Leier und Schwert

'Sacrifice' follows the love story between James Hunter and Blake Robinson as they begin a new phase in their life together. Forces out of their control tear them apart but to what extent and consequence? How much will they sacrifice? A traditional military love story from a perspective which has not yet been seen before.

An innocent father and his blind daughter with a doll spend their days within the walls of a bunker during the final stages of civil war in Sri Lanka. The surprising third character connects the father, daughter and the doll in a sorrowful manner. The blood tears they shed during the darkest hours are unheard by many. The characters represent the current stages of the tamils in Sri Lanka. The ones who died, disappeared and the living dead.

A herd of war-torn and hungry rats tries to get an answer to the question of who is Lili Marleen from a mortally wounded young soldier stuck in a projectile funnel. Is it a reminder of first love or first relationship with a prostitute earning her daily bread? Lili Marleen is not just a distant heroine from a song. Every soldier boy has her own Lili, be it his first love from school or just an imagination. But always, no matter what happens, she is waiting for her soldier underneath the lantern by the barrack gate...

Dreams of the Past

Sarajevo in the twentieth month of its besiegement. The situation is critical, but the city chooses to organise an international film festival. Dutch filmmakers Johan van der Keuken and Frank Vellenga present Van der Keuken's documentaries Face Value and Brass Unbound there, and one of the festival organisers asks a festival visitor: "What is the significance of film in war?" In Sarajevo Film Festival Film, a reflection on film, war and daily life, fictional images are juxtaposed in a disconcerting way with the gruesome reality of the life of a festival visitor.

Set in an alternate WWI reality where a senseless war rages on, two soldiers on opposite sides of the conflict play a joyful game of chess. A heroic carrier pigeon delivers the soldiers' chess moves over the battlefield as the fighting escalates. Neither soldier knows his opponent as the game and the war builds to its climatic final move. Whoever wins the game, one thing is for certain: there are no winners in war.

Toto, a worker in Catalonia, analyzes the violence spiral experienced in Barcelona in October 2019.

This film ballad is dedicated to those who never returned home from WW2. A group of retreating Soviet soldiers, crossing a lunar terrain in a desperate attempt to escape death, is attacked by a German fighter plane that appears like a bolt from the blue. One by one they are killed. Then suddenly, in an unlikely denouement bordering on the mystical, the attacker is shot down with a simple rifle. For ideological reasons that defy understanding this film, one of Viktor Hres’ earliest works, was shelved in 1967 by Soviet censors. In 2010, it was restored by the Debut Studio of the Oleksander Dovzhenko Film Studio with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Ukraine.

Ferdinand, Battlefield Rat

Killed in war, a man must overcome the various obstacles he encounters in limbo to save his life and thus meet his son, about to be born.

Mizar is constantly moving and running in Sniper surrounded Sarajevo streets. On the other hand, Mizar father, Jamil is handicapped and his only connection to the world is his son Mizar. One day the door bell of the room they reside in rings.

Levitan: That Night

The film is set during World War II in a German-occupied European country. In a covered truck on a snow-covered road, the Germans are transporting a group of civilians. Thoughts of imminent death inevitably visit the passengers of the van. The Catholic priest accompanying the arrested, among whom there is a boy, prepares the companions to leave for another world. A complex psychological conflict arises between the priest and the boy. Circumstances develop in such a way that the boy manages to escape.

Lost at war, two soldiers struggle to find their moral grounding before their ultimate demise.

1918 - A woman imagines her lover has returned from the horrors of war in France, remembering moments shared together. A tale of love and loss told through classical ballet.

A comedy short Directed by Castleton Knight,

Fallen Art presents the story of General A, a self-proclaimed artist. His art, however, consists of a deranged method of stop motion photography, where the individual frames of the movie are created by photographs made by Dr. Johann Friedrich, depicting the bodies of dead soldiers, pushed down by Sergeant Al from a giant springboard onto a slab of concrete.

Made at the height of 'cold war' paranoia, this drama-documentary shows the work of the UK Warning and Monitoring Organisation, who's duties included the issuing of public warnings of any nuclear missile strike and the subsequent fallout.

On a winter morning, a mother goes to waken her son Heinrich; his bed is empty. She leaves her flat to find him. The neighbors' door, with a Star of David painted on it, is ajar, the furnishings in disarray, the family gone. She asks passersby, runs to the police then on to the rail yard. Flashbacks show that Heinrich and the neighbors' son Paul are six years old and best friends. Paul's family's deportation is expected soon; Heinrich's mother tells her son that they're going to Toyland. Heinrich wants to go with them, has a bag packed, and listens for their departure. His mother realizes he's joined them, and her resolve becomes more urgent. Will she arrive in time to save Heinrich?

A story of broken humanity following the invasion of a technologically superior alien species. Bleak, harrowing, and unrelenting, the humans must find enough courage to go on fighting.