Jerzy Sladkowski

A lovesick misfit, a mysterious beauty, a retired civil servant, a randy fortuneteller and a couple of doubtful, young, charismatic lovers meet in late summer on a Russian river cruise. They have one thing in common – similar emotional problems of suffering and doubts. However, they’ve come to the right place. River cruises in Russia are colloquially called “floating matchmaking agencies”. What does fate have in store for them?

Twenty-two-year-old Oleg doesn’t live up to his mother Marina’s idea of a real man. She thinks he’s an autistic loafer. He’s enrolled at the University of Nizhny Novgorod and is supposed to be watching online lectures, but his mother says all he actually does is hang around watching TV. Oleg doesn’t have any need for friendships, either. Marina wants him to improve his life and subjects him to a series of unconventional treatments. In one particularly uncomfortable scene, we see the therapist riding him as if he were a horse. Another psychiatrist tells Oleg how useless he is and that he will always be alone. Strangely enough the camera seems to be welcome everywhere, and it closely follows these dramatic developments.

Documentary about Lars Theodor Jonsson who was a cross country skier in the 1920s and 30s and now lives alone in the forest.

Tatiana and her daughter Valentina live in the boring, provincial town of Zhigulyovsk 1000 kilometres south-east of Moscow. Valentina, 22, works in a vodka factory, while Tatiana, 50, is a bus conductor. Valentina, whose dream is to be a TV star in Moscow, has to overcome her own limitations as well as the irony and malice of her comrades at the vodka factory. Tatiana has to adapt her expectations to reality when her potential life partner turns out to be a part-time drunkard and a deadbeat. And on top of all this, both women have to think about Valentina’s son Danilo’s future. One of them has to give up the dream.

The second documentary in a trilogy of films about elderly couple Hans and Kerstin Stralström. In the first film, the couple went to Argentina, where they met Guillermo and Juan. In this film, the two Argentinians travel to the cold of northern Sweden, to visit with Hans and Kerstin. Humorous culture shocks and language barriers ensue.

The film combines the personal, political, and historical, tracing the horror of a pogrom committed against the Jewish residents of the Polish city of Kielce on the 4th of July 1946. This atrocity was committed by their neighbors, fellow Poles of Kielce. This film seeks to gain some perspective on the Kielce Pogrom, an event that has been all but scrubbed from the history of Poland. The filmmaker searches for answers, even reflecting on his own family's complicity (and perhaps more) in the event. Given the current political climate in 21st century Poland, this film is fiercely relevant today, as we must confront and combat the legacies of anti-Semitism in Europe and around the world.

The third documentary in a trilogy of films about elderly couple Hans and Kerstin Stralström. This last instalment is quieter than the first two, as the couple argue and ponder whether renovation of their house is a good idea. A beautiful final portrait of the couple.

A dramatic depiction of honor, family feuds and thousand-year-old traditions. In Albania, the tradition of avenging an injustice according to the motto "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" still lives on. This has led to people being trapped in their homes for fear of being murdered due to a family feud.