Projects in categories: Documentary

Synopsis

Exploring the filmmaker Rime Tsujino's evolving relationship with their dog Miso, a one-year-old German Shepherd. Tsujino attempts to understand why, despite raising the dog, Miso seems to prefer Tsujino's partner. Blending observational and verité footage with personal narration, this tender story of unrequited love takes the filmmaker on an intimate journey through the complexities of caregiving and cross-species bonds, contending with the influence of intergenerational parenting styles on the human-dog relationship and how dogs express their agency, ultimately asking whether it is possible to love truly without conditions. Official Selection Visions du Reel 2026 - World premiere

Synopsis

In a remote village in southeast Turkey, 35-year-old Meryem begins the annual olive harvest. For generations, the groves have sustained the village women's livelihoods, but this year, the harvest takes place under a shadow of fear. Following a devastating earthquake that destroyed Meryem’s home, 60% of the village’s olive lands have been seized by the government to build a new satellite city. As the concrete edge presses steadily toward their remaining fields, this harvest may be their last. Once a stay-at-home mother, Meryem picks up a camera to document the slow unraveling of her community. Women, previously confined to the home, step into public life - leading protests, sit-ins, and a landmark lawsuit alongside thousands of indigenous landowners, to protect the land they have tended for centuries. Interweaving Meryem’s video diaries with observational footage, the film moves between intimate scenes of the family harvest and the female-led resistance. As the movement unfolds, the once-perfect harvest is gradually disrupted by destruction. HERE TO STAY tells the story of a people’s fight for justice, tracing how tragedy transforms Meryem from mother to resistance leader, as she seeks to protect the land she calls home.

Synopsis

An experimental documentary that unfolds as a ceremony of queer belonging, inheritance, and sound. At its heart is a dialogue with Afro-Cuban priestess and musician Amelia Pedroso, whose legacy is invoked through archival traces, letters, and performance. Narrated as a letter to an ancestor, the film situates the search for connection within an interior, oceanic dreamscape where water, memory, and ritual become both setting and subject. Cinematically, MODUPE moves between a stylised ensemble rehearsal and a sacred library-archive. The ensemble of voice, drum, and dance provides the film’s pulse, collapsing rehearsal and ritual into one. Deep blue light, reflective surfaces, and submerged imagery create a sensorial architecture that is both intimate and expansive, with water presence throughout evoking both flood and transformation. Formally, the film resists linear storytelling, privileging atmosphere, rhythm, and sonic immersion. Objects, archives, and sacred materials hold the same cinematic weight as bodies in performance, reframing the archive as altar and sound as shrine. Narrative unfolds through resonance rather than resolution, drawing the viewer into a space of listening and reflection. MODUPE proposes cinema as a vessel for inheritance, where identity is fluid, memory is alive and liberation is lived through sound.

Synopsis

The story of Carter The Bandit, a Peckham-born rapper navigating London's music industry and the challenges of being a visible, gay black man in a nation struggling to keep pace.

Synopsis

In an era of increasing brain fog and cognitive decline a profound exploration of humanity’s greatest conundrum - the nature of consciousness and self. A powerful, dream-like journey delving into the hearts and minds of four individuals whose lives intersect at the threshold of memory and reality. A quartet of voices: Maureen Winfield represents the struggle of the caregiver - her husband regressed to the period when they were engaged and no longer recognised her or the home they lived in for 40 years; Wendy Mitchell, diagnosed with young-onset dementia, embodies resilience, she uses ingenious coping mechanisms to navigate her changing perceptions; Pegeen O’Sullivan, daughter of novelist Liam O’Flaherty, offers a surprising perspective - although she has lost her memories, she has also been liberated her from fears; providing a scientific counterpoint is neuroscientist Anil Seth, who suggests that our "normal" reality is itself a form of controlled hallucination. By weaving together deeply personal lived experiences with performance and scientific theory, CONSCIOUS illustrates how dementia shifts our internal worlds. The film challenges our preconceptions of ageing, and shows us that whilst there are devastating losses on on the dementia journey, there can also be triumphant gains.

Synopsis

In isolation on Iceland’s Snæfellsnes Peninsula, Nigerian-born modular synthesis artist Colloboh transforms glacial and oceanic recordings into sonic compositions - uncovering a dialogue between ice and sea that reshapes his understanding of consciousness, ecological collapse, and humanity’s place within both. As his process unfolds, Colloboh transforms these sounds into layered sonic works that blur the boundaries between observation and communion. The film culminates in a haunting gesture: he plays the completed composition back to the landscape itself, completing a dialogue between artist and environment. A meditation on impermanence, consciousness, and the fragile bond between humanity and the natural world. Official Selection SXSW 2026 - World Premiere

Synopsis

Young women see themselves as rivers, connecting poetic imagery to landscapes in a multi-voiced narrative that transforms into political commentary: Kazakh women choose to live without men. Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2026 - Forum Special - World premiere

Synopsis

The South African cleric Desmond Tutu was more than just an archbishop, he was a moral compass, a fearless champion of justice and a global beacon of hope for a more peaceful future. TUTU reveals the man behind the icon through previously unpublished archive footage and first-hand accounts from those who walked beside him. The film traces Tutu’s rise as the unwavering voice of the oppressed. In the face of brutality, he stood resolute, guided by faith, fuelled by hope and driven by an unshakable belief in the humanity of all people. At its heart, this is a story of the transformative power of forgiveness, a message from which Tutu never wavered. Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2026 - Berlinale Special Presentation - World premiere

Synopsis

In the remote Siberian Arctic, an Indigenous Sakha scientist descends into the depths of the melting permafrost. Searching for an ancient creature, he makes his way through the dangerous, claustrophobic caves to the mythical realm of the Underworld. Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2026 - Berlinale Shorts - World premiere

Synopsis

Drawing on a location test filmed in Uganda and an email exchange with the scout, this short film captures cinema’s ties to land and its entanglement with colonial imaginaries, binding the fiction of filmmaking with state-building. Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2026 - Forum Expanded - World premiere

Synopsis

Under the skin of Douglas Gordon, probing what it means to be an artist. Capturing the chaotic energy of a working studio and blurring the lines between art, performance, and reality. The filmmaker's presence challenges the authenticity of the process, exposing the tensions, collaboration, and unpredictability of documenting a boundary-pushing artist. Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2026 - Panorama Dokumente - World premiere

Synopsis

At the crossroads of art, activism, and the ocean lies the extraordinary story of Paolo Fanciuli, a humble Italian fisherman with a revolutionary vision. Known as Paolo the Fisherman, he has waged a quiet but fierce war against illegal bottom trawling - one of the most destructive fishing practices threatening marine ecosystems. Driven by years of witnessing the ocean's decline, Paolo devised a radical and poetic solution: the creation of an underwater museum—a surreal seabed installation of massive marble sculptures. These works of art serve a dual purpose: they physically block trawling nets from destroying the seafloor, and they symbolically stand as monuments to resistance and hope. HOUSE OF FISH is a conservation documentary that blends Paolo’s intimate, personal journey with a natural history perspective on the fragility of our oceans... a cinematic ode to the sea and to those who dare to protect it through creativity and courage. By spotlighting Paolo’s efforts and the power of artistic activism, the film aims to awaken a deep emotional connection to our oceans - and inspire urgent action to save them.