Reviews

A Palestinian filmmaker is stranded in Tromsø, above the Arctic Circle, unable to return to Gaza. This was Mohamed Jabaly’s situation in 2014 when he began filming this documentary. But while his emotional and political vicissitudes inevitably mirror the current war in the region, Jabaly never lets us forget his motto: life is beautiful.

Beautifully composed and superbly edited, the film portrays one of the last crop farmers in The Netherlands, plying his trade in the shadow of giant multinationals. The effect of the documentary is profound. You want to share this rare gem of a man, his philosophy and life, with as many people as possible, but at the same time keep himto yourself, cherish him and guard him.

The final of Copa 71, an international football event billed as the Women’s World Cup and played at Mexico’s famous Azteca stadium in 1971, remains the highest-attended women’s sporting event in history. But since then, the male-centric FIFA has controlled the football narrative, and the tournament was conveniently wiped from history…until now that is. In their documentary, UK filmmakers Rachel Ramsay and James Erskine place the lost tournament exhilaratingly back in the spotlight.

This gripping and emotional documentary about female victims of deepfake revenge porn itself ingeniously employs deepfake techniques to protect the identity of its protagonist. In doing so, it demonstrates both the complexities of digital anonymity and the frightening levels of perfection the technology has already reached.

As the war in Ukraine continues, there is a danger that the outside world will slowly stop paying attention. Especially since the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Olga Chernykh’s stylistically daring yet accessible film is here to remind us that an unjust war still rages in her country, which makes its selection as IDFA’s opening film all the more poignant.

The terrifying ordeal suffered by young Czech woman Martina Putova, who was doused in acid by her ex-boyfriend, causing third-degree burns to the upper half of her body and almost complete blindness, is told with moving bluntness in Jarmila Štuková’s powerful documentary, which screened in Czech Competition.

The notion of love within a relationship is intriguingly explored in Yannick Mosimann’s film Normal Love, in which a couple sign a 365-day contract at the beginning of their relationship that details the duties and rights that each must perform: ones which usually come naturally within the cohabitation of two people. Love may – or may not – come later…

The story of ageing Romanian Constantin Reliu is complex, fascinating and, indeed, cautionary. A man with no documents, personal or pension rights, he worked in Turkey for 25 years and after being deported returns to his homeland only to find that he was presumed dead and has to face up to a system that refuses to formally recognise that he is actually alive.

The imposed necessity of the nomadic lifestyle for many seniors (especially female) in the US is examined in Belgian filmmaker Sebastien Wielemans’ film Nomad Solitude, which follows three ageing women whose house on four wheels is the only economically affordable option facing them.

A clever balance between magical realism and formal fly-on-the-wall documentary, Ivan Ostrochovský and Pavol Pekarčík’s striking Photophobia is an examination of life within Ukraine’s Kharkiv metro, where men, women and children live a strange underground existence as they escape the bombardment of the city.