Mark Adams

An astonishingly open, moving, funny and challenging insight into the world of a woman paralysed but with her mind intact, Eat Your Catfish is remarkable in portraying an intimate and powerful portrait of a family stretched it its very breaking point. (Envision Competition)

The Covid-19 pandemic may well have dominated television news coverages for months, especially at its height in 2020, but that doesn’t detract from the immersive power of director Matthew Heineman’s new film The First Wave, which recounts in grim but pragmatic detail the experiences of those on the front line of New York’s response to the health crisis.

The Netflix doc Procession is the tender but often also traumatic story of six Midwestern men, all survivors of childhood sexual assault at the hands of Catholic priests and clergy, who come together to create a drama therapy-inspired experiment designed to collectively work through their traumas.

An inspirational, moving and ultimately uplifting film that tells the unlikely story of a compassionate headmaster determined to change fortunes in an inner-city all-boys primary school by turning to the wisdom of the ancient Greek philosophers.

Dean Martin: King of Cool strikingly reinforces the acclaimed Rat Packer’s importance within the cultural landscape of the second half of the 20th century, both as a charismatic crooner but also as a witty, relaxed and genial actor and performer who embraced comedic improvisation with ease.

An intriguing, mesmerising and illuminating one-man rollercoaster ride in which German actor Ben Becker ‘plays’ acclaimed contemporary artist Albert Oehlen engaging in, struggling with and expounding on, the process of abstract art creation.

The journey can be uncomfortable for the viewer at times, and one questions just what the subject, film critic, Kamil Fila is getting out of the exercise, but Martin Mareček’s film, which world-premiered in Ji.hlava, is also absorbing and very watchable.

An affectionate, insightful and at times moving examination of memory and sight, Betula Pendula, world-premiering at Ji.hlava, follows Thomas Wellner (credited as co-director), who lost his sight at childhood, as he revisits childhood locations and starts to vividly recall moments, shapes, colours, smells and other memories from his past.

The gentle and respectful underlying sense of humour permeating Russian-born Aleksey Lapin’s playful portrait of a village near the Ukrainian border, where he used to spend every summer as a youngster, helps prevent this hybrid documentary from being cruel or critical. The fact that locals enter into the spirit of the film serves to give it warmth, insight and a helping of generosity.

Family, heritage, religion and identity are playfully but astutely examined in Cléo Cohen’s DOK Leipzig International Competition world-prem May God Be With You (Que Dieu te protège), as the young filmmaker attempts to tackle her identity crisis and try and get a sense of herself within the context of her family story.