Innovative and surprising, controversial or self-reflective, the films included in this Official Section offer a new perspective on the state of cinema. Despite the interconnected overwhelming new order of things, what drew us were the filmmakers who looked inwards for their stories. From a window to the world outside, the cinema that interested us was the one dealing with livelihoods. Many films we chose exude intimacy and come from first-person experiences, memories, and personal anxieties. Our comforting familiarity has changed and made us realize nothing can be taken for granted. While shooting what they knew, the directors from the Official Section reflected in a collective mirror, where we can all look at and reflect upon ourselves.

With few exceptions, the films we gathered ruminate on family bonds, reshaping the traditional roles and responding to everyday challenges. From the political essays questioning the system to pandemic dramas introducing the youngsters to the voracity of capitalism, internet culture, and attention economy, the program emphasizes the need for human connection in response to the fragmentation of social interactions. The emerging filmmakers have chosen a fictional approach for their subjects, delivering a crisis of fatherhood through interconnected stories and the loss of a family member employing thriller tropes.

Other works we discovered engage in the practice of navigating and second-guessing the norms, exploring transgenerational trauma by creating films that function as profound acts of resistance, giving voice to those who lack it. Moving at ease between documentary and fiction are also the titles that question the device of scriptwriting and the conventions of depicting reality, permeating closeness to reveal the limits of testimony and the relativisation of the real.

In response to the alienation of interactions, the nonfiction cinema, a landmark of our program, contemplated upon the ways humanity alters its course. Conceptually eco-critical and bewitching photography imagine alternative modes of existence. Films that examine our historical accountability and propose an alternative experience of cinema. And last, there are the films that humorously reclaim the right to live on our terms, whether that means contributing or purposefully not to a productive-driven society. It’s a program of films in conversation with one another, hoping to do what cinema ultimately does: bringing us together.

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