Experimental & Avant Garde
Dracula
A bawdy (and then some) deconstruction of Romania's most potent IP, Radu Jude parodies the use of AI in filmmaking with his trademark acidic humour. It's about six films in one, and there's something to offend everyone.
Image: © Silviu Gheție
The Great North
Jenn Nkiru’s The Great North transforms Manchester into a portal of memory, labour, and resistance, where red brick echoes with diasporic histories. A radical, rhythmic debut rooted in Afro-surrealism and ancestral recall.
Khartoum
Displaced by war, five exiles of Sudan’s capital give voice to their experiences through reenactment, animation, and recollection. Khartoum is a lyrical, collaborative documentary about survival, exile, and the enduring pulse of a fractured city.
Ancestral Visions of the Future
Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese returns with Ancestral Visions of the Future, a poetic reflection on memory, myth, and exile. Guided by a dream-speaking mother and a life-extending puppeteer, the film traces Mosese's personal journey.
Edhi Alice: Take
Kim Ilrhan's doc explores the lives of two trans women. Alice is a lighting director who dreams of becoming a dancer; Edhi is a counsellor preparing for gender-affirming surgery. The film is notable for its honesty and its wealth of detail.
Death Does Not Exist
A young activist abandons her comrades after a failed mission and takes a spiritual journey into the wilderness, where she’s given a second chance. A breathtaking work of hand-drawn animation and a war cry for political change.
2: Memory & mediation
Shorts from: Canada, France, Lebanon, Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, Syria, USA.
Thanks to the Hard Work of the Elephants
High on LSD and eager to break loose, two teenage boys escape the youth treatment centre that has kept them confined. Four hundred kilometres later, they wrestle with the trauma of their experiences in director Bruce Hodgson's unsettling debut.