Clear Skies, Light Breeze

Visions of Europe

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

KWAIDAN

The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography

Every image in The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography comes from gay erotic videos produced in Eastern Europe since the introduction of capitalism. The video provides a glimpse of young men responding to the pressures of an unfamiliar world, one in which money, power and sex are now connected.

Off to School

In July of 2021 there was a flood of catastrophic scope in the Ahrtal Region of Germany. 135 people lost their lives and countless others lost their possessions, their homes, their most treasured mementos. Three years later the reconstruction is progressing slowly. This is an attempt at exploring, what it means to irretrievably lose a part of ones’ past.

Im Reich Des Squatters

The Universe of the Manas

It has been a lifelong dream of Kyrgyz director Melis Ubukeyev to create an elaborate film version of the Kyrgyz national epic 'Manas'. He spent years working with the National Academy of Sciences of Kyrgyzstan to gather material for this film project, which would ultimately remain a dream. However, the director's efforts were not in vain: Not only did he make films in 1962 and 1988 about Manasçı – the revered oral storytellers who have preserved the epic for generations through melodic recitation –, but in 1995, to mark the 1,000th anniversary of 'Manas', he also created a beguiling essay film that not only recounts the epic’s sweeping narrative through a mix of breathtaking imagery and opulent costumes, but also weaves it into a semi-documentary exploration of Kyrgyz history and identity. Once almost impossible to find, the film has recently been restored by the film studio Kyrgyzfilm and uploaded to YouTube in 4K.

The Weight of Sight

The Weight of Sight is a playful and very personal essay where director Truls Krane Meby, through a massive archive of his own material - anything from DV-tapes to 35mm - explores the last 20 years of digital development - how it’s influenced the images we make, and our bodies. What kind of images do we get of the world now that everyone is a photographer, and what does it do with how we unfold our identities? How has the internet both captured and freed us? And will Truls even dare to show this film?

F for Fake

Documents the lives of infamous fakers Elmyr de Hory and Clifford Irving. De Hory, who later committed suicide to avoid more prison time, made his name by selling forged works of art by painters like Picasso and Matisse. Irving was infamous for writing a fake autobiography of Howard Hughes. Welles moves between documentary and fiction as he examines the fundamental elements of fraud and the people who commit fraud at the expense of others.

Arcadia

A provocative and poetic exploration of how the British people have seen their own land through more than a century of cinema. A hallucinated journey of immense beauty and brutality. A kaleidoscopic essay on how magic and madness have linked human beings to nature since the beginning of time.

FFG: un retrato

An experimental portrait of Fernando Fernán Gómez, one of the most renowned Spanish artists of all time.

This is Not a Game

Angela Su’s fictional artist Rosie Leavers is the last remaining person to upload her consciousness to a video game. Contemplating during a pandemic year which also saw people’s resistance movements in many parts of the world, the work pinpoints the uncanny affinities between gaming and warfare strategies. They have mutually informed the infrastructure of both worlds since time immemorial when diplomatic conflicts played out on the battlefield of the 64 squares of a chess board to flight simulation technologies which were adapted to shape gaming experiences as we know it now. When the conflict is between the state and its people, she speculates that gaming strategies empower civilians in resistance movements to counter imperialism through its own operative logic. But once we upload our consciousness, are we able to return to the sensibilities and political motivation that inspired the revolution to begin with?

The So-Called Caryatids

Commissioned by French television, this is a short documentary on the neo-classical statues found throughout Paris, predominantly on the walls of buildings, holding up windows, roofs etc.

Exergo

Departing from peripheral details of some paintings of the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, a female narrator unravels several stories related to the economic, social and psychological conditions of past and current artists.

Panoramas

In 1829 the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt attempted a russian-siberian expedition. Humboldt travelled to obtain a clear view of nature, people and life in this immense country. 2019 naturalists and humanists attempted a transdisciplinary expedition on the trails of Humboldt. To capture the events various cameras were taken along. A non-chronological narration.

Unpublished Visions

Four filmmakers working in the region of Galicia (in the northwest of Spain) follow and portray on the screen Galician artists working in disciplines of different nature. The result is four pieces around the creative process of these artists. Lois Patiño film their parents working on their paintings in their studio in Vigo, Jaione Camborda films dancer Janet Novás rehearsing for one of her pieces, Xisela Franco follows film director Margarita Ledo revisiting the location of her latest film Nation and Alfonso Zarauza reflects on the relationship between actress-director by putting together the work of Melania Cruz in two of their collaborations.

Genoveva

A photograph of an unknown Mapuche great-grandmother is the starting point of this documentary essay. Through the analysis of said picture, conversations with family members, a trip to southern Chile cities, and an actress who re-enacts the photo, we see the existing prejudice against indigenous people.

Histoire(s) du Cinéma 1b: A Single (Hi)story

A very personal look at the history of cinema directed, written and edited by Jean-Luc Godard in his Swiss residence in Rolle for ten years (1988-98); a monumental collage, constructed from film fragments, texts and quotations, photos and paintings, music and sound, and diverse readings; a critical, beautiful and melancholic vision of cinematographic art.