SECTION: Spectrum

31FFC Sektions Button Spectrum

Unusual times call for unusual films – with atmospheric density, melancholic proximity, hard-hitting humour and analytical astuteness, the films in this year’s Spectrum section get up close and personal with the spirit of the times. Engage with town and country, old and young, men and women, war and peace, emotion and discourse. They think before they speak and then quickly get to the point: full of dark humour, ranging from the experimental and contemplative to the adventurous and historically aware, they are always on an equal footing with both subject matter and their audience alike.

BETWEEN REVOLUTIONS

ÎNTRE REVOLUȚII

Vlad Petri
RO/HR/IR / 2023 / 76 min

Masterfully edited found footage from Romania and Iran. Two countries, two very different revolutions, two very different kind of hopes and disappointments. In the center of this is the captivating correspondence between two students who share a ...

CHILD MACHINE

LAPSMASIN

Rain Rannu
EE / 2022 / 93 min

Because 9-year-old Alex doesn't feel like being abstinent from the internet during the holidays, she runs off in the middle of the back-to-nature vacation in search of reception, leaves her helicopter parents alone in digital detox – and lands in a ...

CLARA

Sabin Dorohoi
RO/DE / 2023 / 85 min

A young Romanian woman leaves her homeland and her child to earn money in Germany – by looking after the daughter of a German family. An exemplary Eastern European biography: Clara becomes the mother of two children, one in this foreign country, ...

FAMINE

GOLOD

Alexander Arkhangelsky, Maxim Kurnikov, Tatyana Sorokina
RU / 2022 / 76 min

In 1921/22, almost ten years before the Holodomor in Ukraine and the famine in Kazakhstan, an estimated five million people in the Soviet Union fell victim to food shortages. Several local employees of the international aid organizations were later ...

FORCED MIGRATION OF BUTTERFLIES

P’EP’LEBIS IDZULEBITI MIGRATSIA

Nana Djordjadze
GE / 2022 / 90 min

Butterflies die if you move them elsewhere. But artists without a living can't stay together in their commune in Tbilisi forever. In her tragicomedy, veteran director Nana Djordjadze tells of departures and holding on, near wars and distant hope, art ...

LESSONS OF TOLERANCE

UROKI TOLERANTNOSTI

Arkadii Nepytaliuk
UA / 2023 / 90 min

A bizarre EU-funded project aims to reduce homophobia and looks like an advertising poster made real: Nice gay plumber helps around the house, takes care of pubescent children and marital problems. Misunderstandings are inevitable in this situation ...

LIZA, GO ON

IARE, LIZA

Nana Janelidze
GE/BG / 2022 / 115 min

Caught in the middle: One day, successful Georgian journalist Liza is just hosting a TV program about the Georgian-Abkhaz war provoked by the Russian Federation with contemporary witnesses, when she receives a mysterious call in the middle of the ...

LOST COUNTRY

Vladimir Perišić
RS/FR/HR/LU / 2023 / 98 min

Belgrade 1996. Young people and students are protesting on the streets against the Milošević regime, inside Stefan, son of the governing party's press spokeswoman, is protesting on his own terms. A boy caught between teenage rebellion and family ...

MMXX

Cristi Puiu
RO/FR / 2023 / 160 min

Everyone is addicted to their phone. Concentration? No chance! Instead of talking about fears, we turn them into numbers while forgetting about those who really need help. Cristi Puiu takes a close look at today's world in a mercilessly straight ...

PENSIVE

RŪPINTOJĖLIS

Jonas Trukanas
LT / 2022 / 87 min

Lithuania proves how to bring the genre back to life with folk elements, before death strikes mercilessly: When a few drunk teenagers destroy a few naive wooden statues at their graduation party’s location in a remote forest, an avenger with a mask ...

RESTORE POINT

BOD OBNOVY

Robert Hloz
CZ/SK/PL/RS / 2023 / 107 min

2041: In the “Restore Points” – a backup technology for human lives – people who have died violent deaths are being revived. During her investigation into a double murder, Detective Trochinowska comes across a system of conspiracies, ...

RUSSIA VS LAWYERS

Masha Novikova
DE/NL / 2023 / 89 min

The Constitution of Russia guarantees the judicial protection of an individual’s rights and freedoms. But in reality, people who speak out against the state most often face a guilty verdict. The repressive machine is opposed by a team of human ...

SILENCE OF SIRENS

HESHTJA E SIRENAVE

Gazmend Nela
XK/CH/MK/AL / 2023 / 95 min

Two traffic police officers in a small town in Kosovo stop a car in which a drunk international court prosecutor is traveling with a bag full of euros. The driver is detained and the money is confiscated. But instead of promotion, the policemen find ...

TAMARA

Jonas Ludwig Walter
DE / 2023 / 97 min

At some point Tamara left – away from her East German home village, away from her parents who had settled into their nostalgia. But when her parents also have to move away, new stories emerge and Tamara has to reposition herself – between her ...

THE CHOICE

VIBOR

Igor Fedorov
RU / 2023 / 77 min

Collapse of the economic system – a country in a debt trap. A bank's telephone service operator sits in home office and has to deal with the existential fears of his customers. One of them puts a laser pointer on his chest, directly from the house ...

SECTION: Spectrum

BETWEEN REVOLUTIONS

ÎNTRE REVOLUȚII

CHILD MACHINE