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.

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.