Strategy for a Dance

Stepping is a dance form that can be found across the country at virtually every college with a substantial African American enrollment. Stepping is performed informally during parties as well as more formally during organized step shows. This film explores this tradition, its historical roots as well as its contemporary forms, styles and uses, to understand how students construct various levels of identity through this dance form…African American identity, fraternity or sorority identity, gendered identity and personal identity. The film goes behind the scenes with the Alpha Phi Alphas as they prepare for a step show that is only a few hours away. Cutting between this show and interviews with current and past steppers as well as footage from previous shows, the film provides a broad picture of this vibrant and dynamic dance form.

What makes the life of a dancer? - Burghausen dance professional Patrick Grigo aka Parrish gives an insight into the last 30 years of his career. He talks about his first steps on the dancefloor and the tough path into his dancing career, his great successes and also the many setbacks, his decisions and valuable experiences. Taking responsibility has always been one of his core values and has taken him to the world's great show stages, made him a national coach and helped him to be part of the team that took the dance sport of “Breaking” to the Olympic Games. Director Julian Heinke accompanied the still active dancer on his travels and shows him from exciting angles as well as on unpublished video material from his active time.

BLACK BALLERINA tells the story of several black women from different generations who fell in love with ballet. Six decades ago, while pursuing their dreams, Joan Myers Brown, Delores Browne and Raven Wilkinson confronted racism, exclusion and unequal opportunity. Today, young dancers of color continue to face formidable challenges breaking into the overwhelmingly white world of ballet. Moving back and forth in time, this lyrical, character driven film shows how far we still have to go and stimulates a fresh discussion about race, inclusion and opportunity across all sectors of American society.

A short experimental film that explores one filmmaker’s journey to preserve fleeting moments before they fade. Created as a heartfelt introduction into Koen's film making journey, the film blends nostalgic visuals with inventive storytelling techniques, exploring childhood dreams, the fear of forgetting, and the impulse to document life as it unfolds. This marks Koen’s first true dive into editing and cinematography, born from years of unfinished projects, it stands as a heartfelt introduction to a lifelong pursuit of storytelling, dedicated to the child in all of us who once dreamed.

Alone, Eva Fahidi returned home to Hungary after WWII. At 20 years of age, she had survived Auschwitz Birkenau, while 49 members of her family were murdered, including her mother, father, and little sister. Today, at age 90, Eva is asked to participate in a dance theatre performance about her life's journey. This would be her first experience performing on a stage. Reka, the director, imagines a duet between Eva and a young, internationally acclaimed dancer, Emese. Reka wants to see these two women, young and old, interact on stage, to see how their bodies, and stories, can intertwine. Eva agrees immediately. Three women - three months - a story of crossing boundaries. Whilst the extraordinary moments of Eva's life are distilled into theater scenes, a truly wonderful and powerful relationship forms among the three women.

Moving Together is a celebratory love letter to music and dance that brims with kinetic life and energy. This documentary explores the intricate collaboration between dancers and musicians, moving seamlessly between Flamenco, Modern, and New Orleans Second Line.

The Road is a deeply personal experimental film by Jana Hammoudeh, chronicling her journey as a nomadic soul, always on the move yet never truly belonging. Shot across three separate road trips, the film blends visual poetry with intimate monologues in multiple languages, reflecting the fragmented nature of the protagonist’s life. The film’s segments—Leaving Amman, Scrambled Eggs, and Postcards to a Friend—explore themes of love, loss, and freedom. The first segment, set in Amman, presents a conflicted relationship with home, inspired by Charles Bukowski’s Let It Enfold You. The second, in French, revisits past romances, while the third, narrated in Kazakh and Urdu, contemplates departure and longing. Through dreamlike cinematography and raw reflections, The Road captures the bittersweet beauty of transient nature of life and self-discovery.

How Montreal is transformed from winter to spring. Inspired by Berlin: Symphony of a great city, Printemps Now! is a cinematographic poem, an audiovisual symphony of the city of Montreal transitioning from winter to spring.

Le crash

Set at an artificial reservoir in North Carolina, RESERVOIR (SEVEN FRAGMENTS) is a meditation on the unnatural histories of the American environment. The film approaches both the cinematic image and the landscape it captures as damaged, estranged things—things adrift in a world of irreparable discord.

“All that which in Picture is not of the body or argument thereof is Landskip, Parergon, or By-work” (Thomas Blount, Glossographia, 1656).

This experimental film takes a closer look through the entomologist's lens at the cyclical behavioural patterns linking humans to the insect world. Just as the fig wasp inevitably finds death in the pollination of the fig tree flower, we too are thrown into the dance of passion and death. Drawn by the seductive scent of allurement and the inevitability of the final end.

Some spaces draw attention, as if they evoke something that’s about to happen. These are the places where we escape when we dream or die. The only thing that exists is time; we wait for the moment to arrive.

A being from the beyond returns to Chile in 2019, embodied in a worker who dreams of social upheaval. Viral videos intertwine with fiction to narrate the experiences of a polarized country that wanders between drama and absurdity, illusion and failure.

A love story, portraying the dilemmas and inevitable consequences of ambition. It is a film about a woman's fight for independence, a woman trying to succeed with her own art in the extremely competitive world of dance.

An experimental documentary/animation hybrid exploring likeness scanning, AI, and what that means for identity.

A reframing of the classic tale of Narcissus, the director draws on snippets of conversation with a trusted friend to muse on gender and identity. Just as shimmers are difficult to grasp as knowable entities, so does the concept of a gendered self feel unknowable except through reflection. Is it Narcissus that Echo truly longs for, or simply the Knowing he possesses when gazing upon himself?

A love letter to Mar del Plata made of images, times and a road trip. "The Happy Ones" is an experimental short documentary composed of past and present family footage. It portrays a place in the summer, the city of Mar del Plata, with a span of 20 years between past and present images (January 2000 and 2020). Despite the time that passed by, it's beaches, essence and people remain, always willing to keep dancing.

A last tour throughout a day through the signs and the memory of a house. A sensory and poetic exploration that reflects an intimate and nostalgic look at the places we inhabit and the way they contain us.

Two instants separated by 99 days conflict with each other.