"Crushed", dir. Camille Vigny, Belgium 2023, 13 min.

Summer is the season of banger racing. Cars gear up for a long day of races that will culminate in their total demolition. In the background, I reminisce about the violent summer from my past. As I recount the man who was slowly killing me, the cars become unrecognizable, resembling a group of smoking yet heroic carcasses.

"Mast-del" ("Mast-del"), dir. Maryam Tafakory, UK, Iran 2023, 17 min.

Two women lie together in bed. As the wind bashes against the window, one recalls a past date to the cinema. The narrated scene cannot be conveyed through images. Layers of found and original footage are superimposed to fill in some of the cracks, the deletions, the limits of representation. A love song that would never pass through the censors, Mast-del is about forbidden bodies and desires, both inside and outside post-revolution Iranian cinema.

"Blow!" ("Blow!"), dir. Neus Ballús, Spain 2023, 14 min.

We know whales communicate with each other by “singing”, but what do they sound like exactly? Mar is a young woman who dreams of hearing their songs for herself and recording them. She decides to join a scientific team in the Mediterranean that's conducting research into these mysterious sea mammals. Catalonian director Neus Ballús makes films that straddle the line between fiction and documentary. She garnered great praise with her short film “Immersio“, which takes place entirely beneath the surface of a swimming pool. In “Blow!” the camera mostly stays above the water, as does the microphone recording the noisy sounds of life on the deck. ​When we do finally dive into the sea with Mar, the experience is overwhelming and totally immersive.

"Falling", dir. Anna Gyimesi, Hungary, Belgium, Portugal 2023, 16 min.

Els is in her late-forties, divorced and in love again. For her, falling in love was not easy: it meant that she had to accept, she has a life even if her twenty-year-old daughter wants to die and has already asked for psychiatric euthanasia which her mother can do nothing about. In the storm of her own emotions, mixed with guilt, anger, fear and hope, love is what teaches Els to try stepping forward even if it seems impossible.

"Freshman" ("Freshman"), dir. Michał Edelman, Tomasz Pawlik, Poland 2024, 25 min.

"Freshman" is a two-year observation of fifteen-year-old Jędrek. Cut off from his family and loved ones, the boy gets locked up in a juvenile prison. Now he has to adapt to a new, harsh environment. At first, he is scared and lonely, but later, he meets a friend –Wojtek. The juvy slowly becomes their new home.