Kyustendil, a city in the Bulgarian mountains, was hit hard by Covid. The local hospital is probably a reasonably representative microcosm of how the medical staff dealt with the worst consequences of the pandemic. Ten years after his debut “Sofia’s Last Ambulance” (DOK Leipzig 2012), Ilian Metev returns with another film about a national health system that opposes the virus with gallows humour and individual commitment.

Metev himself was stuck in London during the shooting, monitoring from afar as co-director Teneva and her colleague Chertov collected the material and edited it alone. The focus is on the hospital staff. And if there is one main protagonist among the countless members of the cast, it’s Dr. Popov. Warm-hearted and always ready with a quip, we even often see him without a mask – the other employees are usually hidden behind protective gear. They all share a tough sense of humour to get them through the days and nights. The logistical challenges of such a film project also crop up: The people with the cameras are frequently mentioned and addressed. In this emergency community of patients, doctors and film crew they seem to be always ready to joke. But death, up in the intensive care unit, is very close.

A purely acoustic collage whose sounds seem by nature indefinable and yet somehow organic. They mesmerise us, occasionally make us shiver at some unknown thing. Gravity seems to be suspended. This piece needs no images, because they will intuitively materialise before our inner eye like thousands of hallucinations.

Corine Shawi’s father spends four years in hospitals and rehabilitation facilities in Beirut because of sudden paralysis – a time in which the state of emergency becomes routine and filming becomes a strategy: in search of the right balance of closeness and distance, in search of one’s own position in the structure. Shawi sets herself the task of documenting, putting herself in the picture, keeping the family together and at the same time recording movements and changes.

Family life shifts to the sickrooms. The radio plays, the mother smokes countless cigarettes on the balcony, her eyes and fingers graze figures of saints, she attends Holy Mass in the various facilities and shares her worries about an adult son with her husband and daughter. They argue, laugh and sometimes dance around the sickbed. Between the family capsule and drifting through the city – Beirut, night, cemeteries, sensualities –, the filmmaker inserts interview sequences with her siblings, staged on the backseat of a moving car. Attempts to cope and to draw borders, loneliness in company. Brief moments when wishes and projections of mobility are experimentally translated into virtual space – a gauging of possibilities. A touching description of a status quo and a testimony to resignation and renewal.

Magic mobile on the wall, who is the fairest of them all? A young woman slips into a second skin. She goes out, drinks bubble tea with her friends. Selfies are made. The mood is cheerful. But once back home, she and her outward skin melt into each other; a self dissolves. Her own reflection becomes a chimera. A surreal body horror animation about beauty ideals and the compulsion to fit in.

Petra looks back on an eventful day: Together with other kids she went on a paperchase, solved a few small tasks and coordinated with her assigned partner. There were some adventures, but also a classroom situation set up in a meadow where one’s knowledge of the local flora was tested. In the end, they all boarded sailing boats and glided off into an atmospheric evening. A protocol in letters, accurately drawn up at the Potsdam Pioneer House, serves as the framework for one of the first completed films of the newly founded German Academy of Film Art in Babelsberg.

An investigative examination of the colour spaces of the 100 Yuan note reveals a paradigm shift. Officially declared by the central bank to be red, the note bearing the portrait of Mao is, physically speaking, actually pink. This has consequences for China’s political narrative, as Tang Han’s uncompromisingly precise and refreshingly clever cinematic experimental setup illustrates.

Eva Dzhyshyashvili shows us a family that lives in the mountains following their daily rituals. At first glance, it’s a simple, quiet life unbothered by the outer world. However, as the picture is revealed, we see that the grandfather was wounded in the east of Ukraine and listen to countless conversations about this war. The feeling that there is nowhere to hide from military aggression is starkly evident. But the ending provides a sliver of hope.

The days in the hospital are boring, the monotony only interrupted by parents’ visits. Listlessly, the girl lies in bed, staring out of the window for hours. But one day she gets a very special present. She slowly recovers and her injuries heal … This story, animated in soft, bright colours, shows that faith can help us get better.

A sentimental journey through the main market in Odesa. Pryvoz is a place of recurring myth. It is mentioned in songs and books and is truly the heart of this disorienting city with a complicated history. Neymann looks at the inhabitants with empathy: lost souls in the bodies of humans, dogs or cats. The opera soundtrack adds a sense of fatality to the old vivid market that will become reality. The city of Odesa has been under Russian fire since February 2022.

The Bytom area was once known for its coal mines, but structural change has caught up with it, too. The decline of the region is vividly demonstrated by the pawnshop of the Silesian city. Probably the biggest of its kind in Poland, the shop has seen better days. Jola and Wiesiek, the idiosyncratic operators, are each trying in their own way to cope with the crisis and revive business.

The closing of the mines and the resulting unemployment in Bytom left behind all those who were unable to adapt to the new age. In the huge hall, they put increasingly absurd and worthless objects on the counter. The once lucrative trade in jewellery, electric devices and furniture has dwindled and however hard the employees work, the till stays empty. The wiring is unsound, nerves are raw and the tone between them gets rougher. Before they know it, the small business has turned into a kind of counselling centre: drying tears, ladling out soup and giving away goods instead of selling them. Jola in her voluminous fur coat always has an open ear and a warm blanket ready. Wiesiek devises one marketing scheme after the other. But will it be enough to save their business? A documentary report from the “Polish Detroit”, observed with delicacy and pitch-black humour.