Art is in the eye of the beholder, they say. Shelly Silver’s beholders range in age from seven to nineteen years. They focus their attention on artworks in the Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts. Their spontaneous interpretations of the works allow for resonances: both, the paintings as well as their young reviewers, reveal different things about themselves, depending on the point of view.

“Shit that I’m not a boy”, a teenager exclaims as she stands in front of the painting of a rich young man who lived centuries before her, perhaps in the Netherlands. Because boys are allowed much more, she says. Playing basketball outside, for example. Shelly Silver’s hypothesis is as simple as it is fruitful: The outside perspective will always lead back to one’s own perspective. The director’s questions and suggestions are not revealed. But she picks out details of the paintings to substantiate and illustrate statements – or put them up for discussion again. Silver’s finesse lies in the montage. Meanwhile, the timeline of the exploration runs from the past to the present, from the pierced feet of Jesus Christ via a reclining naked nymph by Lucas Cranach the Elder to the more recent photography of the Swedish artist Arvida Byström.

The river Oder: A historical and cultural landscape churned again and again by the tide of events of the past century. A tale told in concentric circles about a region which was and still is the scene of the beginning, end and open middle of voluntary and involuntary migrations. Virulent issues of daily life and politics that, asked with confident casualness, provide a robust account of the present.

Movements and stories in the border region between Poland and Germany – Andreas Voigt’s new film takes up the themes of his 1992 work “Borderland – A Journey”. The charged term “homeland” stirs up (trouble in) the minds and hearts of the people: What it once was and what has become of it! Sure, that’s not the top priority in their daily agenda. But how people appropriate this term and how that in turn structures their attitudes also determines how they figure out the taste of life in the here and now of Europe. The search for closeness is confronted with the insistence on distance. Communication about belonging becomes flimsy because the body language says something different than the spoken word. As a film that’s not about administering a politically correct separation diet, “Borderland” provokes experiences and enables encounters.