The Empty Grave
Cece Mlay/ Agnes Lisa Wegner
Germany, Tanzania. 2024. 97 min

THE EMPTY GRAVE follows the emotional journey of two Tanzanian families in search of their stolen ancestors. Their quest leads them to Germany where tens of thousands of human remains from former German colonies are stored in museum depots – a haunting legacy of colonial plunder in the early 20th century, taken for racist research and as macabre trophies. Set in the present, the film unveils the enduring traces and traumas inflicted by colonial crimes on families and communities. It navigates the obscure maze of German and Tanzanian bureaucracy, revealing the struggle to reckon with this pain.

The Alquimist´s Dance
Arantxa Vela Buendía
Spain. 2024. 81 min

How does María Pagés’ thinking work? Where do her movements come from? What inspires her dancing? Starting with the staging of one of her latest shows, ‘De Scheherezade’, at the Roman Theatre of Mérida, we delve into her creative process, a process that she has shared for more than ten years with the poet, writer and dramaturg El Arbi El Harti. Both helps us to deconstruct scenes and draw a line that links with their previous works. By means of a fine sense of humour, the couple reveals to us the happiness and difficulties of living and working together. María Pagés shows herself to us as a woman whose life has its center on stage, in her way of understanding flamenco. Her dance seems to be something close to meditation and her creative process, a kind of trance.

Mother and Daughter
Lana Gogoberidze
Georgia/France. 2023. 89 min

It is 1930. A bitterly crying two-years-old child is seeing her mother off on her way to a film shooting. An elderly man turns to the mother and asks her where she was going to and whether it was worth the child’s tears.
The film is an attempt to answer this question.
The woman leaving for film shooting is Nutsa Gogoberidze – the first woman filmmaker in Georgia and one among the first in the Soviet Union.
Two years old child is me — Lana Gogoberidze. Today 95 years old film maker. In the 30s Nutsa shot two films immediately banned by the Soviet censorship. In 1937, during the times of Great Terror, she was arrested and exiled for 10 years.

New Girl in the City
Aakriti Thatal, Ashutosh Mishra, Asmita Srivastava
India. 2023. 16 min

In New Girl in the City, two women new to Mumbai navigate through the city and write postcards and letters about their new experiences to their friends back home. Based on their social locations and how Hindi Cinema influences their perceptions of the city, their experiences- that make up the film- bring to light aspects such as relatability and alienation that may or may not align with what is seen on screen. The filmmakers also explore the romantic image of Mumbai and how they view it in relation to the one Hindi Cinema curates for us.

And Towards Happy Alleys
Sreemoyee Singh
India. 2023. 75 min

Fascinated by Iran’s film culture and the poetic works of the feminist poet Forough Farrokhzad, Indian filmmaker Sreemoyee Singh sets out in search of the protagonists of Iranian cinema. The numerous interviews she conducts over a period of six years with filmmakers Jafar Panahi, Mohammad Shirvani and human rights activist Nasrin Sotudeh, among others, show the precarious situation in which critics of the regime find themselves, including the constant threat of imprisonment and being banned from practising their profession. With a keen eye for unusual situations, she documents the effect of the Islamic Republic’s strict and omnipresent censorship on the daily lives of Iranian women whose uncompromising struggle has put them at the forefront of the protests that are currently rocking the country.
And, Towards Happy Alleys is a passionate declaration of love for the cinema and poetry of Iran which also provides a frank view of daily life, and bears witness to a fearless generation raising its voice and implacably demanding its civil liberties.

Bye Bye Tiberias
Lina Soualem
France, Palestine. 2023. 82 min

In her early twenties, Hiam Abbas has left her native Palestinian village to follow her dream of becoming an actress in Europe, leaving behind her mother, grandmother, and seven sisters . Thirty years later, her filmmaker daughter Lina returns with her to the village and questions for the first time her mother’s bold choices , her chosen exile and the way the women in their family influenced both their lives.
Set between past and present , Bye Bye Tiberias pieces together images of today, family footage from the nineties and historical archives to portray four generations of daring Palestinian women who keep their story and legacy alive through the st rength of their bonds, despite exile , dispossession, and heartbreak.