Mark Adams

A simple but deeply insightful and, at times, challenging documentary, Marjolein Busstra’s We Don’t Talk (Wij praten niet) follows an in-depth series of conversations between therapists and teenagers as they tackle a complex web of sexual violence and exploitation.

The spectacular mountains of Ecuador provide a vibrant backdrop for this epic and often brutal story of the battle between locals (and eco-guerrillas) and a government that is beholden to China, having sold off mining contracts for millions of dollars, resulting in both loss of land and loss of political sovereignty to a foreign government.

The iconic luminous yellow sleeveless jackets sported by French protestors helped define the country’s recent grass roots uprising. With elections looming this summer, and France (along with the rest of the world) assailed by financial hardship, this examination of a modern protest movement as seen from the inside makes for timely viewing as it exposes the methods, aims and inner contradictions of the Gilets Jaunes.

A warm-hearted and delightfully moving mother-and-son story, All That Remains To Be Seen (Mod de blindes verden) manages to be both informative and gently uplifting as it details the story of a blind mother and her seven year-old son whose own vision slowly starts to fade, a new and challenging life opening up before him.

There is a striking unworldly quality to They Made Us the Night which trades on folk myths and supernatural visions despite its core story being about the challenges faced by the inhabitants of a small Mexican town which, according to the maps, does not even exist. Playful, elusive and engrossing the film allows its protagonists to tell their own story even if that means heading into the realm of magical realism at times.

Swiss director Antoine Cattin’s thoroughly absorbing Holidays offers a fascinating - and absolutely prescient - look into the lives of a series of ordinary folk living in St Petersburg as they celebrate (or often simply endure) a series of Russian national holidays.

It is tough to strike the right tonal balance when it comes to looking at the impact of poverty on the vulnerable in society, but while Łukasz Kowalski’s humour in his new doc may well be pitch-black at times, the CPH:DOX Next:Wave film is also astutely compassionate as it dwells on staff and customers as they struggle to deal with their harsh lives.

The ethical and environmental issues around industrial farmed animal production may form the worrying and often disturbing backdrop to Saila Kivelä and Vesa Kuosmanen’s often provocative documentary, but at heart it is a film about relationships and how they can become severely strained when emotions run high, and how political savvy must strike a fine balance with activism.

In Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing’s Dox:Award Competition documentary, against the backdrop of a country torn apart by terrible religious and political conflict, two women from either side of the divide do their best as midwives in one of the remoter regions of Myanmar.

As Alexei Navalny says at the start of this film, “let’s make a thriller," adding that were he to die then direct Daniel Roher was free to make "a boring movie about memory.” Despite constant pressure from the Russian authorities and a poison attempt back in 2020, Putin’s political nemesis didn’t die, and so Roher’s film does indeed take the form of a gripping thriller…one all the more chilling and prescient given the current situation in Russia and Ukraine.