Off World

Robert van Gulik (1910-1967) is one of the world’s most read authors from the Netherlands. This diplomat, Sinologist and scholar is mainly known for his detective novels, starring 'Judge Dee'. Filmmaker Rob Rombout follows in his footsteps to discover the author’s legacy - via his diaries, the people he inspired and those who witnessed his extraordinary life.

Every day, the Carlingford ferry takes travelers from Northern Ireland to Ireland, a short sea voyage across an invisible border that invites reflection on the consequences of Brexit.

How can you deserve a place in the world's history, without going into politics? Maybe by putting an artwork on top of a Pyramid? A fast food style film about the hunt of the yolo generation to find meaning in modern life.

The Jewish National Fund's Blue Boxes were a global fundraiser to purchase land in Israel. Weaving a co-founder's diary entries with his descendants' memories, Blue Box investigates the myths that constructed a national icon.

Roos is fourteen years old and lives with her mother and her older transgender sister Jules. Jules is currently transitioning, taking hormones and experimenting with her looks. Roos, who has no interest in nail polish and the like, is irritated by all the changes. When Jules moves out, Roos begins to miss her new sister and gets closer to her again.

During the Pinochet dictatorship, Jorge Lübbert became an instrument for the Chilean secret services, who forced him to work for them in an extremely violent way. He was able to escape from Chile and became a war photographer based in Belgium. Today, his son Andrés takes him back to the places of his unfinished past.

A group of trainee wrestlers spurred on by the energy of Salvatore Bellomo (age 60) trains relentlessly in the back room of a café in the Borinage district (former mining region in Belgium). Tarzan, the Gigolo, Andynamite, Priscilla, La Rage, Eddie Dark... they all dream of becoming professional wrestlers, like their teacher. Salvatore fought with top wrestlers for more than 30 years, particularly within the prestigious WWF. Today, he has decided to bring his students to the U.S to follow the traces of his past. Waiting for the big day, they live out their passion together, sometimes taking foolish risks to satisfy the local audience and lay out their future.

The inhabitants of the canyon of river Kupa, located on the border between Croatia and Slovenia, have historically been united due to their harsh living conditions, but this peaceful cohabitation between members of different cultures is threatened by the construction of iron fences to prevent the transit of refugees from Bosnia.

A young boy pursues his dream of being a pilot and becomes instrumental to a nation's nightmare.

The border between Lithuania and Belarus used to be a fluid border between Soviet republics. Today it is one of Europe's forgotten outskirts, with the Schengen fence dividing communities, families and lives.

Through a patient observation, this film takes us into the underworld of Bolivian miners, specifically the ancestral Cerro Rico mine.

Liberland tells the unusual history of a territory located in the Balkans, a micronation proclaimed by the Czech Vít Jedlička. Does this fanciful gesture conceal the willingness to construct a communitarian ideal, or the desire to build an empire of pernicious interests with impenetrable contours? This film skilfully combines geopolitical questioning and spirited satire.

Ever since 1919, the daily life in Ypres, in Flanders Fields, has been dedicated to commemorating the First World War. The films makes a journey through this landscape of remembrance and encounters the most diverse and contradictory ways of commemorating.

In northern Scandinavia, a seemingly never-ending border conflict is going on between the indigenous Sami people and the Norwegian and Swedish authorities.

David Verhaeghe seeks to uncover the truth behind the family secret: was his Italian grandmother the lovechild of legendary Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, born Ras Tafari Makkonen and still religiously admired today? In the end it is the natural mysticism of the Jamaican Rastas that seems to point David towards the imperial family. Will he succeed in discovering the truth about his ancestry?

On each side of the border between Lithuania and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, there is an ornithological station that studies the migration of the millions of birds crossing this border region. Today, for the first time, both ornithological stations are trying to cross borders with a joint bird research project. Will they be able to work together?