At first glance, Brett Allen Smith’s memory worlds seem slightly otherworldly but peaceful. There is a little pug – curious, bouncy and, most importantly, alive, a harmless explorer of lawns and living rooms. At the same time, the director is driven by an inner fracture, an irritation to be illuminated by means of phone conversations with family members: How real are the memories that had such a tremendous impact on him? Like the hill towering in front of Smith’s inner eye under which two dogs lie buried. And there are sunflowers, imposing plants that are impossible to pick for his five-year old’s hands because their roots have bored so deeply into the soil.

Today the director is a father and dog owner himself – there are shots of a baby and a pug – and his thought construct, maybe even something that shaped his identity, is blurring. The phone calls with his sisters lead nowhere. On the visual level, “Au Revoir, Pugs” plays with images, animation and nostalgic effects, while melodies can be heard from far away, sweet and melancholy but also a little uncanny. A compact work of less than ten minutes, a soft-toed sneaky jolt.

In Denmark, the police regularly offer so-called boot camps to find new recruits. They especially target girls from less privileged backgrounds. 12-year-old Tatheer from Copenhagen takes part in one of these one-week courses. Far away from home, deep in the forests, she is forced to find her way in this new group, and will have grown a few centimetres at the end.

Alyona, Alik and Katya belong to a generation of young Russian women who demand what they are not allowed. They are part of a global youth that dreams of self-determination and freedom. Sybilla Tuxen followed her protagonists between 2018 and 2022, up to the time of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when the three young women find themselves in a new reality. Now more than ever, they are rebelling against Putin’s state and have since lived life on the go.

One of them has made it to Georgia, another goes to Spain, while the third stays at home. They keep in touch by smartphone and social media. One hears from their conversations that they, like many others, don’t believe that political engagement can change anything. Their resistance rather consists in leading modern and western lives in which gender, sexuality, pop music and identity issues play important roles. Tuxen’s darkly poetic debut film is set in nocturnal cars, flats and backyards. The transit in which the three find themselves becomes physically tangible. Their stories allow us rare glimpses into an almost invisible side of today’s Russia and the complexity of lived contradiction.

In the Swedish town of Gullspång, Kari and May meet a woman who looks exactly like their sister Lita who died more than 30 years ago. No coincidence: Olaug was born on the same day as Lita in the rural north of Norway; a DNA test confirms that the two were born as twin sisters. The happy reunion with Kari, May and the rest of the family, though, soon shows the first cracks. At the age of 80, Olaug’s identity is shattered. Why did her parents give her away? Will she fit in with her new, deeply religious kin? She does not believe in divine revelations. Instead, she is haunted by Lita’s alleged suicide – and indeed her investigative research raises questions about the circumstances of that death.

At least at one point in the film, director Maria Fredriksson is audibly dumbfounded behind the camera. What starts as a feel-good film becomes a character study of identity, then a kind of true-crime and finally a mystery story. The direction takes it up a notch, sometimes to dramatic, sometimes to quite funny effect: The perfectly lighted country houses with portrait photos on the walls and the ironically suggestive use of music are reminiscent of “Twin Peaks.” Sometimes life writes the crazier plot twists.