How are we shaped by our DNA? The 360° film tells the story of fictional scientist Roderick Norman, who tries to extract dreams from an unidentified skeleton that are inscribed in the blueprint of this ruin of a body. This black and white collage of text, 3D images and traditional film footage questions our conventional understanding of gender and identity.

Two siblings, a boy and a girl, play together. They say goodbye to their father who has to go to war. To comfort his sister, the big brother gives her “tò he” every day, a traditional toy made of sticky rice powder. Until one day their father returns. A colourful and imaginative animated story from Vietnam.

Trees and other plants during the period of American colonial rule in the Philippines, photographed from the perspective of those in power. The images not only document the rich flora, they categorize and classify the resources of the colony. The forest becomes inventory. From potted plants to sawmills, from logging to reforestation: In her essay Shireen Seno takes us to the essence of photography itself – and to its relationship with colonialism. Because both are trying to pick something.

Silesia: a contested region marked by migrations. Animosities between the peoples have a long tradition here, not only since the Second World War. But the National Socialist tyranny left clear lesions behind. The director’s grandfather comes from this region, was the organist in a church in Krasiejów – a place which was once also called Krascheow and, for a while, Schönhorst.

The filmmaker Juliane Henrich – or more precisely, her alter ego, the writer Nannina Matz – sets out in search of her family history. What she finds are bizarre ways of representing the history of humanity – and the history of earth. She comes across all kinds of traces of dinosaurs. Some may only be made of plastic, but others are not: A certain species of this genus, whose fossils were found in Silesia, was christened “Silesaurus opolensis” by the Polish palaeontologist Jerzy Dzik. That’s why there is a Dinosaur Park in Krasiejów. And a local museum, of course. But also many people with different individual memories. They do not necessarily lead to ground-breaking discoveries regarding the looked-for family past, but they broaden the view: of the complex history of this region and the way it is thought together, represented and codified.