youth

The protagonist of Dajori (mother in Romani) is forty-five-year-old Marie Hučková, who lives with her husband in Varnsdorf. After her younger sister Iveta ends up on the streets with her nine children, she decides to take her own fate and theirs firmly into her own hands and attempts to break out of the vicious circle of poverty that characterises their hometown. This sensitive film, which captures three years of a newly formed family's life together, follows the small joys and daily challenges of caring for others and asks whether a mother's love can overcome the dysfunctional system in which socially excluded localities find themselves. “We realised that there was a conflict unfolding before our eyes on several levels. Firstly, there was Mary's inner contradiction, where it was unthinkable for her not to help her relatives in need, but at the same time she was aware of the negative effects of the whole situation on her and her close family. Another level of conflict then played out at the level of the city, and consequently the state. The whole event was related to the housing crisis and the business of poverty in socially excluded localities.” — Martin Páv 

After the First World War, the nationalism of Finnish society increases and with it the need to create a nation with fighting power. One of the strategies of the government and propagandists of the time was the indoctrination of children and youth, together with their education to love the nation and hate the enemy. Using archival footage, radio recordings, photographs, as well as authentic diary entries of Finnish teenagers, the film depicts how state power can abuse children's innocence and malleability to achieve its political and war goals. This creates a parallel between the historical reality and the young fighters of today's wars. “They only need to believe, obey and fight. Our battleground is the soul of the Finnish youth.”

Me + You follows twin sisters Sanaa and Zohra. What begins as Zohra’s exploration of their Moroccan heritage gradually reveals the shifting dynamics of their relationship, as Sanaa’s deepening love for Islam becomes more apparent. The film unfolds as a journey of mutual understanding — a cinematic dialogue fueled by their desire to connect. An intimate portrait of sisterly love and independence. “Me + You endeavours to celebrate the nuances, complexities, and idiosyncrasies of being a young Belgian-Moroccan woman, with the hope of resonating with those who are still searching for their place in this world, as well as with those who value the meaningfulness of such an evolvement.” - Zohra BenhammouQuote source: Business Doc Europe

Ida is cleaning out the house that her grandfather, an artist, used to live in. She wades through a studio overflowing with artefacts, oddities and lost history. Similarly to S P A C E S, Štrbová treats the theme of memory and loss, combining fiction and documentary, letting the images of nostalgic childhood and the suffocating past flow associatively. To the sound of Francesco Geminiani's Concerto grosso no. 12, subtitled Madness, the fragile physicality of both dead and living relics stands out. The head of a dead parrot, a cast of her grandmother's breasts or a moss-covered real estate agent represent the discoveries of a personal archaeological site and exhibits of an introspective museum of family history. “I like the fact that you don’t have to deal with whether things are fiction, animation or documentary. Nowadays, such pigeonholing is unnecessary. A film is just a film.”Source: Film a doba

Let's move back to 1999, just before the boom of high-speed internet. Globally watched MTV broadcasts its programme Total Request Live, and a group of friends decide to infiltrate the popularity factory. Chain email as a tool of anarchy and audience power? This charming short film is a guide to consumer disobedience in every era!