Is This Water?

The images from the landing of the first expedition of the spaceship Columbia are juxtaposed to a reflection on the function of the visual medium, and artistic creation as a whole.

The Saharawi women face the thirst of the hamada, the curse of the desert, every day. They’ve built their refuge in a land where no one could survive before. For more than forty years they’ve been holding out and taking care of their people there. They ensure every drop of water is distributed according to the needs of each family … and they wait. But there’s an even more terrible thirst in their throats, for which they find no relief.

The decision to move to Holland doesn't sound like a wise idea. Why move to a country that could be flooded at any moment? For the last 25 years, the political climate has shifted. The public debate on migration has become harsher, more heated, and polarized. What would have been considered right-wing xenophobia back then, is now considered mainstream. Populists simplify complex realities into good and evil, victims and perpetrators: ‘us’ versus ‘them’. Their rhetoric often consists of dehumanizing words and metaphors. One of these is ‘water’. In reality, water is not an immediate threat to the average Dutch person; but it is a huge threat to the thousands trying to reach the Netherlands. People trying to survive the Mediterranean Sea in rubber boats. Trying to survive winter on the Aegean coast in primitive tents. To them, water really is deadly.

Scientists dive deep on the mysterious and unusual predatory behavior of orcas attacking great white sharks, and the disappearance of the other sharks after these attacks.

Embarrassed about his identity and culture, a meek Indian high-schooler decides to attend an American university to pursue his passion for film. But in doing so, he causes a rift in his fundamentalist family.

Through encounters with a hydrologist, a farmer, and citizens mobilized around the Marais Poitevin, the director helps us understand the effects—on biodiversity and the state of rivers—of substitution reservoirs, also known as megabassins. For several years, Anne-Morwenn, David, Patrick, Yann, and others have been fighting for fair water sharing and devising ways to convince as many people as possible that it is time to change the agricultural model.

Jonathan Stavleu explores, in a stream-of-consciousness video essay, the relationship people have with water and what happens when access to it is taken away. For this work, he examines anecdotal histories he has heard from Estonians, as well as stories from his own family history in the Netherlands, weaving them together into a journal-like narrative.

Mar Urbano Lisboa

Eusebio José Fernández López Reboredo Bergamín is a teenager in the 1960s whose dream is to be a movie director, but General Francisco Franco prohibited in 1964 all types of art. A coincidental encounter with another artist, named Antonio Mínguez, will change his life.

Steve Coogan, an arrogant actor with low self-esteem and a complicated love life, is playing the eponymous role in an adaptation of "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" being filmed at a stately home. He constantly spars with actor Rob Brydon, who is playing Uncle Toby and believes his role to be of equal importance to Coogan's.

A short documentary about the making of Abbas Kiarostami's 'Shirin'.

"Water reflections are never static, its fluid form constantly plays with the light in new and totally unique ways. Trying to capture this process naturally leads to an imperfect representation. Embracing this, ‘a puddle of water held in shape by my thoughts’ plays with the materiality of the digital image with the border between digital grain and the movement of the water constantly blurring. This ongoing research project consists of clips recorded over the last two years. - During the Leaving Space exhibition (2024) the work was presented as an installation using an old LCD screen, a wash-stool and other spacial elements. The space where the screen was installed could only be observed from the outside through the glass doors but not entered.

Swim Sistas follows the swimming journeys of three very different Black girls/women as barriers are broken down in the water.

Nel silenzio del parco

The story of a normal water bottle living the average day to day life when suddenly tragedy strikes and he isn’t anymore, but what is it that remains of him? Has anything even changed in his absence? Does anyone notice the water bottle is gone?

A group of settlers traveling through the Oregon High Desert in 1845 find themselves stranded in harsh conditions.

Fragmentum Cinema: Sueños

This 1950s' film looks at the measures to preserve water flow from the Rocky Mountains. With the steady falling of the water table, the exploitation of timber stands and the recession of glaciers, water conservation was an urgent concern of the Alberta and federal governments.

Filmmakers Jordan Reclus and Mathieu Ciulla travel through the South of France, investigating an elusive water vein with the help of water engineers and well-known local dowsers. A documentary offering a glimpse into the unsuspected routine of water through the little-known prism of dowsing. Water does not always seem to flow the right way…

An insider's look into Francis Ford Coppola's latest Live Cinema project, Distant Vision.