On the island of Palawan in the Philippine archipelago, more and more rainforest is falling victim to the saws. The clearances have long been illegal but are protected and even initiated by President Duterte’s corrupt regime. Local resistance is forming. A group of courageous men around a determined human rights lawyer decide to react. They sneak into the forests to take away the logging teams’ chainsaws, cars and boats. This exciting film, constructed like a thriller, follows them on their dangerous missions, which they call “meta-legal”. But the price is high: Some of the activists pay for their resistance with their lives.

The LGBTQIA2S+ community in Russia is facing an increasingly hostile social climate, is tabooed and criminalised. The AR experience opens a digital safe space for the local drag scene where they can perform without fear of violence. At the same time, this artistic occupation of heteronormatively dominated places is a political intervention.

This visual symphony unfolds according to the principles of swarm behaviour. Digitally created clouds of dots organically flow into each other. Everything lives, breathes, is sensual and tactile, feels soft and harmonious. A warm, light sound carpet flows around the constantly moving landscape. An allusion to the cyclical nature of our life.

What did the Corona lockdown look like from a window in the residential towers of posh East London in the spring of 2020? The reflective two-week observation shows serious shifts in the everyday coordinate system of a privileged urban population at an immediate level. Meanwhile, the vacant apartments in the district, which were deliberately caused by speculation, represent a warning sign for the future of investor-friendly urban spaces.

The earth never sleeps. The duo Semiconductor distils research data on earth movements and animates them in a five-channel installation. In a dark hall, visitors to the Sónar Barcelona 2016 festival are captivated by a huge, luminous band of ceaselessly morphing layers of colours and strange sounds, experiencing a cut through both landscape and time.

Geologically, layers of earth form over thousands of years. The processes are almost imperceptible to humans. A research project in a Spanish quarry reconstructs earth movements, models them and records them acoustically. Creaking, rumbling and trickling, the layers leave traces of sounds animated in an audiovisual five-channel installation by the duo Semiconductor.

Heatwaves, melting polar caps, rising sea levels, mass extinction of species. The climate crisis is threatening life on earth, and our peace of mind, too, because if you become aware of where we stand, you’ll find it hard to sleep well. Sindha Agha, too, is suffering from “climate anxiety”, the all-consuming fear of the consequences of the climate emergency, and seeks out a climate psychologist to learn how to cope with it. This cinematic portrait shows how – representative of countless others – she is torn between panic, helplessness, guilt and rage, but still finds ways to overcome the paralysis to actively tackle the climate crisis.

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.

It begins like a classic “girl meets boy” story: Faith, a charismatic accordion player from Great Britain, travels to Serbia to learn about Roma folk music. She meets the violinist Branko, who is instantly smitten. They quickly marry and form a band. But with musical success their love dwindles. A turbulent story of expectations, disappointments and the dream of happiness.

Faith enters into Branko’s life in an almost disturbingly casual way. She doesn’t seem to be bothered by the new country, the sceptical family and the cultural differences. Branko on the other hand adores his new wife and boldly enters a new world. They are a big hit as a duo – travelling around the world and playing bigger and bigger venues. But while Faith feels as happy as a lark, Branko seems like an uprooted tree. Instead of dealing with their differences they keep moving on rapidly, until one ruthless step follows the next. Catherine Harte has produced a captivating and very intimate portrait of this contradictory couple. Relentlessly close and yet compassionate, the film develops an impressive pull you don’t want to resist.

An old man and his granddaughter are sitting in a quiet square in the middle of the city. Suddenly he has a heart attack, falls to the ground – and time freezes. This could be the famous second where you see your life flash before your inner eye. But in which direction is it moving? Forward into the past, backward into the future or sideways into the now?

A naked body liquifies and becomes weightless. What’s left is its skin envelope which expands endlessly, longing for the tiniest touch. The increasingly shapeless figure vibrates in colours, fragments flashing, until the video track fails. The sensual piece by FKA twigs asks in slow motion what lust feels like. Jesse Kanda answers with enchanting computer-generated images.

This insight into an international subculture shows that the ballroom scene is more than just extravagant competitions. Five ballroom dancers describe a reality in which white-dominated, heteronormative patterns have no place. They talk about ideas of cultural appropriation, about safe spaces, community and mutual support, about identity and self-expression.

On a light blue sheet of paper, a grid emerges which is immediately overgrown by an organic dark surface. Grid and surface seem to enter a symbiotic relationship and, merged into a whole, to try out a new shared form. Geometrical possibilities between two-dimensionality and depth, control and instability are acted out.

An eerily beautiful bedtime story with lots of loose ends. Featuring: a princess and her toy mouse, a mother who advises the girl to always be suspicious of strangers, and a bizarre grandfather who secretly munches dogfood. It’s possible that the sleepy child is taking in only a quarter of this absurd and morbid tale, but that’s probably a good thing.

Something pulls us into the deep. We plunge deeper and deeper into the centre of the image, into swelling liquids, through lakes of circling colours, through the cracks in the paper. A tactile film that brings us into contact with colour and material textures – irritatingly sensual and strangely familiar. The sound opens the horizon of interpretation: It is a journey across a female body.

There is a house hanging from heavy ropes, firmly anchored to the rocks. Up there in the cliffs, far above the town below, a father lives with his son in the cold. In his 2D frame-by-frame animation, director João Gonzalez uses few colours, which makes the harsh shadows and extreme camera angles of his drawings all the more atmospheric. He has realised a metaphorical tale that can do without dialogue, relying on sound and images alone.