DocNomads

A heartbreaking portrait of 16-year-old Ukrainian refugees Andrey and Alisa, who help out at a school for refugee children in Budapest. Andrey asks the children to draw pictures of something from back home in Ukraine. What beautiful things can they recall? He offers the example of his own grandfather’s cherry orchard. The children use confrontational, adult vocabulary to describe their experiences of war. A young boy earnestly goes through a number of battle strategies, and a girl provides a vivid account of a rocket attack.

József works at the largest still-operational grain silo in Budapest. He’s been doing this work for more than 30 years, and lives in a container home next to the structure, where trucks and trains rumble past his window. When he is lowered into the ten-story-deep silos to clean them, he looks like a scuba diver at work. These scenes are captured with stunning, contrast-rich camerawork, and ably edited with a strong sound design.

A story about the separation of a mother and her 3-year-old daughter who now live in different countries and cannot reunite due to visa problems. Every day they communicate via video chat and dream about meeting soon.

In Lisbon, from the height of the Torel viewpoint, the city expands as far as the eye can see making it the perfect place to think and remember. Through encounters with the people that inhabit the viewpoint in different ways, Daniela proposes a reflection on belonging to a new city, crafting a journey to her family memories. She imagines her mother and grandmother when they were her age, thinking about the first places where they lived.

A father finds refuge in memories created together with his daughter, who has been stricken with an illness. She has decided to keep her distance from him and they have not spoken for years. The film encourages her to reconsider her decision.

The reading of a letter addressed to his brother Theo is the metaphorical starting point of this suggestive immersion in the work and the places that Vincent Van Gogh lived in a key moment of his artistic life, the one in which he abandoned the faith to rediscover himself the world of painting in the Belgian mining town of Borinage. A strange presence enters the house where he lived, recreates his studio, breathes his surroundings and travels the landscape until he merges with his own paintings, pure oil painting that takes the form of a mysterious and unattainable dream like the great Dutch teacher.

From the ocean, a volcanic island rises into steamy mist. The black rock of the earth stands in sharp contrast to the billowing vapor that hovers and drifts above the surface. A narrator describes how the island’s first inhabitants sought to explain the violent eruption by attributing the devastation to the wrath of angry gods. With breathtaking black-and-white cinematography, this poetic exploration considers the human relationship to this volatile land, where residents live alongside the looming threat of eruption with reverence, fear, and awe. A collection of scenes where dark and light miraculously coexist illuminates both the physical and spiritual landscapes of this extraordinary place, where life endures the perils of the natural world.

Set against the backdrop of a traditional Portuguese society, Fado Bicha (trans)forms heteronormative Fado music into a queer labyrinth of self-acceptance and self-expression. By reclaiming the scars that homophobia and transphobia have given them, Fado Bicha exposes what Fado music could have been if society were more accepting.

A gentle meditative touch on the relationship between mother and daughter in a hospice centre. At this stage of their relationship, they both realize the importance of giving each other freedom. The act of letting go of each other is opening infinite space of love and appreciation - the little things they can do together.

An experimental documentary about the intertwining of bodies and lives in a cattle ranch in Les Avins, Belgium, with cattle of the breed Blanc Bleu Belge, known for its fascinating musculature.

“Signals from an Island” provides an intimate glimpse into the life of a young Bulgarian astrophysicist. As he explores distant corners of the universe, he faces the challenge of finding meaningful connections.

Haunted by the sudden death of her grandfather and the lack of images she has of him, the filmmaker goes on a quest for tenderness in Brussels, a city that is not hers. During her short journey, she meets Ildib, an old and lonely man who spends his time watching people from a cafe in her neighborhood.

A recollection of her childhood through adult eyes. An Iranian woman recalls growing up during the Iraq-Iranian war through her father’s photo album while confronting her loneliness in marriage. A photo-novel finalized in post-production in 2020 in Belgium.

Occupied by Israel in 1967, the Syrian Golan has a military border running through it, which families “cross” by shouting to their loved ones. From his European exile, anxiety-ridden Alhasan Yousef attempts to break free from his inner isolation with this exploration of the power of sound, in an effort to reconnect with his lost country from afar.

Homesickness drives Neema Ngelime to the district of Matonge in Brussels, which is home to a large African community. The busy shopping streets evoke memories of her life in Tanzania. She wants to record the similarities with her native land for her grandmother, but that is easier said than done. As in Tanzania, most people on the street prefer not to be filmed. Yet, Ngelime gradually gets closer to the shopkeepers and customers of Chaussée de Wavre, and shares her observations with the viewer.

After many years of waiting, two Somali descendants are finally Hungarians. Despite this win, questions of belonging and what is home never leave them.

During the summer of 2014 Gaza war, in the battered neighbourhood of Shujaiya, 37-year-Salma made her home her shelter from the attacks. She and her daughter are protected in relative calm, until she receives a text message warning her of their impending fate.

The boy, who was bullied at school, looks for ways to solve the problem, and everything turns out in an unexpected way.