Florian Seufert

By inventing a fictional alter ego of himself, director Florian Seufert puts himself in the position to be at the same time the observed object and the observer. In his very personal ways, Florian Seufert appears to re-imagine the spiritual teachings of Carlos Castaneda and the otherworldly musings of Alejandro Jodorowski. Thus, this filmic out-of-body experience becomes an allegory for cinema itself and a sensorial voyage towards a new way of self-discovery. While shamans connect with the hidden realms of ghosts and their ancestors, the circle of life and death becomes whole once again, Florian, living with the Huichol, sheds his former self like an old and useless skin. *Pamparios* is a film about (the search for) self-realization. A film like an LSD trip. Like a dream within a dream hidden inside a secret dream. A challenging debut from an extremely promising director. Giona A. Nazzaro

While most of the inhabitants of Monte Virgen struggle to collect their coffee, the forest ranger Julia discovers that a group of illegal loggers is destroying the reserve. Determined to stop them, she looks for the support of a fearful and indifferent community that will soon turn its back on her. Alone on her quest, she will gradually lose the things she loves most except one thing: her dignity.

A felicitous and at the same time almost unbearable cinematic experimental set-up that uses documentary means to show what the Belarusian reality behind the news items looks like. Based on eyewitness accounts, Pavel Mozhar re-stages Lukashenko’s perfidious and oppression-based power system. Violence in the shape of detailed reconstructions may seem abstract at first glance but drills itself into our consciousness all the more persistently in the course of the film.

Nico, a filmmaker, returns to her hometown to lead a storytelling workshop with her childhood friend Lori, a schoolteacher there. Lori’s pupils are asked to imagine their future selves. The children’s thoughts prompt Nico and Lori to reexamine their own decisions in life — as well as their friendship.