Trenches

Venice 2021
Out of Competition
IDFA 2021
Official Selection

Trenches

A Film by Loup Bureau

2021 - France - Documentary - 1.85 - 90 min.

Languages: Ukrainian , Russian
Produced by Caroline Nataf

In Donbas Ukraine, while precarious truces and ceasefires are negotiated far away by diplomats, Ukrainian soldiers fight against separatists supported by Russia. At an age when some are experiencing the best years of their lives, in the frontline men and women are fighting, condemned to dig and dig up again the trenches, while bombs keep on falling on them. French war journalist and first-time director Loup Bureau takes us on an immersive and stunning cinematic journey revealing the naked truth and roughness of survival, in what is called to be the last conflict on European soil.

In Collection:
Venice 2021
Out of Competition
IDFA 2021
Official Selection

More Films

Dancing Dreams

A film by Anne Linsel

2009 - Germany - Documentary - 1.85 DCP - 89 min.

The dance performance „Kontakthof“ bears the unmistakable signature of Pina Bausch: it deals with forms of human contact, the encounters between the sexes, and the search for love and tenderness with all the attendant anxieties, yearnings and doubts. It is about feelings, which pose a big challenge, particularly for young people. For almost a year teenagers from over eleven schools in Wuppertal went on an emotional journey. Every Saturday, 40 students, aged between 14 to 18 years, rehearsed under the direction of the Bausch-dancers Jo-Ann Endicott and Bénédicte Billiet and under the intense supervision of Pina Bausch herself. The film „Dancing Dreams“ by Anne Linsel and Rainer Hoffmann accompanies the rehearsal process culminating in the opening night. We watch the teenagers making their first, still clumsy attempts to transform the subjects of the dance performance into motion and choreography and to develop an own, individual body expression. They discover themselves in a process, which leads great personal growth. Gentle and shy but also aggressive contacts condensate to individual experiences that many of the teenagers encounter for the first time on stage. Pina Bausch has always encouraged the young dancers „to be themselves.“ It is behind their own movements, fears, feelings and desires that their personal „Dancing Dreams“ become visible. At the end each of them has not only grown up, but above all has become more self-confident, independent and more sceptical facing prejudices. Employing an unusual adjacency, the film introduces the young protagonists in sensitive ways, it culminates in drawing a portrait of an entire generation. Pina Bausch died on June 30th, 2009. „Dancing Dreams – teenagers perform „Kontakthof“ by Pina Bausch“ shows the last motion pictures and the last interview with the world-famous dancer and choreographer.

Chasuke's Journey

A film by SABU

2015 - Japan - Drama/Fantasy - 2.35 DCP - 106 min.

In Heaven, scribes are busy writing scenarios for all of mankind, dictating everyone’s upcoming destiny. Celestial tea server Chasuke never misses a chance to catch up on some of the latest chapters, especially those about Yuri, for whom he has a secret crush. But when he discovers that the writers accidentally kill her off, he decides to break the rules and go down to Earth to save her. But nothing goes according to plan, since nothing has been prewritten for him…

A German Youth

A film by Jean-Gabriel Périot

2015 - France/Switzerland/Germany - Documentary - DCP - 1.85 - 93 min.

In the late 1960s, the postwar generation, in direct conflict with their fathers, was trying to find its place. From this soon radicalized seething youth emerged in 1970 The Red Army Faction, a German revolutionary terrorist group founded notably by Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof. Based on archive footage, the film aims to question viewers on the significance of this revolutionary movement during its time, as well as its resonance for today’s society.