrait of the relationship between a prickly teenager and his mother over one summer. Beautifully played by Monica Dolan and Earl Cave (son of Nick), the two veer from loathing to love and back again as they both struggle to identify how their lives will move forward. Gentle, wry and affectionate, it marks Bird out as an idiosyncratic new UK voice.

The European equivalent of "The Return of the Secaucus 7," this Swiss film looks at the lives of several men and women in their 30s as they confront the slim gains of the "revolutionary" sixties. Max, a dissatisfied copy editor; Myriam, a redhead into tantric sex; and Marie, a supermarket checker who gives unauthorized discounts to the elderly, search for renewed meaning on a communal farm. The title character, a six-year-old child, is the carrier of their hopes for the future.

“If the bee disappears from the surface of the Earth, man would have no more than four years left to live.” Einstein. All over the world bees have been dying for the past three years. Although the causes for this are still a mystery, one thing is already clear: there is more at stake than simply a few dead insects, and a great deal more than just honey. Seeking answers, the film embarks on a journey to meet with people whose lives depend on bees: to a Swiss beekeeper living on an Alp; to the gigantic almond plantations in California; to a bee brain researcher in Berlin; to a pollen trader in China; and to the killer bees in the Arizona desert. All report on how the bees are vanishing. The film tells us about their lives. And about ours.

«Ailo's Journey» tells the fight for the survival of a small wild reindeer, frail and vulnerable to the challenges that punctuate his first year. Its awakening to the wild world is a real tale in the heart of the grandiose landscapes of Lapland.

Stations are islands, detached between worlds and times, cosmopolitan meeting points and junctions. "Mahatah - Side Stories from Main Stations" plunges us into this world where, almost without realising it, people scrub the stairs, set up the train compositions, look after security and sell tickets - or kebabs.

Two brothers, 17-year-old Farrukh and 7-year-old Azamat, leave town to join their doctor-father, travelling cross-country through imposingly stark Tajikistan on a ramshackle cargo train. Their journey is punctuated by numerous experiences which carry them into the lives of strangers and through the endearing emotional odyssey of their own relationship. When they reach the father who initially does not recognize them, their hopes for a better life are crushed. Turning back on each other, the brothers resume their journey.

When the truck is stolen from his father and with him his livelihood as a mobile apple seller, his son Saeed cannot meet the demand of supplying a basket of apples to school. A razor-sharp look at the age-old city versus countryside discrepancy the film follows Saeed through the alleys and streets of a Tehran suburb in search of a solution.

Daniele von Arb was 16 years old in 1970 when he and his friends founded the revolutionary cell in Zurich later listed by the U.S. secret service CIA in its chart on international terrorism under the code name “Annebäbi”. Today he is a fortune-teller and future consultant. A hurtling journey through the armed struggle of the 1970s, entry into the cosmos of spirituality and finally, in 1989, a first class ticket to freedom.

It is New Year's Eve. 1976. On a Greek island a party of bourgeois hunters comes upon a body, buried in the snow and miraculously preserved by the cold. By his uniform, he appears to be one of the thousands of partisans killed during the civil war and the hunting party, a group of the ruling elite, must now decide what to do with the body. When they disinter it, blood begins to flow from the wounds in the partisan's body and they carry it back to the lodge where the inquest begins. The film becomes a biting commentary, an extraordinary allegory for the persistence of guilt in which Greece's post-war Right is placed symbolically on trial in a series of tableaux in which the hunters are faced with their re-created sins. Merging poetic metaphor and historic reconstruction each member of the hunting party views the body on the makeshift bier: the colonel and his wife, the businessman, the ex-prefect of police, now a publisher, the ex-partisan who is now a wealthy contractor, the politician, the film actress who collaborated with the Nazis, the royalist noblewoman - all are forced to give an account of their actions since the civil war. Finally, they dream their own execution by partisans but awake to find it was but a collective nightmare provoked by the dead body of the partisan. In the gray dawn they rebury the corpse and with it, hopefully, their own guilt.

The Future Circular Collider is the machine of the future. Thanks to it, we will finally be able to go back in time to the origin of our universe. But which way do we go to set up the largest scientific instrument of all time? Between metaphysics and underground tunnels, a story of the preparations or how men are ready to move mountains for more knowledge.

The film begins with a volcanic eruption that stranded the director, Pauline Julier, in a foreign city, among strangers. In turns, these strangers evoke legends about the formation of the continents, the blooming of the tectonic plates or the explosion of ash that provoked summers without sun.