SU/Latvia 1986, D: Juris Podnieks, Doc, 83’, Orig. with Eng. subs, DCP

The documentary film IS IT EASY TO BE YOUNG? by Latvian filmmaker Juris Podnieks opened in Soviet cinemas in January 1987. He obviously had his finger on the pulse of the times – Podnieks interviews junkies, a young mother, convicts of a show trial and Afghanistan war veterans, all on eye level, and thus gives an insight into the daily struggles of the Soviet youth at the beginning of perestroika. This portrait of the generation testifies that as an individual you just cannot defeat the system. The film was a blockbuster and attracted 28 million spectators in the Soviet Union.

ES/FR/LU 2019, D: Oliver Laxe, D: Amador Arias, Benedicta Sánchez, 85’, Orig. with Eng. subs, DCP

Amador, an arsonist, has served his prison sentence and arrives back in his village, at the house of his mother Benedicta, their fields and animals. Framed by documentary scenes, the story gently unfolds, wrapped in the silences between mother and son. The repetition of rural rites and tasks, the concreteness of the bodies executing them, in turns with shots that fuse the characters with the landscape create an anthropological and timeless register. It communicates the intensity of a beautiful and hard land, metaphor of the protagonist’s cropped life and the depth of the unconditional love that protects him. Jury Prize in the section Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2019.

supported by the embassy of Spain in Berlin

ES 2019, D: Silvia Navarro, Miguel G. Morales, Doc, 63’, Orig. with Eng. subs, DCP

This documentary essay reflects the creation of the myth of the Guanches, indigenous inhabitants of the Canary Islands, and the history of Spanish domination over the territory up to the Franco dictatorship. Between the 1940s and 70s, anthropologist Luis Diego Cuscoy tracked down Guanche cultural remains and documented it on film and tape. Complemented by further material, these recordings prove to be an effective instrument for a reinterpretation of the present. The depth of the editing work generates a compelling effect, shifting between legend and history, imagination and testimony, representation and spontaneity. Grand Prize for the best film at IndieLisboa Festival 2019.

supported by the embassy of Spain in Berlin

ES 2019, D: Nuria Giménez, C: Ilse Ringier, Frank Lorang, 72’, Orig. with Eng. subs, DCP

“Lies are just another way of telling the truth”. This ambiguous quote initiates the extraordinary archeological work on a story that Nuria Giménez carries out in her first feature-length film, driven forward by imagination. A 20-year-long marriage is told based on Vivian Barrett’s diary, which can be read in the subtitles, complemented by 16mm colour pictures by her husband Léon, which underpin, contradict and hypnotise. MY MEXICAN BRETZEL plays with narratives, the authenticity of images, their decontextualisation and their reinterpretation, on the receptive level of spectators and that of the protagonists.

supported by the embassy of Spain in Berlin

ES 2019, D: Eloy Enciso, C: Misha Bies Golas, Nuria Lestegás, Celsa Araújo, 90’, Orig. with Eng. subs, DCP

In a small town in Galicia, a political prisoner returns after the civil war. His encounters along the way make him aware of the Franco regime that has taken hold of everyone. The night in the title is the refuge and nightmare of the persecuted, as well as the natural environment of ghosts through whom the past gains access. The drama does not emerge from acting or staging, but from the structure itself: supported by increasingly urgent texts – first theatrical dialogues, then testimonies of exiled authors and finally letters from people sentenced to death – the luminous night photography of Mauro Herce and the defencelessness of the protagonist.

supported by the embassy of Spain in Berlin