Final Cut for Real

Reflective observations of Ukraine in wartime are interwoven with eye-witness accounts to contemplate the ultimate tragedy: the normalization of war.

Hnutove, Donbass, eastern Ukraine, 2015. Young Oleg lives in a war zone where anti-aircraft gunshots and missile attacks often resonate dangerously near. Although many inhabitants have already left this dangerous area, he remains with his grandmother, who has cared for him since his mother's death, because they have nowhere to go. They are just waiting for the war to end.

A temporary house for abandoned children near the front line in eastern Ukraine is run by a small group of social workers determined to provide comfort and safety. It may be humble and somewhat run-down, but this house is filled with love and offers up to nine months of refuge to kids whose fate will be determined by the system. During this short time, the caretakers try to nurture within them a sense of stability and normalcy.

At the foot of the Andes Mountains in Chile lies an idyllic German colony called Villa Baviera. However, the beauty of the place – formerly known as Colonia Dignidad – hides a grim past. Systematic child-abuse, medical experiments, torture chambers and mass graves are part of its history. Today, 120 inhabitants still live their lives in the colony which has since changed its name to Villa Baviera and where a disturbing blend of religious fanaticism and extreme conservatism still holds sway.

Little Wing tells the story of 12-year-old Varpu, who's quickly growing to adulthood, and about her mother, who doesn't want to grow up. Varpu lives with her mother and has never met her father. One night Varpu has enough of her riding buddies and her mother. She steals a car and drives up north in search of her father, of whom she only knows the name. But her father is not exactly what she had expected. Meeting him trigger something in Varpu and mother's life, making them realize their role in each other's lives, and in the world.

Albert and David Maysles' classic GREY GARDENS immortalized the estate of Edith and Little Edie Beale, relatives of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, who lived in alarmingly poor conditions. But there is more to the story: it was Lee Radziwill and Peter Beard who first brought the Maysles to the Beales, when the two set out to make a film about Radziwill's childhood. The reels of that first contact were shelved for 45 years. This documentary recovers the lost footage. Anchored in Beard's recollections and artistic vision, we are returned to "that summer" in 1972, a seductive dream world and collage of radically unconventional creative personalities—Warhol, Bacon, Jagger, Capote—practicing the art of living amidst oppressive forces of class expectation and prejudice.

Based on powerful archival material documenting the most daring moments in the struggle for liberation in the Third World, this documentary is accompanied by classic text from The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon.

The film follows 10-year-old Oleg, whose life has been turned upside down by the ongoing war in East Ukraine. Oleg lives with his beloved grandmother Alexandra in a small house in a village on the frontline. Most people have left the village, but Oleg and Alexandra love their life together there and want to stay on and take care of each other. But life is becoming more and more difficult and the war does not seem to end.

'Chikara - the Sumo wrestler's son' follows the 10-year-old Japanese boy, Chikara, and his struggle to become a Sumo wrestler. His father was a professional Sumo wrestler, so expectations surrounding Chikara are extremely high. Today his father owns a noodle-shop where he works a lot. Their only time together is when they train Sumo wrestling. It's a very valuable time for Chikara. He wants to impress his father, but when he's there, Chikara gets nervous and everything seems to go wrong. The national Sumo Championship is approaching and Chikara wants to do well. It's a story of a small boy in a tough sport, parental pressure and expectations, but above all, it's a universal narrative about the relationship between father and son.

Canned Dreams shows the multi-branching network of the modern food industry. The Finnish consumer buys a can in the grocery store, but where from far away do the raw materials and packaging materials for the preserves come from - and through how many hands? The film not only traces the various stages of the production process, but gives a voice to the people who work as part of it.

In this chilling and groundbreaking documentary, former Indonesian death squad leaders reenact their real-life mass killings in the style of various film genres. As they recreate their past atrocities, the line between reality and performance blurs, exposing the lingering impact of Indonesia’s 1965-66 anti-communist purge and the unsettling psychology of its perpetrators.

A film director seeks out his childhood friend who molested him when they were both children. He hesitantly agrees to meet and together they return to the repressed past in a brave and deeply unusual tale that breaks a terrible taboo.

10 short documentaries which form a presentation of Denmark as part of a dialogue project in the wake of the Muhammed drawings. 10 reputable Danish filmmakers are invited to create 10 presentations of Denmark, in collaboration with second-generation immigrants with roots in the Middle East. Each film is shaped as this person's personal application to a relative or acquaintance in the Middle East. The assignment is: Give an important statement about your Denmark, with the intention of challenging and differentiating the image your relative or acquaintance has of Denmark. The strength of the films is in insight and reflection, rather than the dramatic news approach and is communicated through the personal approach to the subject. The 10 films are joined together into one film (duration 58:30 mins), and this film will be a quick and intense contribution to the debate following the publication of the Muhammed drawings.

The filmic approach playfully balances on the edge between documentary and fiction, thereby both underlining and adding to the theme of the film. The two directors have filmed Troels for 4 years, capturing all his ups and downs, the defining moments, both the hilarious and the sad. This material will be combined with Troels¿ video diary where we get even closer, and animation that will bring life to Troels¿ text and inner universe in a compelling and humoristic way. The animation is done by the artist Carl Krull whoose very distinctive style matches Troels¿ story and personality, combining darkness and humor, the grotesque and the beautiful. It will be subtly integrated into the filmed material, at times taking over completely. The story of Troels and the visual approach melt together.

Twenty-five years after environmental collapse left the Earth uninhabitable, Mother, Father and Son are confined to their palatial bunker, where they struggle to maintain hope and a sense of normalcy by clinging to the rituals of daily life—until the arrival of a stranger, Girl, upends their happy routine. As tensions rise, their seemingly idyllic existence starts to crumble.

Recounted mostly through animation to protect his identity, Amin looks back over his past as a child refugee from Afghanistan as he grapples with a secret he’s kept hidden for 20 years.

Long-haired, barefoot people. Free love! Veganism! Experiments with drugs... The sixties, right? Not quite. In 1900 a group of middle class kids revolted against their time and started the original alternative community - Monte Verità, the mountain of truth. A community based on veganism, feminism, pacifism and free love. This creative documentary mixes interviews, archive and animation in a beautiful combination bringing you straight back to the early 1900 as seen through the eyes of these young radicals. The documentary Freak Out tells the untold story of the birth of the alternative movement and unfold the uncanny similarities between our time and what they revolted against in the early 1900s.

A teenage stranger is welcomed into a household in a devout Catholic village and gradually reveals his motives and what seem to be magical powers.

Haunted by a tragic past, a dutiful son struggles to eke out a living while caring for his elderly alcoholic mother in Georgetown, Guyana.

When we die, there are still some practicalities that need to be taken care of before our time among the living is finally over. In Meanwhile on Earth we enter the world around our end station, an industry of death. It is a place where the existential meets the mundane, the sacred meets the profane.