Documentaries
Janka
Director: Adela Kaczmarek
About film:
Janka is an intimate portrait of Janina Ochojska - founder of the Polish Humanitarian Action. Animation intertwines with the document, the past with the present. Childhood determined by a serious illness leads the heroine to a unique approach to life.
The film presents the life of Janina Ochojska interweaving the present with memories of the past pictured with an animation and 16mm archives. In early childhood, Janka suffers from polio. Hospitals, operations, longing for the family, but also unique education outside the home, shape her strong personality. She discovers early her first passion - the world of stars, which later will lead her to astronomy studies in Toruń. After graduation, her health deteriorates. Janka leaves for a serious back surgery to France where she accidentally meets people involved in humanitarian aid. She decides to go to Bosnia, bring help during the war. Shortly afterwards she founds the Polish Humanitarian Action. The events are interspersed with Janka’s personal thoughts about the meaning of life.
Over the limit
Director: Marta Prus
About film:
An intimate portrait of the world’s most outstanding rhythmic gymnast Margarita Mamun, the main representative of the prestigious Russian National Team. The film presents a groundbreaking year in her life, from the 2015 World Championships to the 2016 Olympic Games. The gymnast has the chance of a lifetime to become an Olympic champion, competing with the best friend from her club, Yana Kudryavtseva. Owing to coach Irina Viner, rhythmic gymnastics in Russia is much more than just a sport discipline. It is a hermetic world and a source of great fame for gymnasts. The story about Margarita Mamun acts as a parable of the training system created by Irina Viner. What does it mean to live constantly under the pressure of expectations? Over the Limit is a film about a struggle for dreams and the solitude of a distinguished individual.
Big vs Small
Director: Minna Dufton
About film:
BIG vs SMALL is a modern-day fairytale stretching from monster waves in Portugal to the dark stillness of a far-north, frozen Finnish lake –it’s about power and strength on top of the water and facing demons under it. It’s about trust, it’s about letting go, and it’s about what happens when two elite champion athletes share their extraordinary talents with each other.
Stingray Sisters
Director: Katrina Channells
About film:
Stingray Sisters is a dramatic real-life documentary set in a remote Indigenous community. For the first time, this eye-opening film will give audiences unparalleled access to life in an Australian Indigenous community, through the lens of three contemporary sisters. Noni, Alice and Grace are navigating their twenties while moving, as they always have, between two cultures and two homes. Facing constant challenges that most of us will never know, join the Eather sisters and their extended family as they prepare to take on their biggest battle yet.
Straight out
Director: Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir
About film:
Nine Icelandic gay teens tell us about their lives in their frozen corner of the world. Feeling excluded, experimenting with drugs and sex, finding others like themselves, self hatred, thoughts of suicide, coming out to parents. These honest interviews show us that no matter where they are in the world many aspects of being gay are universal.
