Mark Adams

A languid and rather plaintive documentary about grizzled miners clinging to their dreams of finding gold in the remote outdoors, Juho-Pekka Tanskanen’s The Last Misfits by the Golden River is a warm and elegant homage to a unique way of life as it follows the last group of prospectors searching for riches deep in the Finnish wilderness.

An engagingly oddball and gently philosophical examination into the relationship between humans and animals, Sally Jacobson and Tuva Bjork’s breezy, thoughtful and amusing Unanimal muses on how we have looked at animals over the years. Ironic, amusing and gently insightful, Unanimal offers an alternate way to look at how we share the planet with them.

Clashes between long-held traditions and modern-day practices are by their nature common-place, but this powerful new documentary examines the harsh reality of life on the Indonesian island of Sumba where slavery is still an abominable fact of life. History and culture still play their part, with society structured into clear classes - the nobility (Maramba), commoners (Kabihu), and slaves (Ata) – but despite legal abolition, for some the practice of slavery continues.

The familiar story of attempting to overcome a traumatic injury is given additional resonance with this story of a Norwegian MMA fighter whose personality is tied to his physicality. But Geir Kåre Nyland has to try and deal with a frightening new existence, while also attempting to face up to family and personal traumas long unaddressed that have impacted on the way he deals with life.

Sounding like they come from a novel by George Orwell or Franz Kafka, the rather niche section of the Stockholm Police evocatively named The Dialogue Police are actually a special unit whose well-intentioned mission is to strengthen democracy and ensure the right of all citizens to say what they want. Susanna Edwards’ fascinating and immersive fly-on-the-wall feature doc receives its international premiere at CPH:DOX.

There is a gentle whimsy to Nora Nivedita Tvedt’s film Small Dogs Bark Loud as it tackles the challenging subject of childhood loss and trauma with both warmth and compassion, and while the bond between a fluffy small white dog and a 12-year-old Norwegian girl forms the spine of the film, at heart it aims to dwell on how we all process love, grief and fear.

The darkest moments in Poland’s recent history hang heavily in this gently chilling psychological journey, which takes the viewer to various landscapes where Holocaust sites remain part of everyday life and where the business of how best to tackle memory and responsibility remain a vital part of modern reality.

A gentle and heart-warmingly non-judgmental film, Denis Côté’s Paul is a compassionate observation of a shy and unusual man and the life of subservience he chooses to lead. While the subject matter could have been treated salaciously or shot for laughs, in the hands of the experienced and wise Côté it is an intelligent examination of an eccentric but endearing human being.

Strategically located cities can, by their very nature, find themselves fiercely contested across the centuries, with rulers and nationalities changing time and time again. As we see in Igor Bezinović fascinating, entertaining and provocative film, Rijeka in Croatia is such a place…a strategic seaport contested between the Holy Roman Empire, Italy and Croatia over the years, but now settled as a busy and beautiful harbour town.

Part angry doc about a conspiracy to poison the environment in upstate New York in the early 1990s and part warm-hearted high school recollection, the engrossing Middletown examines how an unconventional teacher inspired a group of teens to make student films that exposed organised crime in the dumping of poisonous materials into landfill sites in their community.