VRIZA

Set in a confined world outside time, East of Noon is the fable of prodigy Abdo (19) who uses music to rebel against his elders: showman Shawky (70), an eccentric showman who rules with a mix of performance and fear, and storyteller Jalala (75), who provides relief with stories of the Sea, which no one else has seen. East of Noon is a satire on the inner workings of an ailing autocracy and its inherent vulnerability to youth’s unchained vision of a better world.

Along the Maroni River between Suriname and French Guiana, Boogie, a boatman, transports fuel and supplies to remote Maroon and Indigenous communities by motorized canoe. As gold mining, floods, and corporate exploitation reshape life along the river, each stop becomes a place of exchange — of goods, stories, and songs. Moving against the current, he must navigate obligations to his clan, the river, and an unforgiving economy.

An immersive initiation into the life of a Maroon community in the former Dutch colony of Suriname. Combining stories of African ancestral traditions and escaped slavery with enacted contemporary rituals, the film explores how the community’s powerful ties to the land have become endangered as industries threaten to devastate the region through deforestation and mining.

Two park wardens on expedition in West Greenland exchange traditional wisdom and new knowledge about the land. How fertile Greenland sediments are used to improve depleted soils abroad or how microbes adapt to deal with pollutants. They introduce us to the rapidly changing landscape.