This is Not a Game(2021)

War Tails(en)

The Russian invasion of Ukraine created an avalanche of abandoned dogs and cats that are now multiplying causing unforeseen consequences.

From the West(de)

A film essay investigating the question of what “the West” means beyond the cardinal direction: a model of society inscribed itself in the Federal Republic of Germany’s postwar history and architecture. The narrator shifts among reflections on modern architecture and property relations, detailed scenes from childhood, and a passed-down memory of a “hemmed-in West Germany,” recalling the years of her parents’ membership in a 1970s communist splinter group.

Ready Up(en)

It's a sport, it's a competition, it's an accidental perfect game. An absolute fight, an everyday fight, that doesn't stop. It’s Counter-Strike.

The Oasis I Deserve(fr)

Replikas, online chatbots, have trouble determining their place in the world. They share their thoughts with the humans they exchange with. Events unfold from their point of view through real conversations collected on the web.

Letter to Obama(ar)

Two sons from the beach refugee camp for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip decide to correspond with US President Barack Obama on his Facebook page. They ask him, as president of the United States, to intervene and lift the years-long blockade, inviting him and his wife to visit Gaza and watch the suffering of people there. But they don’t receive a response from him, deciding to use a small video camera to record a very angry video message addressed to Barack Obama from the campers

The Codes of Gender(en)

Arguing that advertising not only sells things, but also ideas about the world, media scholar Sut Jhally offers a blistering analysis of commercial culture's inability to let go of reactionary gender representations. Jhally's starting point is the breakthrough work of the late sociologist Erving Goffman, whose 1959 book The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life prefigured the growing field of performance studies. Jhally applies Goffman's analysis of the body in print advertising to hundreds of print ads today, uncovering an astonishing pattern of regressive and destructive gender codes. By looking beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products, and beyond analyses of gender that tend to focus on either biology or objectification, The Codes of Gender offers important insights into the social construction of masculinity and femininity, the relationship between gender and power, and the everyday performance of cultural norms.

Pagan Invasion, Vol. 13: Doorways To Satan(en)

The dawn of the 21st Century has found much of modern society obsessed with occult mysteries, sadistic violence, and evil. Everything from cartoons and video games to recorded music and major theatrical films are being designed and promote to "satisfy" the public's insatiable lust for the macabre. Most disturbing is the rise in the practice of Satanism. Law enforcement agencies are unable to keep up with the increasing numbers of heinous, Satanically inspired crimes. Basically a remake of Devil Worship: The Rise of Satanism (1989) using the same footage.

Sam in the Bag(en)

While Trevor and Sam are smoking pot, Trevor’s mom comes home. When she finds out, Trevor reveals his father’s adulterous ways and destroys his family.

A Portrait of N. B.(es)

Through his own photographs, the Basque artist Néstor Basterretxea (1924-2014) is portrayed by the art critic and exhibition curator Peio Aguirre, a great connoisseur of his work and personal archives.

My Korean Cinema(ko)

A personal and subjective video essay series on the Korean cinema, consisting of 9 episodes. Its episodes include fragments of memory about Korean films and their ‘field’, actual moments of what is happening here and now, and images excerpted from Korean films. [Ep 1] My Chungmuro (2002) [Ep 2] For March of Fools (2003) [Ep 3] Smoking Women (2003) [Ep 4] Kino 99 (2003) [Ep 5] Song of Keumsoon (2004) [Ep 6] The Creative Restoration of ‘An Empty Dream’ (2005) [Ep 7] Reflection on Kim Gu (2005) [Ep 8] Garibong, Again (2006) [Ep 9] A Short Film about Pre-1945 Korean Cinema (2006)

Song of the Flies(es)

The experimental animated film Song of the Flies (El Canto de las Moscas), translates the desolation caused by the violence of the Colombian armed conflict through the poetic voice of Maria Mercedes Carranza (1945–2003) and the audiovisual dialogue between 9 Colombian women. In 24 places, as a transit over the course of a day (Morning, Day, Night) a map of terror is drawn where massacres took place in Colombia in the 1990s. Archival images, the artists’ personal memories and the use of loops and analogue materials bring to life the landscapes ravaged by violence and build a polyphony of memory and mourning, a universal song of pain.

America Today(en)

One of the key works in creating the American social documentary film, this 1934 newsreel compilation crams a lot of information into just 11 minutes. Skillfully edited, the picture captures a panorama of international events centered on the labor movement. Scenes include Mussolini, Hitler and FDR preparing for war, Nazi soldiers persecuting German Jews, a political strike in Paris, the Scottsboro demonstration in Washington, DC, police violence against striking steelworkers in Pennsylvania and union members stopping scab workers from delivering milk during a dairy farmers strike in Wisconsin. Under the direction of pioneering documentarian Leo Hurwitz, the images are edited together to create a powerful image of a world that, in his view, desperately needed radical change.

The Twenty One Pilots Universe: Welcome to Trench(en)

A documentary series finale analysing the entirety of Twenty One Pilots' new full-length studio album "Trench". Jimmy not only uncovers the stories of internal pain and fear that Tyler Joseph tells through the songs on the album. But, he also learns to overcome his own personal fears.

The Imperial Lullaby(it)

The armies of Fascist Italy conquered Addis Ababa, capital of Abyssinia, in May 1936, thus culminating the African colonial adventure of the ruthless dictator Benito Mussolini, by then lord of Libya, Eritrea and Somalia; a bloody and tragic story told through the naive drawings of Pietro Dall'Igna, an Italian schoolboy born in 1925.

The Sun Sets in the East(lt)

A documentary film contrasting present-day Lithuania with extracts from a peasant's diary from 1984/85.

Eautopsie(en)

An enigmatic glimpse of life through precarious vignettes, propelling a narrative through a nebulous and opaque structure that sutures the filmmaker's home movie footage to archival material—from Hollywood narrative films to political selfie videos. A handmade impression of a time suspended between past and present and the ghosts and places occupying it, contemplating the nature and meaning of vision, memory and image making.

Zennor spirit of place(en)

Checkpoint Zoo(en)

Checkpoint Zoo documents a daring rescue led by a heroic team of zookeepers and volunteers, who risked their lives to save thousands of animals trapped in a zoo behind enemy lines in the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.

Velvet Bayou(en)

A short film essay on Blue Velvet (1986) and The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). The fact that Blue Velvet was almost shot in black and white is explored in comparison with the original scenes, as the choices of different directors (within a ten-year interval) when choosing Roy Orbison's music for their films.

Glory to the Queen(en)

Against the backdrop of Cold War, Glory to the Queen reveals stories of four legendary female chess players from Georgia who revolutionized women’s chess across the globe and became Soviet icons of female emancipation.