... When You Look Away

by Phie Ambo
Viola-Lucia Film, Hansen & Pedersen film og fjernsyn
| 84’ | Denmark | 2017 | |
Where are the limits of consciousness and are we connected in ways we never knew? Phie Ambo asks these big questions in a filmic experiment with surprising answers. A thought-provoking film from the unknown borderland between science and alternative world views.





Before the Last Curtain Falls

by Thomas Wallner
Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion Köln GmbH & Co.KG , Savage Film
| 86’&52’ | Germany/Belgium | 2014 | HD |
The film dives deeply into the exceptional and heart-warmingstories of a group of transsexuals and drag queens in their sixties and seventies, who summon up their bravery to take the stage once again – perhaps for the last time.



CALVET

by Dominic Allan
Firewalk Films
| 86’ - 52’ | UK | 2011 | HD
Never believe you've played your last hand..

French painter Jean Marc Calvet recounts his incredible life story as a former Cannes bodyguard who abandoned his family, robbed a Miami mobster, hid out in Central America and at the age of 38 overcame addictions through an extraordinary metamorphosis in which he began to paint.




* Nominated for Best Feature Documentary by The Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA) and the Broadcast Television Journalists Association (BTJA) for the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards

Cameraperson

by Kirsten Johnson
Big Mouth Productions
| 102’ | USA | 2016 | |
Exposing her role behind the camera, Kirsten Johnson reaches into the vast trove of footage she has shot over decades around the world. What emerges is a visually bold memoir and a revelatory interrogation of the power of the camera.





China's van Goghs

by Haibo YU, Kiki Tiangi YU
Century Image Media Ltd, TrueWorks
| 84' - 52' | China | 2015 | HD |
Vincent van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime, but Zhao Xiaoyong has sold over 90,000 copies of van Gogh’s paintings in the past 20 years. Living in China, the world’s fastest developing country, Zhao has been through great transitions. First from a peasant to a rural migrant worker. Then he learnt how to copy iconic Western paintings. Now Zhao is in the midst of a new transition – from copy maker to original artist. China’s van Gogh not only presents how this painter pursues his dream, but also tells the human story of challenge and struggle during his journey.





Cinema, Mon Amour

by Alexandru Belc
Libra Film Productions, Pink Productions
| 70' - 52' | Romania/Czech Republic | 2015 | |
Having lived through “the golden age” of cinema, Viktor Purice fights to preserve the Dacia Panoramic Cinema in Piatra Neamt - one of the last remaining cinemas in Romania today and bring back the good old glory days, yet struggles to keep up with the new harsh reality. In a theater that lacks heating and is slowly falling apart, with no support from the State who owns the place, it’s almost a Don Quixote fight. 





Ethiopiques - Revolt of the Soul

by Maciek Bochniak
Pokromski Studio, P’Artisan Film Produktion GmbH
| 70’ & 52’ | Poland, Germany, UK | 2017 | |
The story of forgotten Ethiopian musicians who became a considerable inspiration for free jazz and pop music nowadays.




Half the Picture

by Amy Adrion
Half the Picture, LLC
| 95’ | USA | 2018 | HD |
For many years the discouraging statistics about women directors in film and television have been known, but a confluence of social media outrage, increased study and statistics, and a growing willingness of prominent women in the industry to call out the powerful forces working against them, have resulted in what some have termed a “genderquake moment.”


HARRY GRUYAERT - PHOTOGRAPHER


HARRY GRUYAERT - PHOTOGRAPHER

by Gerrit Messiaen
Las Belgas & Take Five | 70’ - 52’ | Belgium| 2018 | HD |
This is the story of 77 year old Magnum member Harry Gruyaert whose life is saved by color.





Hugo Pratt in Africa

by Stefano Knuchel
Venus and Beyond, Cong S.A.
| 91' - 52' | Switzerland | 2010 | |
When Hugo Pratt passed away in 1995, he was holding an Ethiopian cross in his left hand. In order to understand his love of the black continent, Hugo Pratt’s companion, Jean Claude Guilbert, together with a group of like-minded people, searches for traces of him in the Horn of Africa. Thanks to their efforts and invaluable audiovisual archive material, a new picture of this remarkable artist and his attitude towards Africa begins to emerge.





I Am Here

by Lixin Fan
Oriental Companion Media(Beijing) Co,Ltd
| 86’ | China | 2014 | HD |
Every week, millions of viewers tune in to China’s most popular singing competition, Super Boy. Tens of thousands of aspiring male singers audition every year for this prestigious talent show, but only ten make it into the months-long competition. I Am Here immerses us in the finalists’ gruelling, adrenalizing experience, even as it raises provocative questions about the social context of such a phenomenon. Fan, director of the multi-award-winning Last Train Home, this time tackles popular youth culture — the tech-savvy generation armed with smartphones and disposable income — and its palpable obsession with fame.





European Film Awards Shortlist

La Chana

by Lucija Stojevic
Noon Films S.L., Bless Bless Productions
| 82’ & 55’ | Spain | 2016 | HD |
An intimate portrait of Gypsy flamenco dancer La Chana as she returns to the stage after a 23-year break and uncovers the secret why she disappeared at the peak of her career.





Love Always, Carolyn. A Film about Kerouac, Cassady and Me

by Malin Korkeasalo, Maria Ramström
WG Film
| 70’ | Sweden | 2011 | 16:9 |
Carolyn Cassady, the wife and lover of two famous Beat icons, Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac, is fighting a losing battle for truth. Mythmakers and the media have hijacked the story of her life and the memory of the men she loved. Love Always, Carolyn is an intimate yet universal story of a woman’s search for personal recognition and price of a life in the public eye.





Mad as Hell: Peter Finch

by Robert de Young
Lowlands Media Pty Ltd
| 77’ - 55’ | Australia | 2011 | 16:9 |
Mad as Hell is the first documentary to map the significance and legacy of Australian actor Peter Finch’s life and career as seen through the eyes of his daughters, fellow actors, producers and his manager. With: Anita Harrison, Tamara Tchinarova Finch, Samantha Finch, Diana Braley-Finch, Barry Norman, Trader Faulkner, Vincent Ball, Peter Thompson, Bill Hunter, Virginia McKenna, Glenda Jackson, Howard Gottfried. Finch is still the only actor to have been awarded a posthumous Academy Award® for Best Actor (Network, 1977).

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SIDE BY SIDE

by Chris Kenneally
Company Films LLC
| USA | 98’ - 56’ | 2012
Keanu Reeves interviews directors, cinematographers, film students, producers, technologies, editors, and exhibitors, as Side by Side examines all aspects of filmmaking. At this moment when digital and photochemical filmmaking coexist, Side by Side explores what has been gained, what is lost, and what the future might bring.




SUBTITLES HEROES

by Franco Dipietro
Duel Film snc, Oki Doki Grey Ladder Ouvert Taiga Film
| 72’ & 52’ | Italy | 2017 | 4k |
Subtitles Heroes is a feature creative documentary about Italian Subs, the world's largest fansubber community. Tv series mania, passion, dubbing and shared economy (and intelligence) are the main topics of this movie for cinema and tvs.



THE BALLAD OF GENESIS AND LADY JAYE

By Marie Loisier
Marie Loisier
| 72' | USA | 2011 |
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge has been a key figure of the underground music scene for over 30 years. A cult artist in prepunk and post-punk groups Throbbing Gristle (1975 to 1981) and Psychic TV (1981 to present), he is considered to be the father of industrial music and a pioneer of acid house and techno. Not content with breaking new ground in music, Genesis has also used his position at the limits of society to challenge the very fundamentals of biology.




THE END OF FEAR

by Barbara Visser
De Familie Film & TV
| 70' | The Netherlands | 2018 | Cinemascope |
THE END OF FEAR is a cinematographic essay on a crucial and controversial work of art from the 1960’s, the painting Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue III by Barnett Newman. What is the possible value of art: what makes something a work of art; who decides this; what does it mean; what is the value of art in economic, artistic, and social terms?


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The Man who made Angels Fly

by Viktoria Szymanska
Luna W., Les Films du Balibari
| 65’ & 52’ | France | 2013 | HD |
Michael Meschke is one of the world's top puppeteers. As a child, he and his family escaped from Nazi Germany to Sweden. From there, he set off around the world, traveling with his puppet ensemble for over six decades. Over time he amassed a collection of 3,000 marionettes that must now vacate unsuitable basement storage in a Stockholm museum. Each has its own story and unmistakable personality. Wiktoria Szymaska eschews standard biopic methods, focusing instead on Michael Meschke's uncanny ability to imbue his puppets for a few minutes with living emotion and inimitable expression.





The Night

by Steffan Strandberg
Indie Film as, Walking the Dog, Fasad Produktion
| 63' & 58' | Norway | 2017 | HD |
When Steffan's mother died, he felt nothing. No sadness, no sense of relief. How did it come to this?





The Poetess

by Stefanie Brockhaus, Andreas Wolff
Brockhaus/Wolff Films GbR
| 88’ & 52’ | Germany, Saudi Arabia | 2017 | HD |
Hissa Hilal, a 43-year-old housewife from Saudi Arabia, tests her boundaries in the daily struggle for change. Veiled in a burqa, she gains international fame at Abu Dhabi’s prestigious contest “Million’s Poet” with her poems critical of terrorism and the ideologies of fanatic islamists.





The Road to Fame

by Hao Wu
Tripod Media LLC
| 80’ - 56' | China | 2013 | HD |
The film gives a rare, intimate look at the coming-of-age of some of China's most promising yet confused youth. It chronicles the staging of the musical 'Fame' by the graduating class of China's top drama academy, in China's first official collaboration with Broadway. It follows five students of divergent personalities and family backgrounds as they compete for roles, struggle with the expectations of teachers and parents, and prepare to graduate into China's reality of huge wealth gap and rampant corruption. Often confused by the conflicting cultural values shaping China today, the students must confront their anxieties about an uncertain future and negotiate their own paths to fame.





The Woodmans

by C Scott Willis
C Scott Films LCC
| 82’ - 60' | USA | 2010 | HD |
The Woodmans are a family of well-known artists bonded in their belief of art-making as the highest form of expression, but for their daughter Francesca -- one of the late 20th century’s most recognized and influential photographer -- fame came only after a tragedy that would forever scar the family. The Woodmans traces the story of a family broken and then healed by their art.





Timoteo's Fabulous Ragged Circus

by Lorena Giachino
Errante Producciones Limitada, Trivial Media (Argentina)
| 52’&76’ | Chile / Argentina | 2013 | HD |
The comedian Timoteo is the leader of a gay cross-dresser circus that has toured through Chile for forty years. Today his advanced age and health are reason for concern regarding the continuity of the show. The cast is worried the Circus will end, and with it, the family they’ve had for years. Small episodes and daily conflicts shape the comedian’s life while he debates between denial of a possible ending and the concrete need to project his circus.





To Stay Alive - a method

by Arno Hagers, Erik Lieshout, Reinier van Brummelen
Seriousfilm, AT-Prod sa
| 70’ - 60' & 55' | The Netherlands, Belgium | 2016 | |
Iggy Pop’s way of surviving as an individual in an impersonal world, based on Michel Houellebecq’s ‘To Stay Alive’, and on his own experiences in rock. Did they help each other to survive? From his sunlit garden in Miami Iggy Pop recites Michel Houellebecq’s ‘To Stay Alive’. In France we meet Houellebecq and the people whose life stories inspired this essay, in which Iggy recognizes his own struggle as a young artist. A film of musings, interviews and dialogues, with Iggy speaking directly to the audience through Houellebecq’s words. A call to break free from our chains and to ‘go for it’.





Turning with Antony & the Johnsons

by Antony , Charles Atlas
Turning Film LLC, Lucy Sexton Film, Beofilm
| 82’ | USA / Denmark | 2012 | |
The indelible music of Antony and the Johnsons has won the admiration of Lou Reed, Rufus Wainwright, and others. Turning captures the band in concert collaborating with the filmmaker Charles Atlas, celebrating 13 women taking the stage who, like Antony himself, are not easily categorized personas. Many of them are transgendered, some gay, some straight. All have stories to tell about the hard-won struggle to be themselves, expressed with the transcendent power of Antony’s music.



WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS: A MAN WITHIN

by Yony Leyser
Yonilizer Productions - BulletProof Film - PBS
| 87' - 60' | USA | 2010 |
Valentino’s Ghost exposes the way in which the U.S. Government’s foreign policy agenda in the Middle East drives the U.S. media’s portrayals of Arabs and Muslims.In 1920s Hollywood, the Arab was a hero, as played by the iconic Rudolph Valentino in his hugely successful “Sheik” movies. By the 1970s, Arabs and Muslims were depicted solely as embodiments of evil, not only in Hollywood films, but in children’s cartoons, in the news media, on TV, and even on radio.