Slovakia, Czech Republic, 2023
116 minutes
directed by: Robert Kirchhoff

One of the best and most complex modern documentaries about the events that shook and shaped Europe in a stunning period spanning seven decades. Made in a combination of different styles, especially brilliant in cinéma vérité breakthroughs, this is a magnificent auteur's undertaking that was made during five years. It had its premiere at the major festival in Karlovy Vary.

This complex film weave begins, as in old legends, with scenes from the Kyrgyz steppe where two riders take a break by the fire and talk about the birth of a child who will bring great changes to this world. From those seemingly accidental sparks of fire begins the story of his rise and the path that unfolds before us into a fascinating fresco of dramatic historical upheavals from the second half of the 20th to the beginning of the 21st century, changes from The Internationale to the anthem of the European Union. This story about a controversial hero told in the spirit of the great "Citizen Kane" by Orson Welles takes us through different spaces and times where we meet many of the participants and witnesses of those historical events. An exciting documentary journey where we also meet Umberto Eco, Mikhail Gorbachev, Vaclav Havel and cult director Lordan Zafranović working with the actor who evokes our hero. In the center of that historical whirlwind, from the Prague Spring, to the Plush Revolution and today's events, Robert Kirchhoff tries to discover who the man actually was who summarizes all the contradictions of the events of different eras, through his actions and dramatically jumpy course of life.

A masterfully created labyrinth of continuous interweaving of past and present, in which center is the hero and his secret.

Germany, Austria 2022
105 minutes
directed by: Melanie Liebheit and Gereon Wetzel

Screened at the most important festivals, this enchanting documentary is a fantastic journey through Europe and the elite spaces of contemporary cuisine. For Gereon Wetzel, co-author of the film, this journey begins ten years ago with his entry into a cult restaurant in Spain and his great film "El Bulli - Cooking in Process".

The main character, an unusual girl named Agnes, is remarkable as she is the winner of a world cooking competition, but even more so because she wants to improve her knowledge and skills to the highest level. She sets herself the task of a search that takes her to the kitchens of some of the most prestigious restaurants in Europe. Both when she observes from the sidelines as an apprentice and when she passionately participates in the process in these exclusive kitchens, she equally concentrates and intensively re-examines her own professional choices. At the same time, in an exciting way, it becomes an increasingly present search for knowing oneself and discovering the meaning of one's life. So, not by chance, guided by deep inner currents, this search finally brings us to one of the most unusual restaurants in the world, which is located in surreally beautiful, dream-like landscapes in the north of Europe. Brilliant discreet observers, Melanie Liebheit and Gereon Wetzel, gradually introduce us to the process of fantastic transformation, creating an extremely exciting film finale that enchants us with beauty and hope.

A visually fascinating entry into the exciting processes of different cuisines shaped by the skills of Europe's best chefs, but above all, a film about maturing and discovering yourself.

Netherlands 2021
71 minutes
directed by: Oeke Hoogendijk

One of the best European authors, Oeke Hoogendijk, whose three masterful films on art seen from unexpected and exciting angles we saw at "The Magnificent Seven", this time turns to a very personal subject in a Kammerspiel style to create one of her most interesting works.

This is a film about the author's mother, but also about long journeys on virtual trains that look like a dream and a nightmare, which combine calmness and unending suffering. During the filming, the mother suddenly said that the camera was too intrusive for her and that the film could only be shot with a web camera, with a great comment of a documentary filmmaker - "It will give you a true picture!" Thus, in a combination of different views, this portrait of a charismatic woman is created, most often alone with a cat in her apartment, trapped for years by agoraphobia. Ranging from black comedy and unusual film of independent production, to studious close-ups and shots of the television screen set as a specific leitmotif of the film, we discover a lively and dynamic personality, sensitive, intelligent, witty and self-contained. Her dialogue with the world is always intense and often ironic or self-ironic, whether she is talking to her daughter or commenting on a television program or on herself, sometimes with wittily worded curses. With a lot of emotions, we also discover her past, when as a young Jewish woman she went through the horrors of the Holocaust. In an exciting way, the present and the past which never passes, come together in front of us. This woman with an inquisitive spirit, although closed, constantly travels the world thanks to television, staring at dreamlike images of trains and rails, dynamic visual symbols of movement, but also sinister associative images of the Holocaust.

An exceptional achievement in which the universal and the personal intertwine in a unique way, building a metaphor about suffering within the invisible wires of "Auschwitz" in one's own house.

Denmark 2022
81 minutes
directed by: Michael Graversen

A stunning intrusion of the camera into "life not ready for filming", brilliant cinéma vérité, a superb documentary that is created before the eyes of the viewers through the constant interaction of the author and the participants.

Michael Graversen takes us on a long journey to the places of his childhood and with a camera, breaks into his parents' house unannounced. And while we as viewers are still surprised by the author's intrusion and the confusion of the father, Mr. Graversen, and the bewilderment of the delighted mother who is trying to clean up the mess in front of the camera, the author decides to, ignoring the unprepared parents, reach his true hidden goal. Father and mother are together, but they live separate lives and everything seems a bit bleak and irreparable. Long ago, when their son was a boy, life changed suddenly and dramatically for them. For several years, the boy hovered between life and death, and that unbearable threat of a tragic outcome completely separated the parents and almost extinguished their relationship. This film is a story of attempts at understanding and reconciliation, but it is also an exciting testimony to the magnificent power of documentary film. Thanks to the rarely seen healing presence of the camera, a new inner space for change opens before the father and mother. Mr. Graversen allows himself to show his love for his wife again and for the two of them to walk the path of healing their suffering and bitterness together. This film is a double victory for the author - the realization of the dream of every child in the world - that the love of a father and mother creates a home, and the fulfillment of the dream of a dedicated documentarian - to honestly touch real life with a camera and film.

A witty, emotional and unique testimony about deep family ties, but also about the process in which film and reality are mutually shaped. A great documentary manifesto!

Sweden, Denmark 2023
81 minutes
directed by: Carl Olsson

A magnificent visual poem by the young Scandinavian director Karl Olsson, the author of a unique style, that enchanted the audience at "The Magnificent Seven" in his exceptional "Patrimonium". In "Vintersaga", he develops and perfects his directing even more by creating impressive sights captured by long, firmly fixed, visually complex one shot scenes with participants trapped in time and space.

"Vintersaga" is a Swedish song from the eighties known throughout Scandinavia, a kind of Sweden's melancholic winter anthem. Carl Olsson transposes the lyrics of the song into 24 scenes shot all over Sweden during a long, dark winter. This remarkable fresco of the country and people, trapped by cold and melancholy, develops into a masterfully created collective portrait of a nation in the widest range of generations, social classes, events and sceneries. As the film unfolds in front of us, it discreetly but increasingly becomes a modern visual Scandinavian fairy tale about a snow-covered kingdom where time stands still. Observed always from a precisely chosen distance, with an intense, deeply pulsating rhythm, these enchanting scenes draw us into that melancholic world and the gloomy states of the Nordic soul in the darkness of endlessly long nights. But this observation does not escape a refined feeling for social analysis and the weight of existential questions about the meaning of everything. The author's elegance and flawless visual process integrate a deep understanding of people who are in front of the camera, filled with the feeling of being free to be who they are.

The verses of the chorus of the cult "Vintersaga" are silently present in the strange, enchanting, disturbing scenes: "It is then the big melancholy rolls in, and from the ocean blows an icy, bleak wind."

Great Britain 2023
86 minutes
directed by: Christopher Morris

BAFTA awarded English author Christopher Morris makes one of the most unusual, artistically superior works of creative documentaries in this year. A film that invites you to forget the usual narrative constructions, to forget the almost obligatory anthropocentric events and surrender to the deep primordial rhythm that pulsates the planet.

Everywhere countless people experience the profound tragic destruction of the world and nature, and at the same time despair because of their powerlessness to oppose it. This is a magnificent film of true hope, which introduces us to time courses wider and more comprehensive than human time, which the author's voice only occasionally reminds us of. The film is a bold and uncompromising intention for one lone voice and one brilliant documentary to bravely confront the dark forces of destruction. The author takes us to a unique place in western Cornwall, in the very south of England, where a solitary monolith about 4000 years old stands in a picturesque landscape as a witness of time in its cyclical movement through the seasons. Like in Kubrick's cult film "2001 A Space Odyssey" we perceive this monolith as the presence of some, unknown to our world, intelligence capable of transmitting the impulses of change. Through shots of magnificent beauty, the film follows a life cycle of the field between two winter solstices. We immerse ourselves in the divine beauty of nature shaped by transcendent forces. In a sophisticated way the passionate observer films changes of the ubiquitous life and light during one annual cycle delicately introducing a pace that we have forgotten by separating ourselves from nature. In the magical moments of immersion in the enchanting and opaque world to which we belong, the author amazingly creates an experience of the rhythm of time in which the long and slow beats of the universe and the primeval pulsate.

This is a healing time capsule where we can pause and reflect in order to find our way out of the general rush of the world.

Switzerland, Serbia 2023
77 minutes
directed by: Luka Popadić

This film was created from a unique and unexpected angle, from the experience of the author who is simultaneously a Serbian director and an officer of the Swiss army. It was created to reveal to many that in the land of chocolate, banks and cheese, 150,000 Swiss people have rifles and military equipment in their closets at home.

The surprising, witty, sometimes ironic, touching spirit of this film reveals Switzerland that we do not know through the complexity of situations and reflections of the second generation of immigrants over their own identity in all its changes and differences. The heroes of the film, officers of the Swiss army, whose parents came from Tunisia, Sri Lanka and Serbia, discover how unique amalgams of culture and tradition from the countries of origin are formed in combination with the values of Swiss society and identity. The author, who was a proud rapper before becoming a soldier, creates a dynamic, playful documentary form and in different ways, both as a narrator telling his personal story and following the brilliantly chosen heroes, tries to discover what it really means to be Swiss. Through a series of often amusing situations, we gradually begin to understand how a banker or an engineer the next moment becomes an officer and thinks about commanding clercks, professors, farmers also instantly turned into soldiers. While in the alpine landscape, cows watch the passing of the army, we discover that the film discreetly questions the meaning of the army in modern Switzerland and offers unexpected answers.

A great documentary that constantly surprises us with unprecedented scenes and connections and abundantly revealing story about modern Europe.