Bee In My Mouth
Germany, Hungary
"A Bee In My Mouth" is captured through the lens of a father’s camera as he and his wife navigate the loss of their child while expecting another. Conversations with the husband’s sister’s family, who have experienced similar grief, trigger reflections on the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. They engage in various therapies that reveal their emotions and help them process their loss. The anticipation of their new child brings both fear and hope, symbolizing a new beginning without replacing their lost child. The birth of their healthy baby signifies renewal, showing how grief and joy coexist. The story emphasizes their love for both children, highlighting the delicate balance between loss and new life.
Creative Team
Hungarian-born film director, producer, and cameraperson based in Berlin. MA in Journalism (2008, Péter Pázmány Catholic University). Co-founded film production company SpeakEasy Project where he took part in the development and production of several award-winning feature documentary films. After relocating to Berlin, he co-founded and organized the Huniwood Hungarian Film Festival Berlin (2016, 2017) and the Berlin Documentary Film Club (since 2016). In 2022, he graduated from the camera class of 2019 at filmArche, Berlin. He co-founded filmDOUGH (2022), his new moving image production brand.
Hide Me In The Light
Ukraine
Eva is interviewing her friends in the transplant department at Kyiv Children's Hospital. They dart through the hospital corridors, proudly showing their swollen veins to newcomers, where the rhythmic flow of blood can be heard. There's the scrappy orphan Andriy, the open-minded youngster Klevan, the respectable Liosha, and their leader Danya. Every morning they are woken up and dutifully undergo hemodialysis. Transplant surgeons wield a kind of magic in this realm. Their presence in the unit signifies the gift of a new life to someone.
The transplant coordinator notifies about a found donor. Among the four young patients potentially suitable for the donor's kidneys, the final selection remains unknown until conclusive tests are completed. Very soon Andriy discovers that he is not compatible. He remains alone in his ward on Christmas anticipating the arrival of new companions to the unit.
Creative Team
Markiian Miroshnychenko is a Ukrainian film director. Born to an acting family, Markiian graduated from Kyiv National University of Theatre, Cinema and Television. In 2017, he created his first short film called Legend of the Hospitallers, dedicated to the heroes of the war against Russia. His next work was a short film Oasis, and finally his first fiction feature film True Santa. After the Russian invasion started, he focused on Unknown no.1, his full-length documentary debut. Markiian is a laureate of Mostra Internacional De Filmes De Escolas De Cinema (Portugal, 2016), Festival del Cinema di Cefalù (2022).
Nata Onysh is a Ukrainian audiovisual artist and editor based in Finland. After graduating with a BA in linguistics and literature, Nata would develop short films at documentary workshops and art residencies in Ukraine, Finland, and the USA. In 2022, her debut short documentary film Say Cześć, co-directed with Veronika Shuster, was selected for the Filmmaking Lab IndieLab supported by the US Embassy. It was screened at the American Independence FF, Kyiv IFF Molodist, Lviv ISFF Wiz-Art, Bouquet Kyiv Stage Art Festival, and received a Best Documentary Short Film Award at the Black Bear FF in Milford (PA, USA).
Oleksandr Krasenkov is a Ukrainian film producer from Kyiv‐based Life Map Films. He started his career as a line producer in the movie industry working on the sets of the foreign production companies and studios like Europa Corp and NHK. From 2010 to 2019, Oleksandr worked as an executive producer for Ukrainian TV channels. Since 2019, he has been a freelance producer for Nordend Film (Germany) and Throne (Japan). In 2021, Oleksandr was a founding member of Life Map Films focused on producing documentaries.
Illuminated Geology
Spain
A premonitory dream alerts Carme of Pilar’s death, the old woman whom she takes care of for a few hours a day in Els Cirerers—The Cherry Trees—a retirement home located in between fields in the northeastern tip of Spain. Carme has been a geriatric nurse for more than four decades and lives on the peninsula of Cap de Creus, surrounded by rocks that are more than 400 million years old.
Today, closer to the abyss that her retirement implies, Carme is reluctant to abandon a vocation that is already part of her vital impulse. She has lost her paid job, but she decides to continue as a volunteer caregiver for Els Cirerers inhabitants.
From winter until the following autumn, she returns to the residence continuously. During this period, the transit of seasons is visible through the large stained glass windows that illuminate the rooms where a community of old men and women live, wait, receive visits, and coexist.
Creative Team
Interested in the sphere of poetic cinema, the majority of his work aims to explore natural landscapes and scrutinize the space humans inhabit. Since its beginnings, he has focused on showing very local and close worlds to embody universal realities. In 2021, he debuted as a feature film director with The Wind That Moves Us, in which he also took on cinematography, editing, and sound work. This film received, among others, the best Spanish documentary award at SEMINCI in Valladolid and the Latitude award at DocsBarcelona. His filmography also includes works such as Fluvius; a film about flows, currents, and rivers that was part of an interactive audiovisual installation exhibited in galleries during 2021.
Master in Creative Documentary at Pompeu Fabra University. He has worked with Victor Kossakovsky as second camera unit in Gunda (2020, Berlinale première) and as assistant editor in Demonstration (2013, IDFA première). He has been artistic director and programming coordinator of DocsBarcelona film festival. He currently works as a cameraman in Illuminated Geology, the latest film of Pere Puigbert.
DDM Visual is a production company created in 2003 in the city of Girona (SPAIN) by David Gimbernat. With more than twenty years of experience working in the film sector, he has produced 10 feature films and 5 documentaries for television, always seeking imaginative and quality approaches. The rigor of its production line and the strength and consistence of its artistic and commercial proposals have consolidated the company as the leading film production company in the region of Girona.
Its productions have participated in some of the most prestigious festivals and international competitions. Among the most outstanding we find the feature film The Stoning of Saint Stephen (La Lapidation de Saint Étienne, 2012) directed by Pere Vila Barceló, which premiered at the Karlovy Vary International Festival and won the FIPRESCI award at the Seminci Film Festival in Valladolid; and also The Lost ("El perdut", 2016), directed by Christophe Farnarier, which won the awards for best film, best director and best leading actor in the Zonazine section of Malaga Film Festival. One of DDM Visual latest production, the feature-length documentary "El vent que ens mou" (2021) directed by Pere Puigbert won the award for best documentary at the Seminci Festival in Valladolid and at DocsBarcelona.
The new production plan aims to structure new alliances with independent producers and television networks to offer a set of high- quality productions that allow a notable impact on the audiovisual market.
Moving Sisters
Greece
The Khani family left Afghanistan in search for a better future, only to be trapped in Greece on its way to the West. Nazieh, Shazieh and Hanieh are the last of the five daughters to remain with their father in the refugee camp of Eleonas. They are teenagers and have already spent three years away from their mother who managed to reach Germany much sooner. They go to school, speak Greek and have made friends. Meanwhile, their father tries to find a way to continue their journey and reunite with the rest of the family. But the borders are closed and their request for reunification is repeatedly denied.
Nazieh can’t live in a state of constant waiting for her life to begin the way she has imagined it. She is determined to stand on her own feet and continue living with passion against the uncertainty of the situation she has found herself in. All three sisters will need an immense amount of strength to reach the end of the long and difficult path to reunification – a path between East and West that they themselves open and which eventually leads to adulthood. They must hang on and keep their hopes and dreams alive.
Creative Team
Christos Stefanou is a filmmaker, photographer, educator and PhD candidate in intercultural education. “Moving Sisters” is his first feature documentary. His previous short film “In Between” was screened at festivals* in Greece, London, Berlin and published in the Journal of Anthropological Films. As a teacher he has made many short films with his students, which have won awards at various film festivals for young people and children. As a photographer he was selected to participate in the photography workshop "City Streets" with Magnum photographer Nikos Economopoulos and subsequently participated in the related international collective exhibition. He has completed the creative documentary seminar "Interior Landscapes" with director Christos Karakepelis. London Greek Film Festival, Berlin Refugee Film Festival, Olympia International Film Festival, DocFest Chalkida Documentary Festival.
Eugenia Papageorgiou was born in 1985. After her studies in Physics, she started working in editing. Since 2011 she has been working as an editor. She has been involved in script writing and has worked as an assistant director, as well as in production organization.
She has edited more than 10 documentary and fiction films, which have been screened at numerous festivals around the world, some of which have received numerous awards. She has also edited more than 50 television documentaries. In recent years she has devoted herself to editing creative documentaries.
Michalis Kastanidis is a producer and filmmaker with a MA in Visual Anthropology and co-founder of Fabula Productions, an independent production company, based in Athens Greece. He has produced, filmed and co-directed the awarded documentary Feeling of a Home. Over the last years has been giving classes of Filmmaking in public schools. Michalis is the producer of the Feature Film “Kalikatzarous” in co-production with Greek Film Center and with the support of MEDIA-Creative Europe.
Currently, he is producing a feature documentary film in co-production with Eleusis 2023 European Capital of Culture.
My Dear Vira
Ukraine
Young Ukrainian visual artist Maryna, now living in between Ukraine and Bulgaria, aims to reunite with her girlhood friend Vira, now a US army captain. Their emigration stories differ: Vira chose the American way of life and citizenship 13 years ago, while Maryna was forced to flee due to the war, becoming a nomad. They explore whether having a home defines one's identity in a globalized world, with Maryna questioning if returning to Ukraine is essential to being true to herself and Vira reconciling her Ukrainian heritage with her U.S. citizenship and military service.
Creative Team
Ukrainian visual artist and filmmaker. Received a master's degree in cultural studies in 2019 in Kyiv. In 2021 she graduated from the course "Creating a script for a feature film for television" at Michigan State University (online), completed workshop on creative writing by Joan Tewkesbury. She is an alumni of MidPoint Institute since 2022. Maryna works as a writer for television and films. She takes part in international exhibitions as an artist and has self-published 2 books.
Born in Donetsk, Ukraine, Olga graduated with an MA from the Cinematography department of the Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Karyi University. She worked five years as a line producer in production company "Toy Cinema" and as a freelance producer. As a director she has taken part in workshops and residency programs such as IDFA Academy, IDFA Project Space, the “Aristoteles Workshop” in Romania, “Eurasiadoc” in Kyiv, B2B Docs. Her first feature-length documentary – “A Picture to Remember” was an opening film of IDFA 2023.
The freeSZFE film (working title)
Hungary
The longest-running student occupation of a university since the fall of the Soviet Union at a film school where students, alums, artists, and educators organized an uprising against government legislation that restricted educational autonomy, freedom of speech, and artistic expression. ‘INSIDE THE BLOCKADE’ is a creative and formal response from the students, using footage captured from inside the school during the 71-day-long occupation contrasted with news reporting from the state media.
The film follows the birth of a young democratic artist community in the moment they became politically conscious in an increasingly authoritarian state.
Creative Team
Asia graduated as a documentary director at the DocNomads MA program at SZFE, LUCA School of Art, LUSOFONA . Her first feature (co-directed with Sári Haragonics) 'Her Mothers' was shown at more than 30 international film festivals and won several awards, among them in the 2021 Best Film Award at Moscow International Documentary Film Festival DOKer and at Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz. The film was made in co-production with HBO and was supported by Sundance Institute post-production fund. Her second feature-length documentary, 'I Won't Die', had its world premiere at the Warsaw Film Festival in 2023. She is an alumni of ZagrebDox Pro, CIRCLE Women Doc Accelerator and participated with her film at East Doc Platform, Cannes Docs, and the Docu Rough Cut Boutique. She pursued her doctoral degree in 2024. She is a lecturer and mentor at Freeszfe and Docnomads MA program and a board member of the Hungarian Documentary Association (MADOKE).
Dávid Kántor is a Hungarian film editor, based in Budapest. In the last 10 years he gained experience editing and assistant editing feature films, documentaries, shorts, commercials, and music videos. He edited his first feature film, Árni in 2023. He has a great interest in documentary filmmaking, currently working on a series.
FreeSZFE Film Collective: Anna Faur, Máté Fuchs, Fanni Hatházi, Dóra Bartal, Máté Szórád, Christina Zachariades