DocsBarcelona 26

Before the Fire follows a Mapuche community in southern Argentina defending their ancestral land and traditions. Their daily life is shattered when hired killers murder one of their members, igniting a struggle for memory and justice. “Crafting a narrative in which a people such as the Mapuche recount their struggle to ‘be’ and, at the same time, to ‘reclaim’ their territory, is not only relevant to Argentina but also to a concept of ‘community’ that is becoming increasingly urgent in the world we inhabit,” says German co-producer Natalia Imaz of parabellum film.

“Invisible Traces aims not only to shift the perception of ala kachuu (bride kidnapping) from a normalized ‘tradition’ to a recognized form of gender-based violence, but also to validate the lived experience of those affected,” renowned docmaker Nurzhamal Karamoldoeva tells BDE of her new feature project. When a theatre performance about bride kidnapping comes to a Kyrgyz village, 78-year-old Asylkan, abducted at 18, steps into the performance and changes its course…

Set within the ancient Hyrcanian forests of northern Iran, the film follows an elderly herding couple who may be among the last practitioners of a traditional form of cattle herding in this region. “What makes the project unique is its intimate, long-term access to the characters over multiple years and seasons, combined with a purely observational approach,” director Yaser Talebi tells BDE. “Rather than constructing conflict externally, the film allows time, landscape, and daily labor to reveal a quiet but profound tension between staying and leaving, continuity and rupture.”

Swiss producer Gaspard Vignon talks to Business Doc Europe about his doc that details attempts in Switzerland to reintegrate wolves into the countryside. “The wolf’s return carries a strong and polarised political debate in a lot of European countries, especially the alpine countries,” he says. “Inhabiting the Night is clearly a political manifesto and has an impact dimension, but not by addressing this debate directly. The question isn’t ‘pro or anti the wolf,’ but ‘how do we coexist, how do we share a common space?’”

Uruguayan Agustín Flores’ highly personal documentary interweaves the story of Jorge Firpo, a legendary horse trainer, with the director’s own journey through the pain of his father’s suicide. “Leaving the track is inevitable — it will happen to all of us,” Flores tells BDE. “The question is: how do we make life worth living before that moment arrives? Because a life without passion is a life without meaning.”

The Spanish Civil War has a strong personal resonance for director Ricardo Iscar. Back then, four bodies of workers murdered by the Falangists were buried in a field owned by his family in Salamanca. In the documentary, these bodies are finally being exhumed, and Iscar is there to film the process. Seeing how viciously the war divided Spain in the 1930s, Iscar has a warning for viewers: “Nothing is guaranteed. The democracy and civil rights we have, we have to fight to keep them…”

In 1996, intrepid Swedish freelance journalist Erling Söderström was part of an expedition into the Amazon jungle with Brazilian ethnographer and social activist, Sydney Possuelo. They were trying to make “first contact” with the Korubo Indians. As we see in Nathan Grossman’s new feature doc, 30 years on the footage makes for highly uncomfortable viewing, with the encounter seeming both awkward and exploitative. “It shows what enormous risks there are in relationship to these contact events,” Grossman tells BDE. “It’s also why, today, these kind of situations should be avoided to the largest extent we can.”

Five years after the horrific racist murders in the German town of Hanau that made headlines around the world, survivors and relatives are still searching for answers and, above all, recognition as equal members of society. Meanwhile, in Germany, the far right is on the rise, and support for the AfD shows no sign of abating...

With incredible creativity, care and integrity, Maria Esteve Silvia has made a film that is as compelling as it is harrowing, about the traumatic impact of abuse within the Catholic Church and the exhausting struggle for justice. From the very first moment, we are seized by the combination of images and materials that are masterfully edited into a flowing, gripping and balanced tale.

Frustrated teenager, talented artist, battered wife. Mehrdad Oskouei’s remotely directed Afghan niece Soraya is all these things, while she tenaciously tries to enter the EU from Iran and Turkey, hoping to reunite with her mother in Austria. In this nuanced and intimate documentary we follow Soraya as she films herself (hence her co-director credit) during her desperate odyssey. Visually, the whole experience is enriched by beautiful, painterly animations which are clearly fantastical, but convincingly integrated into the documentary reality.