Program Cinema Elvire Popesco

Directed by: Mehrdad Oskouei  Documentary – Iran, France – 2025 – 77 min Section: On the Verge A subtly textured self-portrait of Soraya, a free-spirited 16-year-old Afghan artist in Iran who has been trying for five years to make her way to Europe. She chillingly captures everything on her phone, while pouring her fears, worries and joy into extraordinary works of art, inhabited by recurring figures – a loyal fox, a watchful pink moon, and an ever-laughing clown....See more details

Directed by: Marc Isaacs Documentary – United Kingdom – 2025 – 70 min Section: On the Verge Researchers at the Synthetic Sincerity Lab are trying to create authentic AI characters, using protagonists from Marc Isaacs’ documentaries. In turn, they allow him to film the process....See more details

Directed by: Ian Bell Documentary – USA – 2025 – 102 min Section: Past Continuous An immersive archival documentary that depicts the four-day clash between the then-emerging World Trade Organization (WTO) and the 40,000+ people who took to the streets of Seattle in 1999 to protest the WTO Conference and sound the alarm on the WTO’s impact on human rights, labor, and the future effects of continued globalization....See more details

Directed by: Ivan Ramljak Documentary – Croatia – 2025 – 100 min Section: Past Continuous In 1991, on the outskirts of Tenja, Josip Reihl Kir – chief of the Osijek Police Department, a negotiator and opponent of war – was assassinated. This is a story about the last months of his life at the dawn of the bloodthirsty Croatian-Serbian war, told through witness statements and archive materials....See more details

INTERSECTING MEMORY Directed by: Shayma' Awawdeh Documentary – France, Palestine – 2025 – 21 min Section: Past Continuous During the Second Intifada in occupied Palestine, fear, siege, and death define the reality of the city of Hebron. Moments from the past are revived through childhood memory, intersecting with the collective memory....See more details

Directed by: Johan Grimonprez Documentary – Belgium, France, Netherlands – 2024 – 150 min Section: Focus Johan Grimonprez Jazz and decolonization collide in this historical rollercoaster that rewrites the Cold War episode that led musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach to crash the UN Security Council in protest of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba’s murder....See more details

120 min Section: Focus Johan Grimonprez Hosted by Johan Grimonprez, “Every Day Words Disappear” is an indispensable masterclass for exploring the theories and practices that lie at the heart of his films. Defined by a multi-layered and complex de/re/construction of language and the audio-visual medium, these works become pedagogical tools for understanding the intricate ways in which narrative and ideology become inter-defined and codified as Historical memory....See more details

Directed by: Johan Grimonprez Documentary – USA, Belgium, Denmark, United Kingdom – 2016 – 94 min Section: Focus Johan Grimonprez A journalistic tour-de-force, Johan Grimonprez’s explosive “Shadow World”, based on Andrew Feinstein’s book of the same title, exposes the global arms trade as a system defined by corruption....See more details

Directed by: Olga Lucovnicova Documentary – Belgium, Romania, Netherlands, Republic of Moldova – 2025 – 94 min Section: Focus Moldova Driven by the need to confront her family’s long-buried secrets, Olga Lucovnicova and her father take an old train to his hometown, Asha, deep in the Ural Mountains....See more details

Directed by: Dawood Hilmandi Documentary – Netherlands – 2025 – 97 min Section: On the Verge After fleeing his home as a boy for freedom in the West, Afghan-Dutch filmmaker Dawood Hilmandi returns years later to confront his father, an imam with a violent past. In a journey through Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq, ”Paikar” explores the invisible inheritance of war and silence that shapes generations, and invites us to rediscover the tenderness that endures within even the most hardened souls....See more details