Poland, Germany 2017.
82 minutes
directed by: Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosołowski

The best documentary on cinema of The Venice Film Festival 2017. The story of a stunning mystery that is becoming more complex and unexpected as it unfolds before us.

Who was the director and Hollywood producer Michal Waszynski who worked with the biggest movie stars of his time, such as Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale, Orson Wells? Directors Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosolowski are taking us to an exciting film journey through the life of a man who was known to many, but whose secrets were so deeply hidden that no one really knew him. Prince Waszynski, through the turbulent and dramatic years of his personal and world history, wrote his life story as if he directed the most fantastic film.

A superb modern documentary with an extremely complex structure in which fascinating archival footage is interwoven with shots and scenes of search, witnesses and spaces. Directorial couple Niewiera Rosolowski creates an exciting thriller, but at the same time an equally unusual history of the 20th century in Europe, from the dark times of the rise of Nazism to glamorous Hollywood spectacles. In these turbulent times, behind the curtain of dramatic events, they magically depict the hidden figure of Prince Waszynski, penetrating deeply into imaginary and irrational layers of time.

http://prince-dybbuk.com/

Elwira Niewiera

She lives and works in Berlin. Her last feature documentary "Domino Effect" was shown worldwide at more than 50 festivals and won many awards, among them "Golden Dove" award at the International Film Festival DOK Leipzig 2014, the "Golden Horn" for the Best Film of the International Competition at Krakow Film Festival and had art-house cinema distribution in Germany, Poland and Switzerland.

Selected filmography

• THE PRINCE AND THE DYBBUK, 2017
• THE DOMINO EFFECT, 2014
• BULGARIAN STORIES, 2007

Piotr Rosolowski

Graduated from Katowice Film School, awarded with a scholarship of the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. Co-author of "Rabbit à la Berlin" - Academy Award nominated short documentary film and co-director of documentary film "Domino Effect" with Elwira Niewiera. Director of photography of many awarded feature and short films, among them "On the Line" directed by Reto Caffi - Academy award nominated short fiction.

Selected filmography as director

• THE PRINCE AND THE DYBBUK, 2017
• THE DOMINO EFFECT, 2014
• THE ART OF DISAPPEARING, 2013

Holland 2016.
115 minutes
directed by: Petra Lataster-Czisch and Peter Lataster

Awarded with the annual Dutch Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2017.

This touching film story, without any interview or narrator, introduces us to the turbulent world of small, irresistible, charismatic heroes who have just arrived to a small place in The Netherlands and entered the classroom of an ordinary elementary school. For them, this is all new and confusing, they don’t fit in, they are too sensitive and scared. But like all children, they are also restless, naughty and unsubdued, and from the very first moment their brilliant teacher, Miss Kit, begins a great battle using all her skills of an excellent pedagogue. A battle in which, apart from discipline, learning and knowledge, mutual respect and dignity are top objectives.

Discreetly shot at the child's eyes level over a period of one year, this film is a story of joy and experiences that change children and shape their world. Experienced pair of documentarists Petra Lataster-Czisch and Peter Lataster with their perfectly selected participants, through masterly captured moments and true empathy with little heroes in front of their warm and penetrating camera lens, unfold moving sequences of school days and discreetly build a course of one school year. They create a brilliant visual study of learning and maturing, emphasizing at the same time the importance of those who are preparing the society of the future.

"A master class in nonfiction filmmaking... A lovely, upbeat, even life-affirming film." – The Hollywood Reporter.

http://dekinderenvanjufkiet.nl/en/

Petra Lataster-Czisch and Peter Lataster

Petra Lataster-Czisch is a filmmaker, writer and teacher. Petra grew up in East Germany. She studied script writing and film sciences. In 1981 she moved to the Netherlands. Together with her partner, Peter Lataster, she is directing documentaries, shorts and dance films since 1989.

Peter Lataster is a cinematographer and director. He grew up in Amsterdam.

In 2012 the Latasters were filmmakers in focus at the Dutch Institute for Sound and Vision. Many of their works have been awarded, nationally and internationally.

Selected collective filmography

• Miss Kiet's Children, 2016.
• The Need to Dance, 2014.
• Awake in a Bad Dream, 2013.
• We, 2012.
• Jerome Jerome, 2011.
• Not Without You, 2010.
• The Things You Don’t Understand, 2010.

UK, Germany, 2018
93 minutes
directed by: Thomas Riedelsheimer

Two great artists - a sculptor who shapes nature and creates surreal scenes of reality, Andy Goldsworthy, and filmmaker Thomas Riedelsheimer, meet again sixteen years later. Again, as in the big film "Rivers and tides - Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time" they poetisize nature and create a fascinating work on the true sense of art.

From the urban landscapes of Edinburgh and London to the south of France and New England, we are exposed to street and nature sights that the sculptor Goldsworthy converts into incomparable works of land art, and the camera captures them as outstanding, highly aestheticised film images. The "Leaning into the Wind" conveys thoughts and ideas about art, artistic creation and process, and even more, tells a story of the relationship between man and nature. And this is where the true primeval saga of the great love of a passionate fighter for nature begins - environmental activist Goldsworthy touches every stone, every grass, petal, branch, every drop of water as a precious being and within it recognizes the internal pulsation that permeates the planet. And these touches, followed by the explosion of colors and unexpected shapes, create a nature in which man and space become one.

Riedelsheimer's sophisticated filmmaking proceeds from breathtaking physical matter and goes beyond trying to reveal the ideas that move the artists. And before our very eyes these ideas are transformed into remarkable forms pervaded by the rhythms of nature.

http://www.leaningintothewind.com/

Thomas Riedelsheimer

He is a filmmaker, cameraman and photographer. He studied documentary filmmaking in Munich. Since 1986 he is an independent author, director and cinematographer in Germany and abroad (Somalia, Tanzania, South Africa, New Zealand, Latvia, Russia, Tibet, Nepal, Japan, Canada, Scotland). With his successful film „Rivers and Tides“, about land art artist Andy Goldsworthy he gained an international reputation and specialized in films about art. In his films he is responsible for directing, photography and editing. He is a member of the German and European Film Academy and a part-time professor at a German film school.

Selected filmography

• Leaning Into the Wind – Andy Goldsworthy, 2017.
• Breathing Earth, 2012.
• Touch the Sound, 2004.
• Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time, 2001.

Denmark, Sweden, Finland 2017
90 minutes
directed by: Simon Lereng Wilmont

"The Distant Barking of Dogs" started its impressive festival and award quest at the largest documentary film festival IDFA in Amsterdam where it won the First Appearance Award.

This is a film that follows a wonderful author's thread initiated in the unforgettable poetic achievement "Ivan's Childhood" about a boy and a war, made by one of the greatest film art masters Andrei Tarkovski. The space is close to Tarkovsky's, now Ukraine, but this time it happens today and the hero of the story is called Oleg. He has ten years and does what all the boys in the world do - he plays, goes to school, and most of all, he likes to wander and discover the world around him. And the world begins from his yard and the street and spreads endlessly through meadows, forests, along riverbanks. And in this world of beauty and secrets the most important places have his brother, friend and grandmother with a big heart. But the dark outline of the invisible, yet dramatically present, and dangerous war noise becomes equally important and fills a little, almost empty village. Moments in which everything turns into fear, while the film becomes even more a moving poetic antiwar story about the small and unprotected in the whirlwind of big events.

Simon Lereng Wilmont discreetly, boldly and devotedly follows the little hero in various everyday situations, creating extremely convincing collisions of carefree childhood and cruel threats of war. The camera is not merely a distant observer, but always an accomplice in permitted and secret boyish endeavors. A truly great feat of a young documentarist who breaks linguistic and cultural barriers to create a work of universal value using the language of film images.

http://www.finalcutforreal.dk/distant-barking-of-dogs

Simon Lereng Wilmont

Born in Copenhagen, Denmark. Simon holds a BA degree in Japanese, with modules in Film and Science, and Visual and Audited Anthropology, and graduated as a Documentary Film Director from The National Film School of Denmark in 2009.

Selected filmography

• The Distant Barking of Dogs, 2017.
• Traveling with Mr. T, 2012.

Sweden, 2018
88 minutes
directed by: Malla Grapengiesser, Per Bifrost and Alexander Rynéus

"Giants and the Morning After" is a cinematic hit whose screenings are currently taking place throughout Sweden, while at the same time embarking on a trip to world festivals. The director's trio, Malla Grapengiesser, Per Bifrost and Alexander Ryneus made funny and revealing walk through a Swedish small place in a country side. By combining myths, fairy tales and everyday realism, Swedish authors create a discrete comedy in a documentary of an unusual atmosphere.

Layers of past time interweave with everyday life. Beautiful, thick, dark forests enclose Idra. Neat spaces filled with houses, farms, small companies. Everyone here, both old and young, has one's own business or entertainment, and together they create this little world in which everybody has an important place and a sense of belonging. In scenes of church gatherings, joint artistic endeavors, business ventures, children's games or discreetly shot warm, intimate moments we witness the richness of life. Even when various newcomers are coming, planned or unplanned, they do not disturb the true peace of this small place immersed in a nature of the untouched beauty. Nevertheless, behind all this, in the darkness of the forest and in the shadows of giants that once shifted rocks, there is some dark anxiety that creates a threat to this rural idyll.

Malla Grapengiesser, Per Bifrost and Alexander Ryneus equally convincingly create a view of space and people, as well of intimate circles of friendship and love. They turn this seductive portrait of the seemingly sleepy Swedish countryside into a funny, lively and playful picture. Great, brilliant cinema!

http://www.giantsandthemorningafter.com/

Malla Grapengiesser

Born July 6, 1953, is a Swedish director and film producer. She has mainly produced documentary films, but also worked with feature films, including novel films. Among her most famous films is the multiple award-winning documentary, Searching for Sugar Man.

Per Bifrost and Alexander Rynéus

Malla Grapengiesser is a young producer and director of documentary films, while Per Bifrost and Alexander Rynéus are young directors and cinematographers.

Selected collective filmography

• GIANTS AND THE MORNING AFTER (Händelser i Ydre), 2018
• THE HOME AND THE CAVITY (Malmberget), 2013

UK 2017
90 minutes
directed by: Scott Barley

Scott Barley, a young British author, is already proclaimed by some critics to be "the greatest filmmaker of the millennial generation". Due to his works, which in a unique way merge documentary shots, drawings and animation, he has become one of the leading authors of Remodernist Film and Slow Cinema Movement.

"Sleep Has Her House" is a work of a powerful irrational charge that deeply pervades every frame, every scene. This is the film of images that haunt each other as spirits whose presence we merely perceive by intuition, unable to see them. These are the visions of the space that we recognize in the contours of the real and the material, and on the big cinema screen, they become alive and pulsate with an exciting inner rhythm. This is a fascinating visual testimony of omniconnection in the nature that arouses all of our inner senses and evokes our concentrated, active viewing in which we equally enjoy the beauty documented by the lens of the modern "writing" tool of a young author - "iPhone", as well as the work of the painter, visual artist and the creator of dreams.

Scott Barley, whose works are classified in "slow cinema movement" together with films of Tarkovsky and Bela Tar, as a great master of specific poetisation of visual impressions, introduces us into the studies of the night landscape scenes in which he forms his own visions by the procedures of adding new images to the recorded images, sometimes even in sixty layers. The avant-garde artist documents the transformation of images of reality into elusive inner dream scenes.

Exquisite avant-garde film!

https://www.scottbarleyfilm.com/Sleep-Has-Her-House

Scott Barley

Scott Barley is an artist and filmmaker from Newport, South Wales. His work has been associated with the Remodernist film and slow cinema movements, and more recently anthropogenic, cosmological, and phenomenological cinema. It has often been compared with the sensibilities of Stan Brakhage, Philippe Grandrieux, Béla Tarr, Maya Deren, and Jean Epstein. Since early 2015, Barley has exclusively shot his films on an iPhone.

Selected filmography

• SLEEP HAS HER HOUSE, 2017

Finland 2018
76 minutes
directed by: Virpi Suutari

Perfectly accurate and visually appealing film by Virpi Suutari, one of the most important European authors, raises questions about the meaning and values of human existence.

The title "Entrepreneur" sounds like it’s taken from a bureaucratic vocabulary, but it’s just an echo of irresistible irony and eccentricity of Finnish authors. Actually, it stands for a poetic and very emotional story about love, about ties in the world in which often seems that there is no space for emotions and humanistic values. The film, in its basic course, is conceived as a careful observing of two different types of entrepreneurial work - traditional and modern, futuristic. In Helsinki, two young women dream of the world to come, have a brilliant, first-rate equipment, a dedicated expert team and they are ready to embark on the brutal challenges of modern business. Somewhere in the province, the middle-aged couple has different ideas, motives and plans - with their two daughter and the son, they cruise along the roads in their firm on wheels and struggle for survival. They transform their business as nature does, according to seasons. To be small, to be yourself, to be free or to be successful and conquer the world - in these ranges Virpi Suutari shows dramatic collisions of the today’s world from the snowy landscapes of Finland to the bustling Chinese business scene.

Enchanting and witty, this modern documentary, with exquisite photography and complex, carefully composed structure, is the true author's work of Virpi Suutari, but as well of all who have creatively contributed to the "Entrepreneur" making a striking cinematic accomplishment - both the director of photography and the editor and abundantly inspired composer Sanna Salmenkalio whose music permeates and ennobles almost every part of the film.

https://www.facebook.com/Yrittaja.film/

Virpi Suutari

Perfectly accurate and visually appealing film by Virpi Suutari, one of the most important European authors, raises questions about the meaning and values of human existence.

The title "Entrepreneur" sounds like it’s taken from a bureaucratic vocabulary, but it’s just an echo of irresistible irony and eccentricity of Finnish authors. Actually, it stands for a poetic and very emotional story about love, about ties in the world in which often seems that there is no space for emotions and humanistic values. The film, in its basic course, is conceived as a careful observing of two different types of entrepreneurial work - traditional and modern, futuristic. In Helsinki, two young women dream of the world to come, have a brilliant, first-rate equipment, a dedicated expert team and they are ready to embark on the brutal challenges of modern business. Somewhere in the province, the middle-aged couple has different ideas, motives and plans - with their two daughter and the son, they cruise along the roads in their firm on wheels and struggle for survival. They transform their business as nature does, according to seasons. To be small, to be yourself, to be free or to be successful and conquer the world - in these ranges Virpi Suutari shows dramatic collisions of the today’s world from the snowy landscapes of Finland to the bustling Chinese business scene.

Enchanting and witty, this modern documentary, with exquisite photography and complex, carefully composed structure, is the true author's work of Virpi Suutari, but as well of all who have creatively contributed to the "Entrepreneur" making a striking cinematic accomplishment - both the director of photography and the editor and abundantly inspired composer Sanna Salmenkalio whose music permeates and ennobles almost every part of the film.

Selected filmography

• ENTREPRENEUR (Yrittäjä), 2018
• GARDEN LOVERS (Eedenistä pohjoiseen), 2014
• HILTON! 2013
• AUF WIEDERSEHEN FINNLAND, 2010.
• ALONG THE ROAD LITTLE CHILD (Pitkin tietä pieni lapsi), 2002, with Susanna Helke
• THE IDLE ONES (Joutilaat), 2001, with Susanna Helke