Open Doors

L, a student in India witness to the government's violent response to university protests, writes letters to her estranged lover while he is away.

Founded in 1954 as the “Deutsche Hochschule für Filmkunst”, today's “Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen” is celebrating its 50th anniversary. The documentary traces the history of the university. Graduates of the school have their say and excerpts of student films from five decades are presented.

Rafaela, an 80-year-old woman, has a long conversation with her grandson, going over his path from childhood to old age. Now that she has been diagnosed with chronic breast cancer, faith is more present in her life than ever, which coexists with Rafaela's fear of death, and her grandson's fear of dying.

Keenly aware that his niece is going through a particularly rough time at home, Uncle James teaches Ava Dee how to use the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera. As an experiment, he tells her to shoot whatever she wants and he'll edit it into a film.

Agressivity and the will to compete are also part of childhood. At a poor district’s boxing club the kids live a close friendship and find a place to express a fury that is violent but liberating.

The Sahrawi people have lived in exile for almost half a century in the driest desert of the African continent. There, where basic resources such as water are scarce, there is a film school. As the world looks the other way, a group of young filmmakers carries out a battle against oblivion.

A unique visual interpretation of Tyler, the Creator's latest album, Chromakopia.

In Rome, Gianclaudio Lopez, a retired teacher, sets off in search of his former students who are now approaching their thirties. A Class Story mixes sequences of the video diary that the teenagers had filmed at the time and sequences shot now in which the protagonists, adults, remember this period and speak of their dreams, illusions and regrets.

Follows the defiance of two art institutions in the Caribbean: one closed but squatted by artists, the other fighting to stay open. Against the backdrop of political strife, Haitian and Guadeloupean artists grapple with the concept of freedom in their battle to preserve their spaces.

An epic exploration of the Czechoslovak New Wave cinema of the 1960s and 70s, structured around a series of conversations with one of its most acclaimed exponents - Closely Observed Trains director Jiří Menzel.

A deeply personal documentary about the loving relationship between the director and her mother. Using interviews and animated family archives, it explores moments of joy and struggle of an ,,unordinary family".

Since Rosa was little, people used to say around town that her grandfather was a black dog. The legend, belonging to the Valley of Oaxaca, spoke of a man who had the ability to turn into a black dog and roam the streets at night. Through images of the town, interviews with the brothers and animated interventions, the documentary tells the story of the myth and its importance in the collective memory.

In Spain, a poor country ruined by the recent Civil War (1936-39), and in the midst of Franco's dictatorship, a film school was created in Madrid in 1947, which became, almost unintentionally, a space of freedom and pure experimentation until its closure in 1976.

A short film that portrays the lives of two students from the Abidin Kaid Saleh Film School, located in the Sahrawi refugee camps

Tormented by pain, grievous memories and old age in a merciless solitude, the cantankerous and sullen Fausto, who goes leaving traces of bitterness behind himself, understands that never changes the final destination: return eventually to the nothingness from which we came.

Don Lázaro is a former gunslinger that has left behind his years of violence to care for his granddaughter, Beatriz. The child suffers a terminal disease and doesn’t have much hope to live. Lázaro is visited by a former friend for an appointment that will decide Beatriz’ future.

Etienne comes to Paris to study filmmaking at the Sorbonne. He meets Mathias and Jean-Noël who share his passion for films. But as they spend the year studying, they have to face friendship and love challenges as well as choosing their artistic battles.

A shy but ambitious film student falls into an intense, emotionally fraught relationship with a charismatic but untrustworthy older man.

In the aftermath of her tumultuous relationship with a charismatic and manipulative older man, Julie begins to untangle her fraught love for him in making her graduation film, sorting fact from his elaborately constructed fiction.

A young couple's last hours together before a trip that will separate them.