Benni is 8 years old and always wears bright pink, but she isn‘t cute in the slightest. She‘s mostly angry. She screams, runs away, and hits other children, which is why she has landed in many group homes with stints in the children‘s psychiatric clinic as well. When she‘s not angry, she often falls into a kind of apathy, looks out into the distance, lets others roll by. We don‘t find out what is going on exactly, the reason for Benni‘s explosive behavior, only that Benni hates it when you touch her face because she had a traumatic experience as a small child. People don‘t know ... more

There are a lot of phrases that revolve around water. Many of them apply to the life of 15 year old Elisa (Stephanie Amarell), who must keep her head above water while being caught between her parent‘s messy separation and classmate intrigues. When enigmatic Anthea (Lisa Vicari) helps her out after a dizzy spell while swimming, Elisa‘s life finally gets more fun and adventurous. But Anthea‘s friendship comes at a cost, and Elisa soon has to learn how to break free. Director Luzie Loose‘s film, which she also wrote, is about established coming-of-age themes, oppositions that attract ... more

Young Israeli Yoav (Tom Mercier) tries to shed his cultural identity in Paris and become French. He fled his country in complete disillusionment after his military service. Biting humor meshes with his resistance to ever speak his own language. Instead, Yoav reads the French dictionary from A to Z and absorbs as much of Parisian life as he can, including a sexy three-way relationship with a French intellectual couple. The image speed flashes as quickly as the period of time it takes Yoav to conquer the city: the mystery of a life that tries to escape its roots grows.

SYNONYMS was the winner ... more

THE WHALE AND THE RAVEN follows two researchers at work who are trying to save the whale population in the First Nation areas of British Columbia, Canada. German Hermann Meuter and US American Janie Wray record the whale activities in the region in order to support the indigenous population of British Columbia against the planned liquid gas project. That‘s how the industrial exploitation and destruction of a living space is protected in places where local people share space with other living creatures. Animal protection and anti-colonial fights are connected here – both are directed ... more

As cities around the world succumb to the relentless march of modernization and gentrification, documenting the hangers-on from the olden days – be they businesses, buildings, or people – becomes an increasingly urgent task. This feeling of the inevitability of progress is a constant below-the-surface subtext in Ron Mann’s documentary CARMINE STREET GUITARS, which portrays the day-to-day existence of the eponymous, decades-old Greenwich Village guitar shop.

The film centers around Rick Kelly, the shop’s owner, as he cuts, planes, and sands raw wood into one-of-a-kind instruments in ... more

BECOMING ANIMAL is a combination tone poem, philosophical treatise, nature documentary, and road trip movie based on the deep-nature philosophy of writer David Abram (and particularly his book of the same title). The film, co-directed by Emma Davie and Peter Mettler, takes place in and around Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park, as the two filmmakers and Abram drive and hike their way through the natural world.

While the film opens with a wonderfully taut series of shots featuring a moose in a meadow and an elk calling out in the darkness, it proceeds to take an unfortunate turn into ... more