A huge, glowing structure bearing the face of Rocky Balboa drifts through the night, mysterious and seemingly from out of this world. Its actual size is revealed only gradually. Sissel Morell Dargis tells the incredible story of the “baloeiros”, an underground culture in the heart of Brazil’s favelas. These loosely-knitted groups are dedicated to building, launching and chasing hot air balloons. This does not sound very spectacular? Anyone who sees the giant objects made of fine tissue paper, which often depict popular figures like Karate Kid or Superman, will be amazed! Such a balloon launch, sometimes preceded by years of welding and gluing in secret workshops, is not just a complex logistical endeavour. It is dangerous, too, for the “baloeiros” whose passion does not earn them one centavo, are prosecuted as a criminal organisation.
It takes a while for Morell Dargis to win the trust of this secret community. The balloons also serve her as a metaphor for a country that finds itself in a politically fragile and deadlocked situation in which those who struggle at the margins of society can barely assert their rights. An intimate, multilayered and action-packed film that turns conventional notions of life in the favelas upside down.

Insects of various species gather. They install a stage on which a frenzy of colours and textures unravels. We encounter strange figures in the verse-like segments of this animated experiment. The visual associations arise from a sound piece by Xabier Erkizia that he composed for an interview with the musician Santiago Irigoyen, who died in 2007.

A van approaches the lighthouse of Monte Igueldo on the bay off San Sebastián. A woman and her dog live in the tower. The moving boxes are packed with files and paper. Before the driver can load them, we are given access to the unusual interior of the building, where the history of seafaring and conquests rears its head: in hallucinated picture puzzles full of cruelty.

The ringing of a phone segues into the soundscape of a big city. The buzzing of cars mingles with the sounds of a football match. Provoked by a cat, a blind person’s assistance dog breaks free and carries us over into a world whose spatial dimensions are almost impossible to grasp. A journey begins in which the senses are faced with new challenges.

A film about a child with a passion: The little girl loves everything that flies high. She lets herself being pushed on the swing until she is almost out of the frame, and she loves her new balloon. But then she gets caught in the clutches of a bird dealer who locks her up in his flat on the top floor of a high-rise. The only way out is through the window.