Bubble Trouble
Googoosh, a popular and loved iranian-azerbaijani singer, performs a version of the song Ayrılıq – Separation. The performance is from a 70s television show and it has been copied several times from one videotape to another, before eventually ending up on YouTube. Ayrılıq could be a love song but it is told that composer Ali Salimi (who had migrated from Soviet Azerbaijan to Iran and left behind his home and loved ones) wanted to write a song about his sense of longing. By reframing and commenting the discovery of the YouTube video, the film describes its transformation into a monument of distance – a presentation of disconnection, images, memory and mixed identification.… >>>
In this deeply personal documentary, a young researcher tries to make sense of her fascination for the film "The Pain of Others" by Penny Lane. A deep dive into the discomforting world of YouTube and online conspiracies, that deals with its desktop-sourced material in unconventional ways, challenging traditional notions of what documentary cinema is, or should be.… >>>
- Director: Chloé Galibert-Laîné
A journey between hope and dystopia in a hypnotizing Kinshasa, ZOMBIES takes us from the culture of the hair salon to a futuristic clubbing scenario, from the urban parade to the glory of a despotic politician. In his self-directed, chaotic mise-en-scène, the Congolese-Belgian musician Baloji interrogates the almost carnal relationship we have with our smartphones: outgrowths of the hand giving us the doubtful talent of digital ubiquity...… >>>
Nominated:
A38-Production Grant Kassel-Halle
ЮНАК [juˈnʌk] is a word often used in the Bulgarian folklore to describe a brave and intrepid youth. The work depicts a series of “unnecessary memories” from the director’s childhood. Reminiscences, not related to a significant event, unnecessarily stored in his mind. All shots in the film are abstract depictions of the director’s personal “unnecessary memories”.… >>>
- Director: Georgi Stamenov
A new workwear collection for the age of intelligent supertasking. Xerox's Paradox is technology's inverse effect: The more we automate, the harder we will have to work. Xerox's fear of a paperless office led to the GUI, which, in turn, led to an explosion in the amount of printed matter.… >>>
An exhausted delivery rider sprawls on the bench of a roadside park and falls asleep safe and sound. In his dream composed of a long take, laborers gather together in a Shanzhai park in the desert where dynamic riders become static statues, forming a contrast with the speed and efficiency they pursue inexhaustibly around the clock. The all-star lineup of contemporary labourers reveals the other side of Chinese economic miracle: an increasingly homogeneous urban life infused with technology and capital as well as new kinds of labor and social exploitation – perpetual mobility with speed and labor without rest.… >>>