Robin Bank

While imprisoned for drug trafficking in Barcelona, ​​​​Hernando Toro began his career as a photographer. For more than a decade, from a cell that was converted into a professional studio, he took thousands of portraits of those, like him, who lived behind bars. Despite the wealth of his work, much of Toro's file was forgotten once he was released.

In 2017, the citizens of Catalonia voted to become an independent state, a result which was soon after deemed illegal in Spain’s constitutional court. Through conversations and WhatsApp chats recorded in the leadup to the referendum, join the voters as they head to the polls and anxiously await the results.

Three relatives of missing people travel a long and complex path in search of the remains of their loved ones, facing bureaucratic, legal and social processes that have persisted since the Civil War. Atlas of disappearance reconstructs what oblivion and repression tried to hide. Through digital maps, archives and forensic architecture, the film illuminates the silent transfer of thousands of missing people to the Cuelgamuros Valley during the Franco dictatorship. Between absences and silences, the film shows the constant struggle to recover the truth, giving name and place to those who were torn from history.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the world’s largest producer of cobalt, a rare earth mineral that is essential in the production of technologies. In this hybrid documentary, South African artists Francois Knoetze and Amy Louise Wilson, together with Congolese historian Joe-Yves Salankang Sa-Ngol, trace the trans-continental journey of this precious metal: from its violent extraction in the mines of DRC to its sale on global stock markets. The Rock Speaks weaves a complex contemplation on an urgent ecological crisis that is fuelled by obscene labour practices that our technological systems demand.