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A fun collection of short films and real-life stories of cats, their challenges, plus the joy they bring in the very first Cat Film Festival.

After coming to Norway as a refugee, Ahmed Umar has become a renowned artist. Proud of his roots, his art mixes Sudanese and western influences. In 2015, he came out as gay on Facebook, making him the first openly gay man from Sudan, this causes a massive outrage in the Sudanese community.

"The film is a kaleidoscope" of the opinions of its nine main characters - the greatest modern musicians, who almost confessedly talk about the most important for them, the most subtle things seriously and jokingly: about what is the gift of creativity, about the origin of "this" in a person, about how "this" is given or acquired, about where it goes, about individual and collective creativity, about rhythm and pause, about interaction with the viewer, with the world, about where "it" comes from in the end... "Film-mosaic", "film-orchestra", where everyone has their own unique voice, character, their own individual path, worthy of many films about him, but all this, surprisingly, is composed into a single voluminous statement, woven from monologues, confirmed by the author's music of the film's characters... And it all started in the Cultural Center "ART'ERIA Club", at the crossroads of all types of Art.

A documentary about people whom the state, the guardianship authorities and the closest relatives recognized as incompetent, perhaps because they are all pupils of the PNI. Our heroes live in a separate house of accompanied residence in the village of Razdolye, where they earn money themselves, partially supporting themselves as far as they can. Famous people often come to this house. The first episode of this series tells about the arrival of the writer Yevgeny Vodolazkin.

Samir and Karim are two Italian-Egyptian brothers. On February their parents went to Egypt for a few days to visit relatives. But since the pandemic exploded and Italy went into lockdown they have not had the opportunity to return back home.

Chinese-American filmmaker Theresa Loong explores her father's time as a POW in WWII Japan, his subsequent quest to become an American, and the birth of his optimistic philosophy. "Every Day Is a Holiday" includes footage and stories from Malaysia, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and Korea.

A tale about the human spirit, PATHFINDER – Life beyond fear, follows six world-class slackliners on a highlining mission deep into the Norwegian mountains to attempt something that has never been seen before: Walking a thin line, elevated in the vastness between two colossal cliffs, illuminated only by the mystical northern lights.

The film follows six people with dual European nationalities for four years. Some of them are confronted with the current political events in Europe, like the Brexit, the Catalan crisis in Spain, yellow vests in France – and in the end the (possible) consequences of Covid 19. At the same time, we see their personal lives: some of them get engaged or get married, but things don’t always go as the protagonists would like – or as the director would like. ‘In Transit’ shows the implications that politics have on the microlevel of people’s lives and gives the recent political events in Europe a human dimension. The film is also a personal journey into a continent that is going through some big changes.

This documentary, edited over a period of six years, spans 20 years in the lifetime of three families of workers who were made redundant by their company. This work is divided into four parts, each part focusing on one family, the Zhou family, the He family and the Tao family, as well as one part about my hometown. This four-part documentary is an attempt to take a closer look at the process of privatisation in China over the past 20 years.

Dating apps have revolutionised the way that we find love – but are they also putting us in grave danger?

With interests in the politics of architecture, voyeurism and urban planning, Garland’s latest work "Chobham" focuses on video and sculptural form. Engaging directly with the site of production at a new residential development in east London, "Chobham" is a wall installation that resembles shapes and forms found in architect’splans and models. The presence of whirling fans and small screen pulsating suns creates a rhythmic work that is inspired by the relationship between technology and simulation. This leftfield approach to technology allows Garland to explore illusion and perception. The grey materiality of the concrete casts is in contrast to the vibrant colour of the videos, reminiscent of advertising hoardings that frequent these new types of neighbourhoods. Playing with scale, Chobham’sminiature staircases and video-rendered sun-drenched balconies unpack elements of the developer’s vision where aspiration is sold alongside the mundane.

Photographer and media artist Elke Reinhuber explores the architectural splendour of Singapore to present a multi-faceted narrative. Images of grand vistas and sumptuous ornamentations frame the story inspired by the many interpretations of Orpheus and Eurydike over centuries. Flashback scenes are set in Haw Par Villa, which was built in 1937and later developed into a sculpture park with more than 1000 statues and 150 giant dioramas. Serving as a colourful backdrop in the poetic short feature, the cement life-size figures convey Chinese folk art into the modern age. The film’s protagonists stroll through a Hakka cemetery, built in 1965 on a historical burial ground, assimilating the architectural style of the adjacent HDB-buildings. Preceding scenes take place in the internationally acclaimed Hive on NTU campus, featuring the ubiquitous project’s housing with their distinct geometric details.

Why is it that we place a plant in a pot, confining its ability to grow and occupy physical space? This work is part of "Plantarians" which asks, what does it mean to have a garden? Apportioned into episodes, the film studies the capacity of garden plants to respond to the particularities of their surroundings. At the same time, it tracks the lives of the contemporary men and women who cultivate, enjoy, eat, obsess over, and even grieve with and for these plants. The piece invites audiences to witness the codependent existence of earth’s living organisms, and to reflect on the ways in which this inter-dependence can be characterised by both conflict and intimacy.

While the first reports of the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan are heard on the news, elsewhere in the country Zhang Xiuhua—who is suffering from a different disease—is fighting for her life. The doctors may have given up on her, but her children and grandchildren haven’t, and they’re doing everything possible to keep her with them for a little while longer. We observe the family in restrained black-and-white as they struggle with their mother’s situation, the economic consequences of the pandemic, and each other. Pride and opposing worldviews ultimately put a strain on relationships between the brothers and sisters—but they still don’t budge from their mother’s side. Events within the family remain at the forefront, but the viewer repeatedly picks up on moments from the Covid crisis and the restrictions arising from it. In this way the film subtly interweaves a private crisis with a global emergency, and shows their reciprocal effects on a human life, at both micro and macro level.

A dedicated dance teacher continues inspiring his current and former students even after the arts high school in Gary, Indiana where he's taught for decades is shut down by the state.

In the Yamal peninsula, in the northwest of Siberia, the Nenets live to the rhythm of seasons that are now out of order. Faced with increasingly mild winters and an unstable ice cap, these nomadic reindeer herders are forced to delay their transhumance, caught between a food that is drying up and the risk of drowning in the Ob River. Elsewhere in the Arctic, signs of global warming are mounting.

The Mostar divers have launched themselves from the bridge for generations, risking their lives every day. They have kept up this tradition for the past 200 years, even when the bridge was destroyed by the War. An exclusive and intimate look at the lives of a group of men, encapsulating the feelings and the story of their country.

Lotte Weiss is a Slovak Jew, who spent several years of her life at Auschwitz and Birkenau. Now she is 95 years old and lives in Australia. The director and artist Thea Weiss is married to Lotte’s son. Lotte’s stories and experiences inspired Thea to create a documentary. During the war, thousands of Slovak Jews were deported to the death camps. Only 500 survived, and Lotte was one of them. The amount of vital energy she has helped her not only to survive the torture and devastation but also, having carried the trauma in her memory through decades, to remain whole. Her capacity for kindness, forgiveness, and love gave her the strength and the will for survival.

A documentary examining the life of civil rights organizer, Jack O'Dell, a close colleague of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and a force in his own right.

This is a story about an underground venue in Brussels.

Follows indignant and eccentric 67-year-old Valerie Sassyfras as she attempts to follow her popstar dreams. More than just a New Orleans-based entertainer, Sassyfras opens up to the camera as both a performer and a daughter, sister, and widow, with her iconic song "Girls Night Out" as the soundtrack to her own life. Her professional journey and unresolved familial ties intertwine in a lively and vulnerable portrait of being utterly oneself.

Forgotten on Sinjar tells the story of the genocide on the Yazidis by the terrorist organization Islamic State.

The forced closure of the Sungei Road flea market in 2017 leaves evicted hawkers like Fook Seng, in his 70s and with a variety of ailments, with little recourse. in his 70s and with a variety of ailments, with little recourse. For him and his partner, negotiating is imperative to their survival—beyond their informal trade, it is also the way they wend their way through the thicket of bureaucracy to access financial aid.

An observational portrait of the artistic process of Marcelino hitherto unpublished work. His work has been marked by the context of violence and marginality in which he lives. For years he has gathered mannequins and belongings of his relatives to re-symbolize them and transform them into works exhibited in the streets of Santiago

To keep the creative juices flowing during the Lockdown, Francisco Pereira Coutinho decided to capture some snippets of his everyday life on Super 8 film.

St. George Monastery 90 km from Berlin is the only monastery of the Moscow Patriarchate in Germany. About 10 monks and novices live here, most of them in their early twenties. They conduct church services, build and renovate the monastery, the isolated location of which and the absence of parishioners make the daily life of novices from large cities in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia similar to the practice of early Christian hermits. They have different motives for staying here, and for some, the tranquility of a remote German village also means loneliness and doubt.

What if there will be the Last Judgment for artists? Will the decision of the Last Judgment coincide with the conclusion of the Russian court, which doomed the artist to 20 years of exile? As a child, Avdei Ter-Oganian was fascinated by the works of avant-garde artists. So, the harder he tried to be the professional in the field of avant-garde art, the more critical and provocative he seems to be. But his colleagues, artists, who often became objects of Avdei’s provocations, and even representatives of authorities tolerated him. But once, during Moscow's Art Manege Fair in December 1998, Ter-Oganian conducted a scandalous performance: with a hatchet, he destroyed several icons - cheap objects, one he painted over with a profanity. His performance caused public protests towards his mistreatment of these icons, although they were just objects sold for tourists as souvenirs on the streets. As the scandal grew, Ter-Oganian's exhibit was closed, and further performances were prohibited.

A documentary about Lazaretto, the desert islet near the city of Corfu that functioned for centuries as a quarantine station as well as a place of execution for political prisoners during the Greek Civil War.

A distinctive and potent take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that feels divorced from larger political or cultural concerns. Instead, the film chronicles a small, surreal world detached from reality — a place where Palestinian homes were turned into soldiers’ party playgrounds — and a contemporary effort by those soldiers to make sense of their former selves.

Two women navigate life and death at sea in a remote Chilean fishing village.

Set in Crossings Republik—a sub-city, neither urban nor rural, on the fringes of New Delhi—Did You Do It? explores the dynamics between natural resources and human intervention. Director Aditi Bhande moved to this ‘integrated city project’ with her family last year. After days of commuting to Delhi through a landscape of farms, high-rises, villages, factories and the polluted Hindon river, she reached an epiphany of horror. Where did the water to grow the food she ate come from? Where did the garbage she threw out go, and where did it end up? How was her everyday reality connected to the wider one around her?

Even at the end of the earth, two people cannot hide from a pandemic that has been going on for the third year. Post-apocalypse. Civil War. The earth has become depopulated and the only principle that rules the world is “Every man for himself”. You can survive if you stick together. But what if you’re the only one in the end?

My wife, kids and I travelled 6417 kilometers from Moscow to Vladivostok to meet our relatives, living there. 6417 kilometers is a straight-line distance. But paths are never straight…

Nastya lives in Yekaterinburg and dreams of becoming the most famous comics in the world. But so far she has only one spectator - her mother, on whom Nastya checks her jokes every day. Anarbek quit his job in the market and moved to Moscow to become a successful stand-up comedian, and lives in a rented apartment on the outskirts of the city. Tired parents advise dreamers to find work, while ambitious children continue to build rickety castles in the air.

Nizar is a Tunisian boy whose application for political asylum is rejected. However, he meets Agostino, owner of a local gym and MMA coach, and Nizar discovers his talent for the sport and also finds a family.

HAWAIIANA examines the enduring legacy of Winona “Aunty Nona” Beamer, a venerated educator, storyteller, composer and hula expert who dedicated her life to preserving and celebrating traditional Hawaiian culture. In her 20s, Aunty Nona formed a Hawaiian dance troupe that toured the U.S., eventually performing at Carnegie Hall and bringing the ancient art of hula to the wider public. Later, as a teacher at the Kamehameha Schools, she became a pivotal force in bringing Hawaiian culture back into the classroom. She coined the now well-known term “Hawaiiana” to represent a curriculum that included the best of Hawaiian culture, history and knowledge. Weaving together archival music and dance performances with past interviews and footage of Aunty Nona and her sons Keola and Kapona Beamer, HAWAIIANA offers a profile of a pioneering woman whose wisdom and life story continue to spread the message of aloha around the world.

Minispectacles is a series of one-minute films, cinematic haikus. Minispectacles 45-47/100 are making the rounds with the sounds in Hungary and Switzerland. All the way to the 100min feature film. Woman with pocket camera.

"At First They Don't Believe" documents the stories and experiences of two women who survived the regime, Sieng Chantei and Leay Kimchhean, as they navigate and confront these challenges. The film highlights the different ways that they have made their experiences of the regime meaningful. Building on the work of Changing the Story in Cambodia, and by learning from and with the innovative work of Cambodian civil society organisations, the film illustrates the importance of young people learning about and acknowledging the stories of survivors.

In the United States, many of the essential workers are undocumented immigrants, who do not receive fair wages and risk being deported at any moment. During the current pandemic, they are also risking their lives while not getting any support or benefits from the American government. The invisible essentials.

A story of overcoming odds, the power of resilience, and ultimately, the ever-lasting effects of LGBTQ+ community building. In sharing Perry Cohen’s story, we get a glimpse into the healing qualities of nature and life-saving community bonds that are being forged as a result of Cohen’s work with The Venture Out Project, a nonprofit that brings LGBTQ+ people together outdoors on wilderness trips.

Inspired by the diaristic cinema of Jonas Mekas, Malafaya organises the videos he’s been shooting for the past year and half of his life. A visual poem between the nostalgia of beauty and the hunt for images, between boredom and dancing

Coronavirus has changed the lives of everyone. What predictions can be made and, most importantly, what lessons can be learned from the current situation?

Three friends come together for a mission to guide blind Navy veteran Lonnie Bedwell on a 14-day river trip through the Grand Canyon. Battling powerful rapids including the daunting Lava Falls, this is a film about overcoming the residual impacts of war through kayaking – forming a team, kicking out in the current and finding a line through the chaos.

A documentary study that comprehends the largest theater project of 2017 - "Rodina" performance by Andrey Stadnikov at Meyerhold Center. How Joseph Stalin and the legacy of totalitarianism resonate in each of us.

“you’re all alone, but you’re not sure”

a non narrative camera and audio test.

The forest of Agia Paraskevi in Vovousa, a mountainous village in Western Greece, is one of the last remaining sacred forests. Untouched by the passage of time, it’s being preserved by the myths that comprise the village’s oral tradition, which in turn passes on from generation to generation and building up the forest’s legend. People say that if the forest is “disturbed” in any way, the consequences will be devastating. As a result, the forest survives without any human intervention – something rare in our modern times.

A short film about the importance of biodiversity for the cultural identity and the economic independence of Latin America. This animated documentary is based on a conversation with the leading biodiversity expert and transgender activist Brigitte Baptiste, recorded at "Instituto Humboldt" in Bogota, the world's first institute for biodiversity research.

On August 1, 2007, the sudden collapse of the I-35W bridge in downtown Minneapolis shaped a community. Spencer Patzman’s debut documentary follows the many personal stories of one tragedy and the countless ways it is felt more than 12 years later.

Samuel Muxingueno escapes from conflict areas in eastern Angola, and seeks shelter in Luanda. Here, his main enemy becomes his own shadow. Seeking to get rid of it, Samuel turns to life in the darkness of a deserted building. To be able to get back into the light, he makes a radical decision.

In Bologna, Italy, the resistance movement fights Nazi-fascism between 1943 and 1945.

A documentary which covers the formation of the band through to the release of Script For A Jester’s Tear in 1983 – including interviews with Fish, Mark Kelly, Diz Minnit, Mick Pointer, Steve Rothery, Pete Trewavas and Mark Wilkinson.

An old couple leaves Tehran to return to their town on the Turkish border, which has become a clandestine gateway into Europe. Abolfazl Talooni sounds out the ambiguity of a people forced to participate in this traffic and dispossessed of their lands, where the beauty of the landscapes sketches out geopolitics of despair.

More than 20 potential vaccines are in development, but none are guaranteed to work. We dive into the race for the vaccine and talk with those who are currently racing to end the pandemic.