Open Doors

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The making of a horror movie takes on a terrifying reality for students at the most prestigious film school in the country. At Alpine University, someone is determined to win the best film award at any cost - even if it means eliminating the competition. No one is safe and everyone is a suspect.

A young film student pursues a woman while studying under a bizarre, eccentric film professor.

Two Italian brothers, Franco and Giovanni, are marked by envy and resentment. While Giovanni, a talented painter, gains recognition in Brazil, Franco stays in Italy, enjoying the attention of their parents —attention that was always denied to the younger brother. When Franco asks Giovanni for a painting during a brief trip to Brazil, the bitterness between them reaches a breaking point, revealing a truth as painful as the artwork created.

Erik Nietzsche is an intelligent but in many ways inexperienced shy young man who is convinced that he wants to be a film director. In the late 1970s, Erik is accepted by the Danish National Film School where he enters a world of angry and unhelpful tutors, weird fellow students and unwritten rules. In this both exhilarating and angst-provoking period for him, Erik feels increasingly like a foreigner in the film industry. Frequently, he is merely an observer of the absurdities that surround him. He encounters trade union disputes, falls in love and experiences self-assured empowered women who refuse to make a commitment. The film is a drama full of comedy - a sharp portrait of a conceited but entertaining world of film which we suspect our dogged young director will eventually conquer with his vision.

Deiphago

Oki, a film student, gets involved in two relationships as she navigates the advances of a fellow student and grapples with her feelings for her much older professor.

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.