Reviews

Heroic Bodies may not be the most skillfully made of documentaries, but its stories and images show a formerly unseen side of women's oppression in an impactful way, and also indicate how slowly but surely the balance is swinging in the other direction. The film provides an important contribution to the liberation and self-determination of women in Sudan - and around the world.

A remarkably immersive and at times terrifying examination of the impact of climate change as it has started to impact the remote region of Siberia, director Alexander Abuturov’s Paradise follows villagers as they battle devastating forest fires without any prospect of assistance from the authorities. It is striking, mermerising and visceral, all the time driven by strong visuals and a perfect soundtrack.

Anna Blom’s The Night My Brother Disappeared may well be conventional in structure, but the power of its emotional stories and encounters, combined with her protagonist’s own memories, sense of guilt and desire to find links to the terrifying incident in which his younger brother perished, help deliver a potent film.

Veteran filmmaker Ignacio Agüero takes an intriguing approach in this playful and provocative, and highly watchable, portrait based loosely on Belgian engineer Gustave Verniory’s memoirs on being hired in 1899 to construct a railroad across the unspoiled natural landscape of Araucanía, a region that had recently become part of Chile.

Racist trees! Now that got your attention. And that is exactly what happened in reality. A dense row of trees screening off a historically Black neighbourhood from Palm Springs’ predominantly white, wealthy centre, is the focal point of this firmly rooted, wide-branched documentary, which has its world premiere in IDFA’s Frontlight section.

Huang Pang-Chuan and Chunni Lin’s homage to revered sculptor Huang Tu-Shui is a palimpsestic study of the passing of time, the changing of culture and the enduring power of art. The film follows the careful restoration of Kam-lōo-tsuí, Tu-Shui’s marble sculpture of a female nude, and the family who sheltered her from harm throughout the White Terror period.

Once in a while you encounter a piece of art which ticks all the boxes. Light Falls Vertical is one of those rare examples, offering a profound view into the souls of both a perpetrator and a victim of domestic abuse. It is an intimate record of the troubled mind, without ever being intrusive.

This is not just a film, nor just a performance. It is an audiovisual and emotional art experience in honour of a young man that was murdered, one that grants you the opportunity to get to know this person and the ones that were left behind. The work offers no redemption. It just recognises the unfairness of life, the injustice and inequality of the society we live in and folk’s attempts to find a way to deal with it all.

For 13 years, director Lea Glob filmed her friend, the painter Apolonia Sokol. What starts out as a portrait of a charismatic young artist ends up, through the magic of longitudinal documentary, as a much more far-reaching picture of the art world, the struggle against patriarchy – and life. And a film you don’t want to see come to an end.

How do you depict the impact of colonisation, decolonisation, a civil war and a destructed economy in one film? Director Alain Kassandra decided to portray his grandparents, who were both born in what was then called Zaire, and lived through all of these traumatising times. The result is a deeply personal, sometimes poetic, sometimes harrowing (hi)story of oppression, revolution, betrayal, disillusionment and love.