The future is drawing nearer – full of questions, contradictions, and surprises. How do we deal with the uncertainties that permeate our lives, both individually and collectively? The films in this program approach the subject in very different ways: poetically and playfully, critically and thoughtfully, tenderly and provocatively. They take us to gardens full of mysteries, to sports worlds that lose their logic, to dreams of quick riches, to memories of disasters, and to magical games between life and death. We look to the future with trepidation and hope for hope. (Anna Melikova)
The people are in turmoil. The ground from which their enchanted garden grows is trembling. Between bushes and trees, flowerbeds and fountains, everyone has independently lost their way. Their eyes search for paths, their hands try to remember. Sometimes they spot something. Sometimes they listen. They catch a whisper, a faint promise. They follow the petals flowing further downstream.
… >>>A golfer fails to tee off, a soccer team plays against itself, a rally co-pilot is in the midst of an identity crisis. The audience remains seated, unable to act. Filmed in sports video games, WORLD AT STAKE turns the order of victory and defeat upside down and questions roles between individual sovereignty and collective passivity. In the face of catastrophe, what remains is a feeling of political powerlessness. Nothing less than the world is at stake.
… >>>Pol, 21, lives with his grandmother and dreams of earning €10,000 a month through crypto trading, self-help events, and online coaching. +10K accompanies his eager pursuit of self-optimization and shows how capitalism shapes desires and can even become a religion. What longings and opportunities shape a generation that lives between reality and digital dreams?
… >>>Recent natural disasters have had an emotional impact on filmmaker Jaume Carrió, who reflects on loss in this essay that analyzes society's way of capturing memories. From wide-screen film formats to selfies, he explores how perspective shifts when we capture disasters.
… >>>In a desolate, abandoned landscape, two girls play: one is alive, the other is dead. The living girl drags the dead girl behind her. From the fragmentary words of their game emerges a story of fear of loss and the promise of solidarity. A film like a magic spell that calls on life to overcome death.
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