Buzzy bees pollinate the flowers in the executioner's courtyard. An overgrown window projects shadows of leaves on the cracked walls of the former cell. Nearby lies the last occupant of the building, the decayed corpse of a curious marten. The former prison has stood in Uherské Hradiště for almost 130 years. Since the WWII it has been the site of political trials, torture and executions. The German Gestapo was replaced by the Czechoslovak Communist government and continued to suppress basic human rights until it ceased operations in the 1960s. The empty premises were used for the Secondary School of Arts and Crafts, a school canteen, a recreation hall, a theatre warehouse. Today the prison is forgotten by its surroundings, surrounded by a supermarket, a bus station and an art school. [Czech film center]

At the heart of this movement is Alishah Farhang, a former Winter Olympic hopeful whose dream of being the first to represent Afghanistan in alpine skiing transforms into a mission to bring his passion for the sport to his homeland. Equipped with handmade wooden skis and secondhand gear, young athletes from rival villages come together to compete in a ski mountaineering race like no other. The event becomes a powerful catalyst for unity and hope, showcasing the transformative power of sport to bridge deep divides. And when their world is suddenly upended, Alishah and the athletes must call upon those lessons learned on the slopes.

Riveting, uplifting and deeply human, this is a story about how champions can be made by more than medals. With the spirit of an underdog sports story, Champions of the Golden Valley is a visually stunning and utterly unique perspective on the Olympic dream – showing how competition can strengthen communities, unite cultures, and bring light to even the most unexpected corners of the world.

Lace Relations follows the twisted threats of textile history. The film looks at the dramatic encounters of Nigeria and Austria; it introduces flamboyant fashion icons and industrious manufacturers,  and evokes the ghosts lingering in the hidden seams of colonial history.

In the early 1990s 13-year-old Karolína, a gifted novice singer, is given the chance to become a member of a world-famous girls' choir, taking her place alongside her older sister and her other rivals in the ensemble. Karolína’s exceptional talent has caught the attention of the formidable and much admired choirmaster whose attention is wanted by all the young singers. What will be the price Karolína has to pay to become his favourite?  [Czech film institute]

Fortezza/Franzensfeste ist ein Dorf in einem Tal, das nie die Sonne sieht. Selbst im Sommer ist es Winter. Die meiste Arbeit wird nachts erledigt oder untertage. Eine Festung für den Kaiser, ein Staudamm für Mussolini, ein Tunnel für Europa werfen ihre Schatten. Hier wird man nicht geboren, man kommt auf der Suche nach Arbeit, verbraucht sich für Bauten, die einen überdauern werden, und wird hier sterben. Dennoch wirken die Bewohner:innen gelöst, wenn sie von der Flucht vor Regimen und Vätern erzählen, und vom Spaß daran, Felsen zu sprengen. Züge halten, doch niemand fährt weg. Ein paradoxer Ort.

The spectre of climate change is haunting us. Why can’t we find answers to the greatest challenge of our time? Trop Chaud, a courtroom thriller from the European Court of Human Rights, clarifies matters.

The Swiss KlimaSeniorinnen (senior women against climate change) are fighting on the front line. Instead of retiring, these elderly women from the civil society in all parts of multilingual Switzerland want to do something about the increasingly frequent heat waves. They bravely take on their own country and file a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against the Swiss government, claiming that it is not doing enough to protect their health. It is a seemingly hopeless undertaking that, after eight years of fighting, culminates in a spectacular ruling that attracts worldwide attention. On 9 April 2024, the ECHR rules that climate protection is a human right. A triumph for the Swiss KlimaSeniorinnen. But Switzerland chooses not to implement the landmark ruling.

​​After years of estrangement, Lina, a Moldovan journalist, receives a video message from her father, a migrant worker in Italy, showing bruises on his arms. Equipping him with a hidden camera so that he may find justice, Lina finds herself on a parallel journey — uncovering a pattern of domestic violence that has plagued her family for generations. Filmed across Italy, Moldova, and Romania, TATA is a raw portrait of a family locked in a relentless struggle against toxic masculinity. It tells the story of a daughter's emotionally poignant quest to break the cycle for herself, the next generation, and even for the one who hurt her.

„Frauen machen die härteren Filme!“ Seit Kult-Regisseurin Kira Muratova der jungen Filmemacherin Isa Willinger am Beginn ihrer Filmkarriere diesen Gedanken mit auf den Weg gab, ließ der sie nicht mehr los. Wie kann das sein, wo doch „weiblich“ eher mit „empathisch“ und „gefühlvoll“ gleichgesetzt wird?

Nun begibt sich Willinger auf zu einer Reise zu den großen Regisseurinnen unserer Zeit. Sie trifft mit weltberühmten Regie-Ikonen, ebenso wie Newcomerinnen und radikalen Vordenkerinnen zusammen. Dabei wird klar, dass die Leinwand Projektionsfläche realer gesellschaftlicher Probleme und Machtverhältnisse ist. Die Frage, die NO MERCY stellt, geht tief: Wo stehen wir heute wirklich in punkto Frauen, Männer und Macht?

Fekry's Thoughts, Essam Hayder, EG 2025, 20 min

Dear Sikhonkwane, Shile Hlophe, ZA 2025, 20 min

Women of Bissau, Juan Garcia de la Fuente/ Dave Jackson, ES 2024, 20 min

The Warriors Of Love, Joaquín Gonzáles, CO 2024, 15 min

Hi Mom, It's Me, Lou Lou, Atakan Yilmaz, TK 2024, 20 min

Carrie Fernandez inherits a patent for one of her late father's inventions: a medical-grade healing device. To gain clarity, she embarks on a journey between biographical curiosity and alienation from what the financiers of her father's parascientific ventures have to say about his world and its truths.

In 2018 the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections concludes that the methods used in correctional practises today are not giving the desired results. There are high numbers of incarcerations and recidivism, in connection with a stressed-out staff whose life expectancy is lower than amongst war veterans. 

One possible solution is to try and change the focus, and move towards a more humane and rehabilitating setting inside the prison. 

In the summer of 2019 a group of correctional officers and management travels around Scandinavia in order to be inspired to a new way of doing things. For two weeks the US correctional officers work side-by-side with Norwegian colleagues to observe and collect clues on how aspects of Scandinavian prison practices, elements and methods could be adapted back home. 

In late 2019 construction starts in the Charlie Alpha unit at State Correctional Institute Chester. This unit was given the name "Little Scandinavia". 

The documentary follows the whole process from the early start in 2018 until January 2023. 

The Beginning of Identification, and its End, Philipp Gufler, DE 2024, 19 min

In Thousand Petals, Louise Bongartz, BE 2023, 10 min

Sixty-seven Milliseconds, Fleuryfontaine, FR 2025, 15 min

Abortion Party, Julia Mellen, ES 2025, 13 min

Touching fish, Yongjin Li, CN 2025, 13 min

A documentary portrait of Erich Richard Finsches: a Viennese contemporary witness, Holocaust survivor, and person of public interest. The portrait will first shed light on Erich Finsches' youth, which was marked by persecution by the Nazis. It will explore his character and examine how his experiences shaped him. His later life in post-war Vienna will also be discussed, and the film will explore how the then 18-year-old Erich, alone, without parents, but with firm determination and a zest for life, built a new existence for himself. We gain insight into the everyday life of Erich Finsches, now 94 years old, who, despite his history marked by the past, is still tireless in his efforts to convey his story to younger generations. His walking disability hardly prevents him from tirelessly attending commemorative ceremonies and schools at home and abroad to tell his story and convey his message of “never again” to students and interested parties.

Oceania is an elegy, an investigation, and a call to action. The film challenges us to reconsider which connections are most important for the survival of humanity and ecosystems, and why we must restore them if we want to survive as a species. The story begins on a coral atoll that is expected to be uninhabitable by 2030 due to rising sea levels and temperatures caused by climate change. We follow a mother and her adult son as they struggle to preserve their culture, freedom, and independence after decades of colonization.

"Based on my own experience, which I extend through that of other infertile people, I show how Medically Assisted Reproduction changes our relationship with the body and the imaginary. We need to put mystery back where science gives us everything (too much) to see." Director Elodie Lélu

An extremely original film revolving around a series of fateful phone calls. The phone rings for the first time in 1992. We are in the Serbian city of Novi Sad, where someone calls 11-year-old Lana to tell her that her grandfather has died. For Lana, this sad news is the first step towards the collapse of Yugoslavia, which is on the brink of civil war. Shot on analog 16mm film in Novi Sad in locations that still look like they did in the 1990s, the film dissolves the clear boundaries between past and present—much like Radivojević's 11-year-old alter ego, who is in transition between childhood and early adolescence.

Lena works as a television reporter for an opposition media outlet. After the Belarusian journalist secretly livestreams the police’s brutal actions against peaceful demonstrators following rigged elections, she and her cameraman are tracked down by a drone and arrested. Her husband Ilya, who refuses to leave her, also finds himself facing accusations from a regime determined to break them both. The film is inspired by the real life of the young journalist Katsiaryna Andreyeva, who is currently serving an eight-year prison sentence in a Belarusian jail.

The 87-year-old Austrian author Renate Welsh has always addressed the theme of speechlessness in her books and writing workshops – until one day she herself is affected by it after a stroke. A moving portrait that follows her recovery and offers a glimpse into her eventful life.

ANOTHER SUMMER captures the stories of Afghan and Ukrainian refugees in Europe. It is unique not just because of the stories it tells but also because of how it was done. The film was shot in July 2022 by first-time filmmakers from Afghanistan (from the American University of Afghanistan), Ukraine (from the Central European University), and the US (from Williams College). The Afghan and Ukrainian students were/are refugees in various European countries, and none of the students had ever made a film before.

There will be a discussion about the film and how it can encourage processes of self-historicization in the context of flight.

Pavel and Anna share a home, but not the same world. Years of unspoken words, betrayal, and misunderstandings have turned their marriage into an abyss of silence. Pavel, a retired hunter, finds redemption and the chance to reconnect with his estranged wife when he helps a Syrian boy who has been separated from his family near the Bulgarian border. Caring for the child brings Pavel and Anna back together, slowly healing old wounds and rekindling their lost bond. Set against the breathtaking landscape of the Strandja region, The Hunter’s Autumn is a moving story about humanity and the quiet power of love and connection.

How can one tackle the effects of colonialism on indigenous African people more than half a century after most nations on the continent got their independence? In How to Build a Library, directors Maia Lekow and Christopher King choose a straightforward, methodical route. Their doc follows two Kenyan women as they try to transform a colonial era derelict library in downtown Nairobi. This humongous task demands patience, tenacity and a willingness to confront the past. Lekow and King bring the same skills to their film, but their task remains too vast and complicated for easy answers. 

In cooperation with Verband Filmregie Österreich and International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risks (ICFR). With support of FFW, VdFS und ÖFI.

The screening will be bookended by an introductory keynote presentation by Jordi Wijnalda, Brussels-based filmmaker and coordinator of the International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk. After the film, there will be a deep-diving conversation with two of the filmmakers from the film’s collective, Sibil Çekmen and Nadir Sönmez.

Filmmaking is light, literally and figuratively; whatever filmmakers choose to portray in their films has a chance to step out of the shadow and not wither in the dark. With the rise of authoritarianism across the world, the role of filmmakers and other artists and cultural workers has only become more crucial in the fight against human rights violations and oppression of personal freedom. Increasingly, however, this comes at a great price for the filmmakers themselves, too — being persecuted, brought before court and imprisoned in countries like Iran, Myanmar, Belarus, South-Korea, Georgia and Turkey.

Across six different short films by eight filmmakers, this eclectic and courageous film takes its viewers on a journey past the pressing matters of Turkey in this day and age: the 2013 Gezi Park peaceful protests which have resulted in much government crackdown and show trials, the deliberately underlit gay cruising spots in Istanbul, the lasting scars and remnants of the Armenian genocide.

How can you be silent in the face of all that? But also, how can you stop yourself from censoring your own voice and your own work, when constantly confronted with the threat of oppression? Within the film, there is also a particular role reserved for documentary producer Çiğdem Mater, whom the collective as well as the ICFR have been actively campaigning for since she was sentenced to a shocking eighteen years in prison back in 2022 — for an alleged “Gezi Park documentary” she never even made to begin with.

In einer beschaulichen Ecke von Massachusetts um 1970 versucht sich der arbeitslose Tischler JB Mooney (Josh O’Connor) als Amateur-Kunstdieb und plant seinen ersten großen Coup. Doch der Plan geht schief und sein Leben gerät aus den Fugen.