Theo Montoya draws on casting outtakes, melancholy observations of daily life and decadent party impressions from his friends to create a morbid and yet tender portrait of a young, queer generation in Colombia. In a country marked by violence and repression they can hardly imagine their future, but maintain a close, almost loving relationship with death.

This was meant to be a fiction film: a ghost story in which the dead no longer find cemetery space and consequently coexist with the living, including having sexual relationships – which the state rigorously forbids and persecutes. A clandestine nocturnal subculture emerges where erotic desires for which daylight means annihilation can be acted out. A week after Montoya found his leading actor for the project, the latter died of a heroin overdose. More deaths among his friends follow. They are the ghosts haunting the film that was ultimately made. It retains its dystopian character, but the dangers it portrays are quite real: For these young people, they are part of everyday life in Medellín, which is still deep in the shadow of Pablo Escobar and where the search for pleasure and human warmth takes one through labyrinthine abysses.

In 2015 a fire breaks out in the Bucharest club “Colectiv”: 27 dead, 180 injured. But for the survivors of the disaster, the hospitals become death traps, as many die of wounds that are not considered life-threatening. A doctor turns to the press. The research uncovers one of the biggest scandals in Romania’s health care system. This powerful film offers insights into the work of the investigative journalists, lets whistle-blowers speak and gives the survivors a voice.

So many stones are lying around. They used to belong to something whole that was broken. A red-haired boy sets about sorting, joining and stacking them. Little by little, the countless chunks turn into many impressive towers. We follow the boy’s path as he makes one tower after the other shine again.

Inspired by the estate of a Romanian photographer in which 5,000 glass plate negatives from the 1930s to the 1950s survived undiscovered for a long time, a touching love story evolves. In 1939, Anna Florea meets the young soldier Jean Mihail in her home village in Bukovina. A moonshine kiss seals their affection. But all too soon, Jean is ordered to the frontline. His passionate letters keep the connection alive. But when Anna must flee the site, the contact breaks off.
Their great love is fragile, damaged by war and time – just like the old studio and everyday photographs this animated documentary uses to illustrate optimism and impending loss. Anna Florea herself narrates the film: in retrospect, at the age of 91. Her warm and gentle voice reanimates the memories seemingly stored in these pictures. Those “frozen” on the photographic plates begin to move, are made to glow in oil-on-glass overpaintings, blossom and take us with them into the past.

What will future urban environments look like? And how are they designed when they are inspired by the imagination of children? 250 children used their imagination to envision the city of tomorrow. On this basis, the VR experience designs walk-through scenarios. The work is part of an ongoing interdisciplinary collaboration to develop new concepts for changing societies.