Welcome to Selects

Films from the festival’s Official Selection

Into the World

Films by essential directors with essential themes that take varied approaches to exploring our past, present and collective future.

Rebellions

There are as many ways to rebel as there are humans on this planet—and cinema can be one of them.

Ghosts & Apparitions

Since the first glimpses of the moving image, ghosts were haunting our imaginations, including those yet to be.

Rhyme & Rhythm

From music to dance, from visual arts to performance, these films offer encounters and inspirations to a different beat.

Doc/Fest Exchange

What happens when a human who wants to change the world meets a camera?

My List

Into the World

Following the earthquake of 2016, a young family of animal breeders in rural Italy attempt to create harmony among nature’s unpredictable violence
Vulnerable Beauty / Vulnerabile Bellezza
  • 1h 15m
Set in a public hospital in Argentina, young women are taking medical advice and making decisions on whether to keep the child or to have an abortion
Mother-Child / Niña Mamá
  • 1h 6m
Audie and Leon are Jicarilla Apaches and brothers: one is a hunter, the other a politician, both fighting for their rights as native Americans
Seekers
  • 1h 17m
Two beautiful proposals depicting in very different ways how one can survive in this world.
Into the World Shorts: Everyday Greyness & Our Mother the Mountain
  • 2 films
Four different stories each reflecting on the current state of the world in which we live, filmed in diverse cinematic forms
Into the World Shorts: Galena, Untold Chaos, Lupita & Stolen Fish
  • 4 films
Abbas Fahdel returns with a portrait of Syrian refugees who have fled the civil war to settle in Beqaa Valley, Lebanon
Bitter Bread
  • 1h 27m
Cable technicians in Eastern Europe visit their customers in this humorous reflection on our dependence on communication technologies
Please Hold The Line
  • 1h 26m
The strange disappearance of neurophysiologist and psychologist Jacobo Grinberg, considered by many to be the “Einstein of consciousness”
The Secret of Doctor Grinberg / El Secreto del Doctor Grinberg
  • 1h 32m
Unearthing the real causes of our growing plastic pollution problem and the twisted narratives fed to us by industry to distract us and displace blame
The Story of Plastic
  • 1h 35m
The film looks at the “global ecological crisis” from the perspective of the island of Martinique, intrinsically linked with the colonial past
You Think The Earth Is A Dead Thing / Tu Crois Que La Terre Est Chose Morte
  • 1h 10m
A group of women discover over 100 murdered bodies which had been secretly buried by the Mexican District Attorney during the war against drugs
To See You Again / Volverte a Ver
  • 1h 30m
Chronicling the story of the Parkland shooting teenagers, from survivors to activists
Us Kids
  • 1h 39m
A tour across Chile's diverse stories through the observation of bus stops and their passengers' conversations
Space Journey / El Viaje Espacial
  • 1h 2m
Maia watches witness videos from Palestine. On negotiating images of occupation her identity, the media age & our own self-perception collide head-on
The Viewing Booth
  • 1h 11m
Revealing the rules of the game of capitalism: the economy only grows, and profits are only possible, when we are in debt
Oeconomia
  • 1h 29m
In the Philippines over 20,000 people were killed in Duterte’s war against small street dealers and users but the drug moguls were left free to roam
Aswang
  • 1h 25m
Narrated by Alec Baldwin, Flint reveals how the city’s life-threatening water crisis resulted in a loss of faith in authority and a modern tragedy
Flint
  • 1h 59m
A selection of personal and collective stories shot in Yorkshire, England, a Scottish Island and in Northern Ireland.
Into the World Shorts: Isle of Us, Stop Nineteen, Wellspring & Breadline
  • 4 films
An investigation into the rise and fall of notorious British public relations exec Timothy Bell who died in August 2019 and his company Bell Pottinger
Influence
  • 1h 30m

Rebellions

A harsh immersion in a reality as rough as the asphalt missing from the streets, this is above all a view from the inside
The Koro of Bakoro, the Survivors of Faso / Le Koro du Bakoro, Les Naufragés du Faso
  • 1h 18m
Lech Kowalski said that “a mix of rock and roll and blues is the secret for a successful rebellion.” Here, he puts that to the test
Blow It To Bits / On Va Tout Peter
  • 1h 49m
Two films that dream revolutions, and the radical transformation of power and society.
The Undertaker & Your Mother's Comfort
  • 2 films
During the Argentinian junta local and international companies had an active role in preparing lists of workers to be abducted
Corporate Accountability / Responsabilidad Empresarial
  • 1h 8m
United We Stand, Divided We Fall - never before so true.
United Voices & We're Still Here
  • 2 films
The Umbrella Movement of 2014 paved the way for Hong Kong’s current upheavals, but unfolding in significantly different ways
We Have Boots
  • 2h 8m
Leaving their family homes as children, the Bakoroman take up residence in the streets, learning to do drugs, beg, steal, flee, and fight
Bakoroman
  • 1h 2m
Chechnya’s tyrannical leader has tried to “cleanse the blood” of LGBTQI+ Chechens. An extraordinary group of people confront this evil.
Welcome to Chechnya
  • 1h 47m

Ghosts & Apparitions

A film haunted by a myth, inhabited by the construction of rituals, moved by the force of a spiritual bond with every manifestation of life
Yãmĩyhex: The Women-Spirit / Yãmīyhex: Mulheres Espírito
  • 1h 16m
This film shows a mining community as it negotiates the decline of the same industry that enabled its emergence
Work or to Whom Does The World Belong / El Trabajo o a Quien le Pertenece el Mundo
  • 1h 5m
A first-person description of the director’s transition from adolescence to adulthood. A traumatic time, but also one of love and playfulness
Sentimental Education / La Educación Sentimental
  • 1h 5m
Drawing on her vast body of works from the past 30 years, we will present a curated selection of films by Lynne Sachs.
Lynne Sachs Focus
  • 6 films
From Russia to Azerbaijan, stories and places haunted by ghosts, silenced memories, and individual dreams.
Ghosts and Apparitions Shorts: Karabash & They whisper but sometimes they scream
  • 2 films
Photography, writing, architecture - how history, memory, and territory are made visible in unique political iterations.
Ghosts and Apparitions Shorts: A New England Document, Ascending Ballard Down & Concrete Forms of Resistance
  • 3 films
Kazakhstan’s search for a post-Soviet identity with a state-sponsored programme of culture that connects to the past and to a capitalist future
On A Clear Day You Can See the Revolution From Here
  • 1h 5m
Atsushi Sakahara, a victim of the 1995 sarin gas attack in Tokyo's subway system, travels with a representative of the attack's perpetrators
Me and the Cult Leader / Aganai
  • 1h 36m

Rhyme & Rhythm

Lifetime hackers and grandparents of video art, Steina and Woody Vasulka, are re-discovered by the art world they thought had forgotten them
The Vasulka Effect
  • 1h 25m
Singer and #MeToo activist Sona Mohapatra takes on India’s music industry, and the patriarchy at large, in Deepti Gupta’s no-holds barred film
Shut Up Sona
  • 1h 25m
An inspiring look at a protest band from Chennai, South India, challenging the caste system and fighting for social change through music
Breaking Barriers - The Casteless Collective
  • 1h 10m
Part music doc, part road movie, traversing the sounds, history and politics of the Southern United States in the lead up to the 2018 midterm election
Southern Journey (Revisited)
  • 1h 15m
A selection of short films from the Rhyme & Rhythm strand.
Rhyme & Rhythm Shorts Programme
  • 5 films
Starting out as a punk band in 1980s LA, this is the story of Belinda Carlisle, Jane Wiedlin and co - as musicians, ground-breakers and survivors
The Go-Go's
  • 1h 38m
From afrobeat to jùjú, a musical voyage of discovery through the pivotal moments in the colourful history of Nigeria
Elder's Corner
  • 1h 37m
An exploration of the coinciding escalation of mass incarceration in 1980s America with Chicago house music, from artist and filmmaker Phil Collins
Bring Down The Walls
  • 1h 28m
The definitive story of artist and activist Keith Haring – as told in his own words through an impressive archive of video, audio and polaroids
Keith Haring: Street Art Boy
  • 1h 29m

Doc/Fest Exchange

Part of our free Doc/Fest Exchange programme
Tava, the Stone House / Tava, a casa de pedra
  • 1h 18m
Part of our free Doc/Fest Exchange programme
Martyrdom / Martírio
  • 2h 42m
Part of our free Doc/Fest Exchange programme
We gather as a family / Eu já fui seu irmão
  • 32min
Part of our free Doc/Fest Exchange programme
I've already become an image / Já me transformei em imagem
  • 32min
Part of our free Doc/Fest Exchange programme
The hyperwomen / As hiper mulheres
  • 1h 20m
Part of our free Doc/Fest Exchange programme
Corumbiara: They Shoot Indians, Don't They? / Corumbiara
  • 1h 57m
Part of our free Doc/Fest Exchange programme
The Spirit of TV / O Espírito da TV
  • 18min
Part of our free Doc/Fest Exchange programme
Bicycles of Nhanderu / Bicicletas de Nhanderú
  • 48min