Still: Living Water (Žít vodu) by Pavel Borecký
The 52nd edition of Visions du Réel (15-25 April) will present 142 films from 58 countries. 82 films will be presented as world premieres and 16 as international premieres.
“While the International Film Festival Nyon will be held predominantly in a virtual format, its official selection emphasises its pioneering role when it comes to exploring the spectrum of documentary filmmaking practices,” the festival underlines.
41% of the films selected are directed by women; 31 films are first films. The selection includes 26 Swiss (co)productions, thereby affirming the festival as “an essential partner of national creation.”
Visions du Réel will pay tribute to the French author, filmmaker and screenwriter Emmanuel Carrère by awarding him the prestigious Prix d’honneur. The 2021 Ateliers are dedicated to Tatiana Huezo and Pietro Marcello.
Les Guérisseurs, the first feature-length film by Swiss filmmaker Marie-Eve Hildbrand, will open the 52nd edition on 15 April.
Visions du Réel further emphasises its status as both the only festival in Switzerland dedicated to documentary filmmaking and a flagship international event, as well as the accessibility of its Industry component which presents an important networking platform and selects projects at all stages of their development.
Emilie Bujès, Artistic Director of Visions du Réel, comments: “The films that populate the 2021 official selection embrace this freedom, these subjectivities, this refusal of explanations or comprehensive information, so they may better aspire to conveying sentiments and personal emotions, which will only become even more universal. So, this powerful and eclectic 2021 selection will once again enable us to take into account the independence and the emancipation of contemporary documentary filmmaking, which keeps itself at the right distance from the sometimes alienating issues of fiction and from the often excessively confined definitions—in form and in substance—of the traditional documentary.”
Adds festival president Raymond Loretan: “We will make every effort to once more make this edition a special and memorable event, to find the formats combining conviviality and safety, to give the public and the filmmakers everything that we can offer them. The edition will be as virtual as necessary and as physical as possible.”
The films were selected from 3,000 submissions (a figure that has remained stable despite the current panedemic).
The films in the official selection of the 52nd edition of Visions du Réel are:
INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM COMPETITION
Presenting 13 films, 9 world premieres, 4 international premieres, 20 countries, the International Feature-length Film Competition shows contemporary documentary filmmaking in a wide and open, original and singular definition.
1970 by Tomasz Wolski, Poland, 2021, 70’, world premiere
Bellum – The Daemon of War by David Herdies and Georg Götmark, Sweden/Denmark, 2021, 87’, world premiere
Courage by Aliaksei Paluyan, Germany/Belarus 2021, 90’, international premiere
Faya Dayi by Jessica Beshir, United States/Ethiopia/Qatar, 2021, 120’, international premiere
Holgut by Liesbeth de Ceulaer, Belgium, 2021, 74’, world premiere (co-presented with CPH:DOX)
Les Enfants terribles by Ahmet Necdet Cupur, France, Germany, Turkey, 2021, 93’, world premiere
Little Palestine (Diary of a Siege) by Abdallah Al-Khatib, Lebanon/France/Qatar, 2021, 83’, world premiere
Ostrov – Lost Island by Svetlana Rodina and Laurent Stoop, Switzerland, 2021, 92’, world premiere
The Bubble by Valerie Blankenbyl, Switzerland/Austria, 2021, 93’, world premiere
The First 54 Years – An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation by Avi Mograbi, France/Germany/Israel/Finland, 2021, 110’, international premiere
The Moon Represents My Heart (La luna representa mi corazón) by Juan Martín Hsu, Argentina/Taiwan, 2021, 100’, world premiere
Users by Natalia Almada, United States/Mexico, 2021, 81’, international premiere
Zinder by Aicha Macky, France/Niger/Germany, 2021, 82’, world premiere
BURNING LIGHTS COMPETITION
Presenting 15 films, 12 world premieres, 3 international premieres from 15 countries, the Burning Lights Competition is dedicated to new vocabularies and forms of writing, to research, and to narrative and formal experimentation.
After the Flood by Yuan Zheng, China, 2021, 54’, world premiere
Dida by Nikola Ilić and Corina Schwingruber Ilić, Switzerland, 2021, 78’, world premiere
Edna by Eryk Rocha, Brazil, 2021, 64’, world premiere
Le Ventre de la montagne (The Belly of the Mountain) by Stephen Loye, France, 2021, 77’, world premiere
Looking for Horses by Stefan Pavlović, Netherlands/Bosnia and Herzegovina, France, 2021, 88’, world premiere
Non-Stop (Jo ta ke) by Aitziber Olaskoaga, Spain, 2020, 39’, international premiere
Notre endroit silencieux (Our Quiet Place) by Elitza Gueorguieva, France/ Bulgaria, 2021, 67’, world premiere
Only the Winds by Karim Kassem, Lebanon/Sweden, 2021, 132’, world premiere
Searchers by Pacho Velez, United States, 2021, 80’, international premiere
Slow Return by Philip Cartelli, United States/France, 2021, 80’, world premiere
Soldat Ahmet by Jannis Lenz, Austria, 2021, 75’, world premiere
Splinters (Esquirlas) by Natalia Garayalde, Argentina, 2020, 70’, international premiere
The Great Void (Die Große Leere) by Sebastian Mez, Germany, 2021, 86’, world premiere
Way Beyond by Pauline Julier, Switzerland, 2021, 60’, world premiere
WTC A Love Story by Wouter de Raeve and Lietje Bauwens, Netherlands/Belgium, 2021, 60’, world premiere
NATIONAL COMPETITION
Presenting 12 films, 11 world premieres, 1 international premiere, the National Competition is devoted to medium- and feature-length films (co-)produced in Switzerland.
À l’intérieur (Within) by Sabine Bally, Switzerland, 2021, 44’, world premiere
Chronicles of That Time (Cronache di quel tempo) by Maria Iorio and Raphaël Cuomo, Switzerland/Italy, 2021, 75’, world premiere
Dreaming an Island (Sognando un’isola) by Andrea Pellerani, Switzerland, 2021, 76’, world premiere
L’Étincelle by Antoine Harari and Valeria Mazzucchi, Switzerland, 2021, 61’, world premiere
Les Guérisseurs (Healers) by Marie-Eve Hildbrand, Switzerland, 2021, 79’, world premiere
Living Water (Žít vodu) by Pavel Borecký, Switzerland/Czech Republic/Jordan, 2020, 77’, international premiere
Nostromo by Fisnik Maxville, Switzerland, 2021, 82’, world premiere
Our Child (Menschenskind!) by Marina Belobrovaja, Switzerland, 2021, 82’, world premiere
Parallel Lives by Frank Matter, Switzerland, 2021, 139’, world premiere
Pushing Boundaries by Lesia Kordonets, Switzerland, 2021, 102’, world premiere
The Lunar Course of My Life (Watashi wa tsuki no katawara ni) by Valerie Bäuerlein, Switzerland/Germany, 2021, 87’, world premiere
The Mushroom Speaks by Marion Neumann, Switzerland, 2021, 90’, world premiere (co-presented with CPH:DOX)
Juries
Jury members across the competition sections includes noted filmmakers such as Kamal Aljafari (An Unusual Summer), Alejo Franzetti (Panke), Thomas Imbach (Nemesis) or Laila Pakalnina (In the Mirror) and the producers Consuelo Frauenfelder (Un couteau dans le coeur) and Julie Frères (Drôle de pays), plus industry delegates such as Savina Neirotti, Director of the TorinoFilmLab and Head of Programme at the Biennale College of the Venice Festival, Anne Berthollet (Lightdox) or Diana Tabakov, Executive Director of Doc Alliance Films.
For the first time, the Festival will install a FIPRESCI jury for the first feature-length films in the International Feature-length Film Competition and the Burning Lights International Competition.
Other Visions du Réel sections
Visions du Réel provides a showcase for medium-length and short films in its Medium-length & Short Films International Competition and in the section dedicated to first short films and films made in schools: Opening Scenes. While the Competition presents 37 films, including 32 world premieres and 4 international premieres, Opening Scenes has 15 short films, including 13 world premieres and 2 international premieres.
Switzerland distinguishes itself with seven films selected in these two sections particularly marked by the new generation. Once again this year, the Grand Angle section presents 11 feature-length films having already enchanted the audience at other festivals or that will mark the coming year. Furthermore, it includes a film presented as a world premiere, My Place Is Here, shot in a hospital in northern Italy during the first wave of the pandemic. Finally, the non-competitive Latitudes section offers a panorama of current documentary filmmaking practices with 11 films presented.
Special screenings
Visions du Réel will present the American docuseries Philly D.A. in its entirety. Le Chant des vivants, a film made up of songs and memories, is chosen for the pre-opening. The film retraces the traumatising experience of young survivors coming from different regions of Africa. Finally, as part of the partnership between the Film Department at Geneva University of Art and Design and Les Archives of Radio Télévision Suisse, students specialising in editing “take possession” of the archives to create films around the notion of “struggles”.
Emmanuel Carrère, Guest of Honour, as well as two Ateliers
Visions du Réel will pay tribute—in collaboration with La Cinémathèque Suisse and ECAL—to the French author, filmmaker and screenwriter Emmanuel Carrère by awarding him the prestigious Prix d’honneur (previously the “Maître du Réel”). The Festival will present his documentary Retour à Kotelnitch and a series of films that he has chosen as part of his Carte Blanche.
The two 2021 Ateliers (retrospective and public masterclasses) are dedicated to the Mexican filmmaker Tatiana Huezo and the Italian director Pietro Marcello—with the latter being invited in partnership with Geneva University of Art and Design.
