Sundance Winner Competes at Thessaloniki Documentary Competitors

The twenty sixth Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Competitors has revealed the lineup of the Worldwide Rivals half, which includes “A New Type of Wilderness,” winner of the Grand Jury Prize inside the World Cinema – Documentary a part of Sundance Film Competitors. Thessaloniki Documentary Competitors runs from March 7-17.

The films participating inside the half have their world, worldwide or European premiere on the pageant.

The films compete for numerous awards, accompanied by monetary prizes. Amongst them are the Golden Alexander award, accompanied by a 12,000 euro prize, and the Silver Alexander award, accompanied by 5,000 euros.

The Thessaloniki Documentary Competitors is an Oscars qualifying pageant and the film that wins the Golden Alexander award will mechanically be eligible to submit for Academy Awards consideration inside the documentary operate class.

The documentaries which will participate inside the Worldwide Rivals half are as follows. (Descriptions outfitted by the pageant).

“A New Type of Wilderness”
Silje Evensmo Jacobsen, Norway
European premiere
“A New Type of Wilderness,” which is directed by Silje Evensmo Jacobsen, gained the Grand Jury Prize inside the World Cinema – Documentary a part of Sundance Film Competitors. Evensmo Jacobsen beforehand helmed “Faith Can Switch Mountains,” which was inside the Newcomers Rivals a part of Thessaloniki Documentary Film Competitors in 2021.

Away from the bustle of the world, inside the coronary coronary heart of the darkish Norwegian woods, Maria and Nik are elevating their 4 children in full harmony with nature, in search of a additional fulfilling existence at a additional relaxed tempo. Nonetheless, Maria’s stunning passing will upend the family’s tranquillity and expose them to new challenges, the biggest of which includes their unavoidable return to “civilization.”

This documentary transforms the viewer into members of the family, making us conscious of the tenderness, love and sorrow that this family experiences inside its core. Via these new challenges and the idyllic moments of the earlier, captured by the lens of Maria’s digital digital camera, the film delicately and insightfully explores the ties that bind and learn how to navigate loss, along with our precarious relationship with nature and our responsibility to the planet, in a film that’s every disarmingly straightforward however terribly difficult on the same time.

“And So It Begins”
Ramona S. Diaz, U.S.-Philippines
Worldwide premiere
Amidst the traditional pomp and circumstance of Filipino elections, a weird of us’s movement rises to defend the nation in opposition to deepening threats to actuality and democracy. In a collective act of delight as a sort of resistance, hope sparkles in opposition to the backdrop of accelerating autocracy. The film premiered at this 12 months’s Sundance.

“Forest”
Lidia Duda, Poland-Czech Republic
World premiere
Asia and Marek bought an earlier house near the jap border of Poland, inside the Białowieża Forest, the oldest forest in Europe. That’s their very personal paradise – a spot the place their children can develop up safely, away from the problems of for the time being’s world. For Marysia, Ignacy and Franek the forest is their second residence, tamed and trusted. However sooner or later, their forest changes as strangers and others current up. Refugees who’re unwelcome in every Poland and Belarus. Your complete family helps the refugees, regardless that it’s in opposition to Polish laws. Nonetheless how are you going to not help one different explicit individual in need? The children’s world changes radically. They not play a knight and a princess, nevertheless a refugee and border guards. Massive politics acquired right here knocking on their door and nothing was the equivalent anymore.

“Forest” picked up the New Visions Award for most likely probably the most promising European enterprise at Ji.hlava Film Competitors.

“Johatsu – Into Skinny Air”
Andreas Hartmann and Arata Mori, Germany-Japan
World premiere
In Japan, of us vanish and never utilizing a touch with the assistance of so-called “night shifting” corporations, which help of us to fade from their current life. Typically referred to as the Johatsu, or “the evaporated,” these of us depart each little factor behind to begin out a model new life elsewhere.

“My Stolen Planet”
Farahnaz Sharifi, Germany-Iran
Worldwide premiere
“My Stolen Planet” tells the story of Farah, a lady compelled to emigrate “inwards,” into her personal residence to be free. All through the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, she captures moments of delight and defiance in her day by day life, navigating the excellence between house freedom and exterior oppression.

Concurrently, she collects 8mm archives from of us she doesn’t know. Relying on others’ recordings, she optimistic features a model new perspective on dropping reminiscences. Her reference to Leyla, an Iranian professor who left Iran all through the revolution, gives a fame and a story to thought of certainly one of her archive’s faces.

Farah’s mother, affected by Alzheimer’s, motivates her to battle in opposition to forgetting.

Inside the fall of 2022, the Ladies, Life, Freedom riot grew to develop into a turning degree in Farah’s life, along with inside the lives of many others in Iran. This could be a selfmade historic previous.

“My Stolen Planet” has its world premiere inside the Panorama Dokumente a part of Berlin Film Competitors.

“Nocturnes”
Anupama Srinivasan and Anirban Dutta, India-U.S.
Worldwide premiere
Inside the dense forests of the Japanese Himalayas, moths are whispering one factor to us. At midnight of night, two curious observers shine a light-weight on this secret universe.

The film world premiered on the Sundance Film Competitors inside the World Cinema – Documentary half.

Dutta and Srinivasan’s documentary “Flickering Lights” gained the cinematography award at IDFA ultimate 12 months.

“Pol Pot Dancing”
Enrique Sánchez Lansch, Germany-Cambodia
World premiere
A star dancer on the Cambodian royal courtroom lovingly raises her husband’s little brother as her private son. A very long time later, as a compelled laborer beneath the oppressive rule of Khmer Rouge, she discovers that her foster son is none apart from Pol Pot.

The mass purges of the regime (spanning from 1975 to 1979 – Pol Pot annihilated 25% of Cambodia’s inhabitants) are intertwined with painful reminiscences of the members of the family of the bloodthirsty dictator, who for the time being stage a robust dance effectivity depicting an encounter between the chief of the Khmer Rouge and his foster mother.

On this documentary, priceless archive supplies is seamlessly combined with the pictures of the dancers, the traditional costumes, and the descriptions of the significance behind this cultural expression of the Cambodian of us, offering a flawless ultimate consequence, one which’s profoundly melancholic, pretty and however on the same time tragic. Art work serves as ache discount for the perfect open wounds of historic previous.

Sánchez Lansch films embrace 2004’s “Rhythm Is It!,” directed with Thomas Grube, which carried out at Tribeca Film Competitors, and 2021’s “Contained within the Uffizi,” directed with Corinna Belz.

“Stray Our our bodies”
Elina Psykou, Greece-Switzerland-Italy-Bulgaria
World premiere
Robin is pregnant nevertheless doesn’t want to be a mother. Katerina and Gaia are single nevertheless want a bit of one. Kiki suffers from an incurable sickness and wishes her life to complete with dignity. The method they hope to get right of entry to – abortion, IVF and euthanasia – is accessible and licensed in neighboring worldwide areas nevertheless not theirs. Subsequently, they resort to so-called medical tourism. By meeting with those who defend the rights for bodily autonomy and many of their opponents, “Stray Our our bodies” takes the viewers on a avenue journey through Europe, the place life and demise lurk spherical every nook.

Psykou’s first operate, “The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas,” gained the Works in Progress Award on the Karlovy Vary Film Competitors in 2012 and premiered inside the Dialogue board a part of the Berlinale in 2013. She was named certainly one of many “10 European Directors to Watch” within the equivalent 12 months. Her second operate, “Son of Sofia,” gained the Works in Progress Award at Les Arcs in 2015, and competed at Tribeca Film Competitors in 2017, and gained the Best Worldwide Narrative Operate Award.

“Two Strangers Making an attempt To not Kill Each Totally different”
Jacob Perlmutter and Manon Ouimet, U.Okay.-Denmark-U.S.
Worldwide premiere
When unrecognized artist Maggie Barrett, 75, breaks her femur, her husband Joel Meyerowitz, 84, a world-famous photographer, busier than ever, turns into her carer. Nonetheless as her resentment of his success surfaces, the couple resolve to equanimity inside the face of the existential weight of mortality.

“Unclaimed”
Marianna Economou, Greece
World premiere
An unintentional discovery in an Athenian hospital reveals a personal and collective trauma about an entire lot of victims who died from tuberculosis between 1945 and 1975 and had been buried unnamed in mass graves on the hospital grounds. Eighty years later, their controversial story includes light through their non-public belongings and the look for dwelling members of the family.

Economou was the winner of the FIPRESCI prize for a Greek film on the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Competitors in 2019 for “When Tomatoes Met Wagner.”

“Unclickable”
Babis Makridis, Greece
World premiere
Welcome to the murky world of digital advert fraud, organized crime’s best provide of income after drug trafficking. A former enterprise authorities pulls the curtain to point out the way in which it’s carried out, who the victims are, and what operate Google and Fb play inside the recreation.

Makridis’ credit score embrace “L,” which premiered inside the World Cinema – Dramatic half on the Sundance Film Competitors in 2012, and “Pity,” which moreover carried out at Sundance within the equivalent half, in 2018. “Birds (or Learn to Be One)” appeared in 2020 at Rotterdam and Thessaloniki Documentary Film Competitors.

“The place We Used to Sleep”
Matthäus Wörle, Romania
World premiere
Means again, Geamăna was a Romanian village inside the Apuseni Mountains, residence to about 1,000 of us. In the meanwhile, solely the church spire rises from the poisonous mud of a neighboring copper mine. Practically all of the properties have sunk and their inhabitants have fled. On the sting of the earlier, Valeria Praţa strives for her present – and is threatened by the long term.