Germany 2015.
90 minutes
directed by: Cosima Lange

The brilliant success of the film "Shine," winning an Oscar and masterfully acting performance of Geoffrey Rush, have brought the story of a remarkable life path of the pianist David Helfgott closer to the wide audience, and the real hero of the film has gained worldwide fame as a unique artistic personality.

"HELLO I AM DAVID!" is the first documentary about this extraordinary pianist, a child prodigy whose career seemed finished after the dramatic nervous breakdown. And then, through the healing power of music and a great love for his wife Gillian, David Helfgott has found a way to return to normal life and to the concert stage. This masterfully made film, with superb cinematography, sound and editing, assures us in the irresistibly infectious passion and impulsiveness of David Helfgott. As a pianist, he plays only what he feels, and as a person he speaks without reservation what he thinks and touches people in the literal sense of the word.

Purified and straightforward, both in scenes of playing and in situations where the character is manifested, courageous to let life and the hero to directly create the most exciting, most funny and most unexpected scenes - this touching, inspirational film gives us a penetrating insight into the personality and musical life of David Helfgott. Finally, "HELLO I AM DAVID!" is a film about love: love of life, love of music - and deeply pervasive love between two people who are equally enchanting as they are different.

http://www.helloiamdavid.de/der-film.php

Kozima Lange

She was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1976.

As a member of the children’s choir of the Hamburg State Opera she travelled the world at a young age.

From 1998 to 2003 she studied production at the »Film Academy Baden-Württemberg« and as producer and writer she is responsible for numerous short films and the feature film “Vacuum”.

Her directorial debut, the documentary “Chamamé” about four Argentine musicians, was well received at international festivals and in cinema.

Since 2010, Cosima Lange teaches documentary and short film at the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg and holds documentary workshops worldwide.

Selected filmography (director)

• CHAMAMÉ, 2007
• HALLO I AM DAVID – A JOURNEY WITH DAVID HELFGOTT (Hello I Am David – Eine Reise mit David Helfgott), 2015

Germany 2016.
94 minutes
directed by: Sergei Loznitsa

Premiered at the Venice Film Festival, "AUSTERLITZ" is another distinct documentary made by Sergei Loznitsa, who is currently one of the most significant European authors. Made in the form of classical black-and-white film, without many words, without any comment or explanation, with distinctive style in which his previous documentaries were made, this film is a complex and surprising anthropological study of collective behavior and consciousness. With the precise distance, which he determines and then never passes, Loznitsa reveals a phenomenon that intrigues us and provokes, equally as much it confuses us. This is a film in which the author, with the means of exquisite photography, camera, editing and directing, creates an exciting essay filled with tension, which turns the viewer into the silent interested witness and questioning participant.

There are places in Europe that keep the painful memories of the past - factories where people were turned into ashes. These places are now memorial complexes open to visitors and receive thousands of tourists every year. The name of the film is taken from the novel of one of the most important contemporary writers from the end of XX and the beginning of the XXI century, W.G. Sebald, which is dedicated to the memory of the Holocaust.

Loznitsa wrote: "What am I doing here? What are all these people doing here, moving in groups from one object to another? The reason that brings thousands of people to spend their summer weekends in former concentration camps is one of the mysteries of these memorial complexes.” The film is an attempt to deliberate these mysteries.

http://www.loznitsa.eu/

SERGEI LOZNITSA

Born in Baranovichi (USSR, now Belarus). He grew up in Kiev and in 1987 graduated from the Kiev Polytechnic Institute with a degree in Applied Mathematics.

Between 1987 and 1991 he worked in the Institute of Cybernetics. He developed expert systems, systems of design-making and work on artificial intelligence. At the same time he worked as a translator from the Japanese.

In 1997 Loznitsa graduated from the Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow.

His documentaries and feature films have won awards at major international festivals - in Cannes, Venice, Karlovy Vary. Lives in Berlin.

Selected filmography (director)

• SETTLEMENT (Поселение), 2001
• LANDSCAPE (Landshaft), 2003
• BLOCKADE (Блокада), 2005
• REVUE (Представление), 2008
• NORTHERN LIGHT (Lumière du Nord), 2008
• MAIDAN, 2014
• THE EVENT(Событие), 2015
• AUSTERLITZ, 2016

Belgium, France, Switzerland 2016
85 minutes
directed by: Jérôme le Maire

Great documentary undertaking! Jérôme le Maire is an author who enters with camera the places that are completely inaccessible and forbidden, and he records there the traditional battles, but also discovers for us completely modern, unexpected and astonishing ones. With discreet presence and careful observation the author develops a fascinating study of the contemporary world in which disappear havens for the weak and sick, in which disappear empathy, caring and the power of healing.

"BURNING OUT" is literally a drama of life and death. For two years, the Belgian director Jérôme le Maire followed the members of a surgical unit in one of the biggest hospitals in Paris. Constantly exposed to severe stress, with a lack of staff and with strict budget cuts, employees are fighting among themselves for resources, while the management imposes increasingly stringent criteria of efficiency and profitability. All over Europe ‘burnout’ has reached epidemic proportions among employees in the public and private sectors. Will we end up killing ourselves? Or will we be able to find meaning and joy in the work?

"Our modern world has turned the hospitals into health factories and patients into objects", testifies Jérôme le Maire. "Efficiency, productivity, performance – this has become a mantra for managers. We knew for decades what happens if we expose the animals to stress: they will eventually eat each other. But what happens when you expose people to great stress?"

http://www.burning-out-film.com/

Jérôme le Maire

Born in Liege, in Belgium in 1969.

He studied journalisme and communication at the Université libre de Bruxelles.

He continued studying at the Institute of Media Arts (Institut des arts de diffusion) until 1995. After studying filmmaking he directed several short documentaries and short fiction films and he worked as an assistant director. He directed eight episodes of series “Le Belge Été“ (Belgian Summer) broadcasted by television Canal+.

Since 2000 he is dedicated to documetary feature films. His film “Where is Love in the Palmgrove? “ was nominated for European Film Academy Award in 2007, just like “Tea and Electricity“ five years after that.

In 2011 he made a fiction feature film “The Big Tour“ in manner of television reality programmes and it had it’s premiere at Film Festival Rotterdam.

Selected filmography

• I’M NOT INTERESTED IN VOLTER (Volter ne m’intéresse pas), 2003
• ONE DAY, ONE LIFE (Un jour, une vie), 2004
• WHERE IS LOVE IN THE PALM GROVE? (Ou est l’amour dans la palmeraie?), 2007
• TEA OR ELECTRICITY (Le thé ou électricité), 2012
• BURNING OUT 2016

Austria 2016
94 minutes
directed by: Nikolaus Geyrhalter

"HOMO SAPIENS" is disturbing and fascinating fresco of the planet, an authentic futuristic vision of one of the great masters. Nikolaus Geyrhalter is one of the pioneers of modern documentary, who introduced documentaries into the sphere of post-apocalyptic visions with his early masterfully work "Pripyat", and created one of the most impressive views of the world as a whole in his richly developed film "Elsewhere". "HOMO SAPIENS" combines these essential topics and with the approach of a mature master introduces us to a purified essay of a superb style. Fully visual, without a word, with almost composed sound interventions, "HOMO SAPIENS" reveals on the big screen highly aestheticized scenes, which deeply engrave in the minds of viewers.

"HOMO SAPIENS" is a film about the fragility of human existence and the end of the industrial age, and about what it means to be a human being. What will be the traces of the species we call Homo sapiens, and to which we belong? Empty spaces, ruins, cities increasingly overgrown with vegetation, dilapidated asphalt: spaces that we currently inhabit, when people are not in them anymore. Now abandoned and in decay, gradually taken by nature, from which they were taken not long ago. "HOMO SAPIENS" is an ode to humanity seen through a possible scenario for the future.

About this great work Geyrhalter says: "This is not the first film in which I construct the narrative only through images. This is only the first in which there are no people. "HOMO SAPIENS" is perhaps the most photographic of all my films... For me it is a vision much closer to fiction."

http://www.geyrhalterfilm.com/en/homo_sapiens

Nikolaus Geyrhalter

Born in Vienna in 1972.

Formed his own production company at the age of 22. His first documentary film "Angeschwemmt" of 1994 is the story of life on the Danube.

Films "Pripyat" in 1999 and "Elsewhere" in 2001 brought him great international acclaim as a superb cinematographer and documentary filmmaker.

He works as a director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer. Winner of numerous important awards.

Selected filmography

• WASHED ASHORE (Angeschwemmt), 1994
• THE YEAR AFTER DAYTON (Das Jahr nach Dayton), 1997
• PRIPYAT, 1999
• ELSEWHERE, 2001
• OUR DAILY BREAD (Unser täglich Brot), 2005
• 7915 km, 2008.
• ALLENTSTEIG, 2010
• NIGHTLAND (Abendland), 2011
• “DUNUBE” HOSPITAL (Donauspital), 2012
• CERN, 2013.
• OVER THE YEARS (Über die Jahre), 2015
• HOMO SAPIENS, 2016

Czech Republic, 2016.
90 minutes
directed by: Miroslav Janek

This dynamic and playful documentary is the work of one of the most important European authors when it comes to children, especially children who don’t blend in and who are different from the majority. Miroslav Janek has gained worldwide fame for his collage films, made with a free camera, with a mixture of styles and with encouraging the participants to interactively influence the course, look and style of the film. The author discreetly and gradually involves every protagonist to think in front of the camera about the scene, the theme and the film that is being born, and from these instructions, ideas and riots creates stylistically different courses, precisely customized for every hero, it seems. The stories are about them, they are both their stories and Janek’s stories, and all together, with great editing intermingling, that becomes a disheveled explosive film which ranges from a whisper to a roar, from gentle intimate situations to noisy, rhythmic episodes and entertaining short films within the film.

Direct and sensitive, Luka has a distinct sense of humor; he loves films and writes scripts. Piano virtuoso Denis is capable of playing complex classical compositions; he is incredibly intelligent and well read. Majda loves to rap and she is not shy about it; her brave verses reveal her environment with disarming accuracy. Marjamka can tell long stories in English, and her tireless brother Ahmed is unusually friendly. Five exceptional children that society has permanently and not at all flattering termed as "autistic". With his unique vision the famous Czech documentarist challenges us to once and for all stop to look at autism as a medical diagnosis and to try to understand it as a fascinating way of thinking which is sometimes extremely difficult to decipher. For who is the one who determines what is normal - to live in a constant rush, ignoring the absurdity of modern life or sadly looking for order, peace and tranquility in the world?

Miroslav Janek is an author who emphasizes the importance of a long process in which his brilliant dialogue and interactive documentaries were created: "They got used to me and unconsciously they were offering to me a lot of interesting situations... I focused on the magic and on mysterious way the autistic persons are thinking."

http://www.cineuropa.org/f.aspx?t=film&l=en&did=310421

Miroslav Janek

Miroslav Janek, born in 1954 in Nachod in the Czech Republic.

He started making photographs from the age of ten; and short films from the age of fifteen — a great number of which were awarded prizes at numerous amateur film festivals.

He emigrated to Germany in 1979, and then to USA in 1980 where, during the eighties and nineties worked as an editor and cameraman. He collaborated with a number of documentary filmmakers, Godfrey Reggiois the most acclaimed of them ("Powaqqatsi" and "Naqoyqatsi").

From 1982 to 1986, he taught directing and editing at the Film School “Film in the Cities”, St. Paul, Minneapolis.

He returned to the Czech Republic in 1995 where he devoted himself to cinematography and directing documentaries. Film photographers of visually impaired children, "Unseen" ("Nespatrené") brought him numerous awards and important place on the European documentary scene.

Since 1998 lecturer at FAMU (Film Academy in Prague), Department of documentary film.

Selected filmography

• UNSEEN (Nespatrené), 1996
• BATTLE FOR LIFE (Bitva o život), 2000 with Roman Vavra and Vit Janachek
• CRIMSON SAILS (Nachové plachty), 2001
• VJERKA (Vierka), 2005.
• KHA-CHEE-PAE (Chačipe), 2005
• CITIZEN HAVEL (Občan Havel), 2008 with Pavel Koutecky
• OBSESSED (Umanutá), 2012
• OLGA, 2014.
• THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BRABENEC (Evangelium podle Brabence), 2014
• FILM SPA (Filmová lázeň), 2015
• NORMAL AUTISTIC FILM (Normální autistický film), 2016

Lithuania, Estonia 2016.
56 minutes
directed by: Audrius Stonys

The master of refined style, Audrius Stonys, decided to take us on an unusual pilgrimage to the inaccessible heights of Tian Shan mountain on the border between Kazakhstan and China. In the areas of this Mountain of Heaven, which looks like an unknown and inhospitable planet, he devotes all his attention and creativity to an amazing person who has spent thirty years observing and monitoring the state of the giant glacier, so important for the science, but also for the whole planet. Through an unusual intimate portrait of a mountain captive in constant motion, Audrius Stonys masterfully poetizes relations of the heroine and the environment, nature, sky, beings with whom she shares the loneliness, the rigors of the climate and the beauty that surrounds them.

To his story in present time, meticulously woven without words, Stonys adds another important layer, a layer of long time flows. This film plunges deep into time, and in the compounds of past and present builds a brand new, poetic and timeless relations. Audrius Stonys is one of the most important European authors because of this complex weave of time in his films and amazing ability to capture and express the feeling that through spaces, people, events and phenomena converge and break all previous deep and very distant reflections of time.

The author was drawn to the fact that the woman glaciologist is his compatriot: "It is very unusual for a woman from Lithuania to explore ice on the remote Tian Shan, at the end of the world, without any connection with the rest of the world. Scientist Aushra, living high in the mountains, in a wooden house near the huge glacier, did measurements for many years, every morning and evening, summer and winter, and sent them to the control center in Almaty. She gave her whole life observing glaciers in Kazakhstan."

http://www.efis.ee/en/film-categotries/movies/id/18547

Audrius Stonys

Born in 1966 in Vilnius, Lithuania.

From 1984 to 1989 studied at Vilnius State Conservatory.

In 1989 had internship at Jonas Mekas Anthology Film Archive in New York.

In 1992 the documentary film “Earth of the Blind” was recognised by European Film Academy as the Best European Documentary Film of the Year and received Felix Award.

In 2004 and 2005 was lecturer on Documentary in European Film College, Denmark. Lectures and master classes at Waseda (Japan), Berkeley and Stanford Universities (USA), Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona, Spain), and in Kolkata, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Tokyo, Moscow, Belgrade, Barcelona, San Francisco, Carpi Modena, Paris.

Retrospectives and film presentations held in in Switzerland, Russia, France, Israel, Czech Republic, Germany, USA, Belgium, Spain, Turkey, Colombia, Uruguay, Italy, India, France and Japan.

Since 2009 teaches at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre at Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts.

Recipient of Lithuanian National Culture and Art Award.

Selected filmography

• EARTH OF THE BLIND (Neregių žemė), 1992
• ANTIGRAVITATION (Antigravitacija), 1995
• FLYING OVER BLUE FIELD (Skrajojimai mėlynam lauke), 1996
• 510 SECONDS OF SILENCE (Skrydis per Lietuvą arba 510 sekundžių tylos), 2000 with Arunas Matelis
• UKU UKAI, 2006.
• THE BELL (Varpas), 2007
• FOUR STEPS (Keturi žingsniai), 2008
• RAMIN, 2011
• CENOTAPH (Kenotafas), 2013
• GATES OF THE LAMB (Avinėlio vartai), 2014
• WOMAN AND THE GLACIER (Moteris ir ledynas), 2016

Ireland, Spain 2016.
99 minutes
directed by: Neasa Ní Chianáin and David Rane

"IN LOCO PARENTIS" is the first Irish documentary that premiered with great success in the main program of the world's largest documentary film festival in Amsterdam, after which it was selected for the main program of the Sundance Film Festival. Neasa Ní Chianáin is one of Ireland's most celebrated documentary filmmakers, and her previous documentaries have had considerable international success. David Rane is an experienced producer and director, who received one of the most important European awards, the BAFTA Award. This author and life couple has spent a full year in the school, preparing a project that took a lot of production and creative efforts to achieve its top quality.

This observational documentary follows a year in the lives of two inspiring teachers in the only elementary school with boarding facilities in Ireland. Headfort School, the school not much different in appearance from the legendary Hogwarts from Harry Potter, with its buildings from the XVIII century, with secret doors and magical forests, is the home of John and Amanda Leyden for 46 years and the background of their exceptional careers. For John, rock music is another subject to Math, English, Latin and religious education. He cherishes a special kind of youthful revolution by teaching responsibility and independence in equal respect, wrapped in heavy metal or pop, encouraging the children to play whatever they want in the school basement rock club. For Amanda, the key liaison with children is a book and she uses all ways to catch young minds. The children sit as transfixed when she leads them on magical journeys with fantastic heroes of different stories.

Besides directing, Neasa Ní Chianáin was an inspired and omnipresent cinematographer in this film, and David Rane had a difficult task to record sound discreetly following Neasa, besides his production work and directing. "We wanted to film a year in the life of the school, just to keep track and observe, no interviews, no divine voice that leads the audience... We knew that for us it means full immersion in order to gain access to the intimacy that we wanted to capture."

http://www.inlocoparentis.ie/

Neasa Ní Chianáin

Born in 1966 in Dublin, Ireland.

Trained at the National College of Art & Design in Dublin, and worked as a freelance Art Director on Irish feature film and television projects.

She started directing documentaries in 2001. The films were awarded and screened at numerous international festivals.

Since 2006, she has been co-director of the Guth Gafa International Documentary Film Festival in the Northern Ireland.

Selected filmography

• NO MAN’S LAND, 2001
• GODS, FAERIS AND MISTY MOUNTAINS, 2003
• FRANK NED & BUSSY LIZZIE, 2004
• FAIRYTALE OF KATHMANDU, 2007
• THE STRANGER, 2014
• IN LOCO PARENTIS, 2016 with David Rane

David Rane

Born in 1960 in Wallasey, England.

BAFTA-winning producer and director, who over the last 20 years has produced many award-winning documentary films for national and international broadcasters, a number of animated films, and a number of short fiction films.

Graduate of the M.A. Film and Television course at the University of London (Goldsmiths College) in 1993.

He was on the Executive Committee of Screen Producers Ireland (the Irish Producers’ representative body) for four years.

He has taught film making at both the University of London and the Dublin Institute of Technology.

He is a graduate of EAVE European Producers Programme 1999, and EURODOC 2014.

He is co-founder and co-director of the Guth Gafa International Documentary Film Festival.

Selected filmography

• IN LOCO PARENTIS, 2016 with Neasa Ní Chianáin