Monegros

A strange story from Somerset, England about a filmmaking farmer and the inspiring legacy of his long-lost home movies.

The Mancuso family has practiced transhumant grazing for generations, moving the herd of Podolica cattle from the Marcedusa countryside to the large Sila forests.

It documents the life of a couple of grandparents in their rural home, showing their connection with nature and their daily tasks. Through simple recordings, the director, their granddaughter, explores the importance of family ties.

Cyrille, a young gay farmer from Auvergne, has only one friend, a homosexual like him. One day, he goes on vacation to a beach in Charente Maritime. He cannot swim and sees the sea for the first time. It was there that he met the director Rodolphe Marconi who decided to devote this sensitive and gentle portrait to him, plunging us into an agricultural world in crisis and into a life often lonely and made up of hard work rarely pays off.

Khaïma

Best friends Hazel Findlay and Maddy Cope journey to the rocky outer reaches of Mongolia, on a quixotic search for new trad routes.

A provocative and poetic exploration of how the British people have seen their own land through more than a century of cinema. A hallucinated journey of immense beauty and brutality. A kaleidoscopic essay on how magic and madness have linked human beings to nature since the beginning of time.

Currently Mongolia’s capital has 1.5 million inhabitants - half the population of the country. 50-year Tumurbaatar is only one of many coming to the city to fulfil their dreams of a better life.

Varda focuses her eye on gleaners: those who scour already-reaped fields for the odd potato or turnip. Her investigation leads from forgotten corners of the French countryside to off-hours at the green markets of Paris, following those who insist on finding a use for that which society has cast off, whether out of necessity or activism.

A colourful miscellany of footage from both sides of the Pennines.

Carlos Saura shows us in this piece his personal vision of the land where he was born. Throughout the seasons we enter a route that ranges from the green Pyrenean landscapes to the Monegros desert. The images offer us the beauty of this Aragonese land but also reflect the harshness of its contrasts.

Documentary about Swedish emigration to Argentina via Brazil.

Shot in Southern England over the course of six weeks by a crew of three American filmmakers, CircleSpeak offers a nuanced look at the passions and beliefs of the people immersed in the crop circle phenomenon during the season of 2001. This feature-length documentary presents interviews with serious “researchers”, self-proclaimed “hoaxers”, local farmers and villagers who are all, in one way or another, involved in this strange and compelling summer spectacle taking place year after year.

A Sherpa family breaks a taboo and climbs the most holy of mountains to earn money for their son’s education. They accompany a western expedition on East Wall of the Khumbakarna Mountain, a wall that has never been climbed before. ‘The Wall of Shadows’ tells the story of an encounter between a young Sherpa boy and an experienced western mountaineer at the foot of the sacred mountain. Will they face the wrath of mountain Gods?

When is the moment you think: I'm going to hoist my regional flag? Who are these flaghoisters? And what does it mean to identify with your region? These are questions that filmmaker Okki Poortvliet, theatermaker Hans van der Werf and designer Vera Vos asked. So, they went through the whole of Drenthe, a region in the North of The Netherlands where all three of them grew up, to collect as many stories as possible from hoisters of the flag of Drenthe. The Flaghoisters is a film about the confrontation between the countryside and, as people from Drenthe call it, “the city dwellers”. A story about a disappearing language, the safety of your village, greeting each other, being proud, and just acting "normal".

Take a revealing tour along a coast of contrasts, from the folksy freshness of Whitby to the coaly Tyne, queen of all rivers.

In 1927, filmmaker Oskar Fischinger traveled for three weeks along the side roads between Munich and Berlin, filming frame by frame the people he met along the way and the places he passed through. In 2020, the director did a remake of this film during a month-long walk between Paris and Brest.

Bachar à la ZAD

After a career filming across five continents, EMMY and BAFTA winning wildlife cameraman Stephen de Vere returns to the English countryside, to explore the hidden world beyond the garden gate. From playful fox cubs to the barn owl tending to her chicks, explore the extraordinary world waiting beyond the garden gate. The film is a personal view, giving an insight into what it’s like being a wildlife cameraman and reminding us that you don’t have to travel to all corners of the world to get close to nature.

Les Danses de Tami