Locarno 24

In his found footage documentary Eight Postcards From Utopia (world-premiering in Fuori Concorso), Golden Bear-winning director and arch cinematic provocateur Radu Jude casts a very quizzical eye on the world of Romanian advertising in the post-socialist years. Working with philosopher [and co-director] Christian Ferencz-Flatz, Jude explores the hidden meanings behind these commercials. The co-directors talk to BDE.

Mala Reinhardt takes an existential trip through Germany, Ghana and her own past as she examines aspects of “Blackness, queerness, friendship and the differences that connect us.” She also examines the business of being German. “What's happening now is that people who've grown up with experiences similar to mine are being very vocal about it and they're claiming their space and they're claiming their German identity,” the director tells BDE.

The concept of ‘real’ has undergone fundamental reinterpretation in the digital age, especially since the pandemic, argues (and demonstrates) Italian Adele Tulli in her new documentary. “I began this project with an urge to delve into the ongoing emotional, social and cognitive metamorphoses triggered by our relationship with digital technologies,” she says. “I felt that whatever we used to call real was collapsing and I started looking for ways to represent this collapse.”

Iranian Nasreen wants to sing in a country where women have been banned from public performance since 2016. She is also the mother of two children within a loveless marriage. “Over seven years of filming Nasreen, I closely witnessed her journey to free her voice as a singer and a woman,” says director Leila Amini, sister of Nasreen. “From a vulnerable homemaker, she gradually transformed into a woman in control of her own destiny.”