9 Days: From My Window in Aleppo

Through dancing, The Motherfucker’s Birthday shows the evil of the dictator and the horror people endure under powerful political leaders. The film presents dancing, a universal and uniquely human activity often representing joy, with eerie footage of Saddam and his sons’ torture tools while they dance.

A man opens the large gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France, in 1895. Through the gate and a smaller door next to it, workers stream out for lunch. Once all the workers have left the factory, the gatekeeper closes the gate again.

Oman’s vast plains look so much like Mars that they are used as a training ground for astronauts. Two local girls gaze at the starry sky like curious scientists while the astronauts philosophise about living on the Red Planet.

The militaristic environment of the dystopian multiplayer shooter game Tom Clancy’s The Division is reused for a pacifist city tour. During a walk through the post-apocalyptic city, issues such as architectural history and urbanism are discussed.

On the outskirts of the city, the new modern buildings are silent, and the motorway bridge drones. Birds are circling in the sky, and a young man, concealed by his hoodie, is riding his e-scooter along a park path. The only irritating element is the rifle over his shoulder. Cyclepaths conveys a mood of high alert, even though the disaster has, in fact, already happened.

A portrait of contemporary suburban youth seeking to invent new contours of collective identity, against the backdrop of France in the throes of recession.

Every form of communication involves deciphering codes. In Before Then, Mengzhu Xue attempts to confess a secret in the form of a letter in English, which she writes out phonetically in Chinese, and asks her grandmother to read out loud.