The truth is hidden behind blurs, but the allure of secrecy fades as the clarity increases. A woman in love ventures out of her cocoon to go out into the mundane world of “dead language.” Accompanied by a restless musical motif by Marian Mentrup, “Achill” boldly balances on the thin line between two universes – with raw, intimate drawings, shimmering stones and overpainted video sequences.

Where the sandy beach of the Salton Sea, the biggest lake in California, begins to crunch harder, it does not even consist of sand any more: Millions of dead fish, plants and insects pile up on the shore to form a highly toxic substance. This is how Derek explains it, a member of a Cahuilla tribe that managed to escape an attempted genocide in the 19th century to the Salton Sea and now sees itself as a protective force for the once flourishing but increasingly deserted area and its outcasts.
Derek is one of the many locals whose trails Lukas Marxt and Vanja Smiljanić calmly follow, gliding with them through the desolate landscapes. In the process, they pick up slivers of nuclear history time and again: During the Second World War, the area was a test site for the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The experiments continued through the Cold War; the armed forces are still training here. The film finds its starting point and end two states away: The nuclear devices were sent on their way from Wendover, Utah. The local Airfield Museum pays tribute to their development. Once, the camera performs an almost weightless dance around a model of the Hiroshima bomb “Little Boy” on display there, to the sounds of the indestructible World War classic “We’ll Meet Again.”

Can school be exciting and even fun? The integrative pre-vocational August Sander school in Berlin-Friedrichshain at least seems the perfect place for this. The noise of the cars of the big city can be heard from the distance, birds are singing on the lush green grounds. Lessons here include horticulture, agriculture and animal care. And when you watch the students weed garden plots and feed rabbits, things look extremely enviable at first glance. But of course, even in this paradisiacal place there are conflicts, annoying teachers and the anxious question: What comes after graduation?
This documentary follows the school life of a group of pupils with different learning disorders and other impairments over one school year. At its focus are young people who are on the way from training to work, from childhood to adulthood, and struggle to find their place in the narrow regulatory system of school and in society.

The longing for something to finally happen is fulfilled by a kiss. Not the romantic kind, however, but a monstrous one, a kiss the world will talk about. Thus Dodi plods vigilantly through everyday life and parties, in a cloud of other people’s voices. “EXOMOON” follows her confident path: like a kaleidoscope with creative fractures.

Welcome to the Glitchbodies-verse, a virtual space where everyone is in charge of their own image. This game lets the player roam different environments and meet 59 protagonists from around the world. Inclusive and collaborative in nature, “Glitchbodies” stands in bold opposition to heteronormative conglomerates of the internet era, and does so in distinctive style.

Thomas Heise’s last film deals with his family archive, initiated by the deaths of his mother and brother. With suggestive comments and inserted into contemporary images, he appropriates the term “Heimat” by bringing the contradictions of more than a hundred years of German history to the fore. The counter-programme is formulated in a hit song by Marika Rökk: “Don’t look hither, don’t look thither, just look forward.” Heise’s monumental arrangement of fragments is at the same time open and insistent, devastated and hungry for life, never straightforward. Historiography and self-observation, never completely belonging: a touch in the dark cinema, a crack in the autobahn, lists, biographies, après-ski. Watching what happens (to them).

“I know you” is easier said than “I know myself.” Here, someone probes their own fear in a childlike voice and sketchy images. There are certain pieces of evidence, like the shovel used by a young woman to dig a deep hole. And there is that black thing that grabs her soul like a spider. A cautious and curious mutual approach in sometimes concrete, sometimes abstract ink drawings.

She opens her arms wide: “I want to go home, do my dreaming.” Crossing from an unbearable reality to the world of magic sometimes takes only the snap of a finger, sometimes several press-ups. Gudrun Krebitz’s poetic combination of video and animation recommends pushing the gravestone aside and descending into one’s subconscious: with overpaintings and superimpositions.

A film projection shows a woman sitting by the water. In “her back” is the shadow of a female figure who conjures radiant golden clouds of dots and balls of lines into the frame with her hands and is even able to blot it out. The magical trailer for the “Tricky Women” festival was made by manually editing the image and sound sequences recorded by Moïa Jobin-Paré when she was artist-in-residence in Vienna.

Luciana’s office is a place of miracles. This is where strangers confide in her, share their most profound desires and concerns. And Luciana? She circles her huge magnifying glass over the pages of old books to soon find the perfect coordinates for a spiritual new beginning. In his new film, Peter Kerekes becomes nothing less than a witness to psychomagical acts. The Neapolitan astrologer is not only able to calculate the perfect birthday spot for those who seek advice – in her blunt way, she aims right at the centre of personal dramas. A pair of identical twins, for example, argue whether one of the sisters should fulfil the other’s longing for a child, while an unhappy mother yearns to rekindle her relationship.
Luciana sends the twins to Beirut, the mother to Alaska. Kerekes accompanies them on their journeys of salvation, even if Alaska turns into an air conditioner and a few buckets of ice cubes for reasons of practicality. He always brings out the comic potential of a story while pointing out complicated conflicts with astonishing poignancy: possessive mother figures and absent fathers, loneliness in a relationship and the fear of change. “Wishing on a Star” is a charming consultation that boldly confronts the big questions in life.