Goethe Institute

The short films and the discussion explore the challenges and responsibilities of independent storytelling in an increasingly polarized and uncertain media landscape. Bringing together documentary filmmakers and journalists, the conversation examines how factual stories are researched, developed, and brought to audiences in environments shaped by political pressure, censorship, legal and financial constraints, digital threats and declining public trust. The speakers reflect on the ethical and practical challenges of documenting reality, protecting sources and contributors, navigating risks, and preserving independent voices and meaningful storytelling.

Films: 

Defending the Future of Free Media
Defending the Future of Free Media, a recent short documentary by the International Press Institute (IPI), gathers voices from across its global network — an homage to the resilience of journalists defending press freedom from Ukraine to Turkey, the Philippines, Mexico, the United States, Gaza, and Hungary.

happiness
A restless video diary unfolds through sleepless nights, screens, and an endless stream of images from Palestine and elsewhere. As activists in Amsterdam follow the news, the film reflects on digital exhaustion, political engagement, and the difficulty of remaining present in a world saturated with distant suffering.

Death of a Fantastic Machine
From the invention of the camera as a tool for recording reality to today’s AI-generated images, Death of a Fantastic Machine traces how economic interests have shaped what we film and why. Through a fast-paced collage of archival footage, amateur videos, livestreams and online images, the film explores the transformation of the camera from an instrument of evidence into a machine designed to capture attention — and asks what remains of our trust in images when almost anything can be fabricated.

Who has the right to tell a story? What responsibility does a storyteller have when filming other people’s experiences, lives, and realities? Drawing on diverse creative perspectives and personal experiences, the panel explores the dilemmas of representation and the relationship between the filmmaker’s position behind the camera and the people portrayed. Where is the line between artistic freedom and representing someone else’s story, and what makes a storyteller and their film authentic?

What happens when documentary meets fiction, performance or experimental cinema? In recent years, an increasing number of films that resist easy categorisation have been appearing on the international festival circuit – and as curators, we are encountering them more and more often in our own submissions, too. But how should we approach these works, and where do the boundaries of documentary lie today? This panel invites a discussion on genre-crossing, the relationship between reality and fiction, and the ever-evolving possibilities of documentary filmmaking.