Not Waving, But Drowning

The wanderings of a retail trader, Jean-Simon, sketch the contours of a microcosmic informal economy in Congolese society. The financial urgency of everyday life is permeated by the political situation in Congo: a larger, more abstract urgency, which the diaspora experiences from a distance. The film finds itself somewhere in between these two imperatives, between here and somewhere else, the past and the present, small money and big money.

In the back room of a flower shop, Tomi, Rasto and Mižu are digging a tunnel in order to break into the safe of the National Bank. After heavy rainfall, the underground maze gets submerged by water and they are forced to stop working.

Poetic documentary portraying Giorgi Shakhsuvarian, an Armenian boxing coach from Tbilisi. Living and working in Belgium, he prepares a young boxer to become a European champion.

Shot in the German countryside, Catskin is a mysterious and alluring portrait of Ludwig, a teenage boy who lives a simple life with his father, grandmother, and their cats.

"The One Close to the Sea shows the immersion of a filmmaker in a Scottish landscape. Not a narrative representation of what happens on the surface of this landscape, but the search for a simple rhythm, that lies underneath this landscape and makes up its essence. This is not a search for any landscape, but for that mode of being, that is essential to 'all' landscape. A search for what transforms mere place, into landscape. The rhythm of the land; light, movement, sound. The action of warm colours gives way to a deeper molecular game, that precedes all surface action. Not the violence of lightning, but the silent force of a charged cloud. Not a hymn of praise for nature, but an icy breath that is the direct expression of this nature. Not the chaos of a forest in bloom, but the simplicity of a bare landscape. The camera seeks to move at this level, at this rhythm, a rhythm that is not only the essence of nature, but also the essence of cinema..." (Thijs Klaps, 2023)

Surrounded by the sound of nocturnal animals, a girl falls into a deep sleep. Gradually we are drawn into her dream, which unfolds into a cosmic journey through the meadows of Erpe-Mere.

Twelve-year-old Zlata has to find her way in Belgium after she inevitably had to flee the war in her home country, Ukraine. Her father, Petro, and Findus, her cat, stayed behind, Mother Ira and little brother Martin came along. Step by step the adolescent girl explores not only her new living environment, but also her own identity. Awaiting the uncertain arrival of her father, Zlata slowly opens up.

In a quiet and snowy Chechen village, mother tells her daughter about the return of Zara – their relative, who left this place 20 years ago. Outside, the whole world is hidden in a thick white fog. For both women, the upcoming meeting is a bright event in their dull daily life that they are very much looking forward to.