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.”

The camera calmly explores the holes and fissures of a cliff face, the traces of the ocean. The austere landscape seems to have fallen out of time. Only a few decades ago, fishermen threw their trap baskets into the water from here. Today, the sea around Malta has long been fished dry. Punta, a moustachioed islander, wants to have one more go.
A weir is woven from the hairs of a horsetail, a forgotten craft is demonstrated. An intercut Super 8 film documents the diversity of marine life in the past; its grainy images radiate something irretrievable. An octopus curls around a foot, a jellyfish floats through the eternal blue. Punta gazes melancholically at the sea, far beneath him the waves are crashing against the rock as they have always done. And yet the sight is deceptive, because he and we know that no fish will ever stray into his weir. The rough singing of a woman’s voice begins.

Surrounded by high-rises, Natalia has created her own, not-so-small paradise: Goats roam free, shrubs and fruit trees bloom, the chickens busily lay eggs. Natalia meets repeated attempts to buy the plot with brusque derision. Even when the city and country are attacked by Russia in the wintry February of 2022, she retains her apparent carefree resistance: While all the lights around go out at night, there is a warm and cozy glow from Natalia’s house. Only Kitty, with whom she lives, expresses concern, organises his flight from Ukraine and prophylactically shows the spots that would be safest in an air raid.
Adelina Borets’ portrait of an incorruptible woman finds its own unique tone, shows a simple everyday life throughout the seasons that presents itself as self-determined and buoyant despite the worsening situation. Borets adopts Natalia’s manner as natural, gives her space. The dimensions of the war unfold step by step, at Natalia’s own pace and by skilful cuts and pans. “Flowers of Ukraine” is a film about a disaster. But it is also a love song to life – and pickled tomatoes.

Lazy and yet insistent, summer knocks on the doors of a Berlin trailer park. Right next to the busy Ostkreuz intersection, this settlement stands in the way of the hectic hustle and bustle of the capital. A green oasis. This summer, among the plants and trees in full bloom and fruit, wild shrubs and lovingly improvised dwellings, Aalo, Jone, Royce, Noah, Kï, Neo, Marlek and Steffen must begin to say goodbye to their cozy home. Liberated from the heteronormative conventions of society, the Mollies collective has for years lived a queer-feminist counter lifestyle here.
Dane Komljen manages with great calm to make this hard-won free space tangible, to capture it as a momentum pointing beyond its own duration – even though the eviction has been long in coming. Building cranes rise to the sky behind the green walls, sounds of demolition come closer, the rattling of trains, the sirens of ambulances mingle with the busy humming of the many insects. What lies in store for the inhabitants is left open. But autumn is bound to come and when the leaves fall, the site will fall victim to the city’s development plans. Another space of possibility for alternative lifestyles disappears.

Highly focused groups of humans move through nature. It is night and they are listening. Or it is midday and they are counting. Sometimes they carry antennas on their backs and roam meadows at the edge of the forest. They are the witnesses of the so-called sixth extinction, the people who document the disappearance of biodiversity in the Anthropocene. Marianna Milhorat approaches them with patience, spending a long time with women who discuss the intensity of the croaking of frogs, while the roar of the streets can be heard in the background. Others report on the “sea star wasting disease”, a mysterious illness that turns starfish into a whitish mush.
“Just Above the Surface of the Earth” leaves little room for hope, but at the same time puts its faith in the indefatigable individuals who have at least decided not to close their eyes. It is to them that Milhorat dedicates this experimental portrait, sophisticated on all cinematic levels. For it is not only bats that flutter through the film, but also thoughts: by Cormac McCarthy, William Golding, Martin Heidegger, or about the mythical river of the dead, Styx. The score, composed by Brian Kirkbride, translates the various microcosms into immersive sound art, giving us access to a world that we often inhabit as if blind and deaf.

There was an eery silence after a fire had destroyed the Moria camp completely in September 2020. Not just locally, but in public discourse. The world did not seem particularly concerned with the inhumane conditions in other camps on Europe’s external borders or the countless pushbacks in the Mediterranean. Nor did the arrest of six adolescents who were accused of arson resonate in any audible way – though even a second glance at the circumstances of the investigation and the criminal proceedings revealed the actions of the Greek judiciary to be questionable. Not to mention the underlying refugee policy of the European Union.
Jennifer Mallmann dares to take this second glance with her film. At its centre is her correspondence with Hassan, one of the convicted youths, who tells her of his everyday life, his desires and fears from prison. Calm, precisely framed images document “normality” on the fringes of Fortress Europe. They show how strategical isolation and the ensuing structural exclusion work. If you want to know how our community of nations imagines its future you only need to look at the newly-built futuristic high-security camp on Lesbos, where new arrivals are treated like people who have committed serious crimes.

Director Yvann Yagchi, the son of Palestinian migrants, and his Jewish best friend spend a carefree childhood far away from politics on the neutral ground of Switzerland. As adults, both long for religious and ethnic affiliation. Yvann wants to visit Palestine at last and break generations of silence about the fate of his family. His friend moves to a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Thus begins the story of a failed reunion.
With frankness and patience, Yvann’s film, addressed directly at his former closest confidant, documents his own emotional development: Initial optimism and diplomatic reserve soon give way to an underlying unease. When a Palestinian refugee challenges him to give up the platitudes about striving for truth and formulate his opinion clearly, we realise that there can be only one standpoint for Yvann. There is a rift between the friends, vividly illustrated by animated doodles. Reflections on a lost friendship turn into a search for identity, made immeasurably harder by the ongoing destruction of Palestinian existence.

26-year-old Valentina still lives with her parents. She has always put their welfare before her own needs. The two, on the other hand, keep harping on how clumsy and unambitious she is. The sensitive young woman finds reassurance in the artful crocheting of woollen blossoms and among the thousand-year-old cork oaks of the nature reserve surrounding her hometown. The small Sicilian town of Niscemi is of the highest global political importance: Since 2016, the US Navy has been operating a ground station with huge parabolic antennas here for their satellite communication system MUOS. The system also serves to locate Russian military in the Ukraine and turns the region into a potential target for attacks. The locals have been protesting for years. Due to the strong electromagnetic waves the health risks are enormous.
The remarkable sound design underlines the danger and conveys a sense of unease that grows with all the other threats: massive environmental destruction caused by intensive agriculture, drought, fires. Valentina is deeply shaken. Against her parents’ wishes, she takes part in anti-MUOS rallies, wants to become independent at last, drive a car, get a job. This tender story of emancipation is enchanting with its subtle narrative and dream-like interventions. Valentina will be remembered for a long time!