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The absorbingly cinematic Ascension explores the pursuit of the “Chinese Dream.” Driven by mesmerizing—and sometimes humorous—imagery, this observational documentary presents a contemporary vision of China that prioritizes productivity and innovation above all.

Sylvie, a nearly sixty-year-old woman, has fallen in love with Michel, a thug she marries in prison. The two of them dream of starting again with a clean slate by opening a flower shop. But Sylvie’s son Abel, convinced that Michel will fall into a life of crime, disapproves of this relationship.

A seemingly simple taxi ride across Paris evolves into a profound meditation on the realities of the driver, whose personal life is in shambles, and his fare, an elderly woman whose warmth belies her shocking past.

The film celebrates the art of legendary choreographer Pina Bausch and the people who approach her work today. Two pieces, two continents, two dance worlds: The venerable Semperoper in Dresden, Germany, and the École des Sables in a fishing village near Dakar, Senegal. The spectacular projects of the Pina Bausch Foundation show how a young generation of dancers from all over the world is rediscovering Pina's choreographies.

In Switzerland, a country of neutrality, new, unfamiliar voices are being heard. Voices of women who fight for the recognition of structural racism, deconstruct stereotypes and confess their double identity as Swiss and Black. It is in this context that Rachel M'Bon, a Swiss-Congolese journalist, begins her own search for identity. On her way to liberation, she questions her past, her present and holds up a mirror to her country and her peers.

Ten young women who used to live on the streets of Bogotá close their eyes and conjure Alis. This documentation of delicate conversations depicts the imaginary friend evolving into a surface for the projection of personal experiences and a proxy for nascent dreams.

Yuku is a young mouse who lives with her family in the cellar of a castle. Her grandmother passes on the family values by telling her timeless folk tales. Injured in a tussle with a cat, the old mouse is bedridden and she tells her children that she will have to leave them to follow the little blind mole into the Earth’s tunnels. In one of her grandmother’s storybooks, Yuku learns that the flower of the Himalayas can bring her eternal light. She leaves on a journey of discovery to find the flower.

Somewhere between Montmartre and Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Jean-Jacques Sempé and René Goscinny lean over a large white sheet of paper and bring to life a mischievous and endearing boy, Little Nicolas. From schoolyard games and fights, to summer camp pranks and camaraderie, Nicolas lives a merry and enriching childhood.

In Lausanne, a group of young women and queer people in their twenties start making pornographic films. They do everything they can to produce ethical and dissident films. Very quickly, the media and then the public become aware of the collective. They fight for a different vision of pleasure and sexuality.

Die drei Aktivistinnen Carolina, Berta und Máxima stellen sich furchtlos den neuen Kolonist:innen Süd- und Zentralamerikas entgegen. Es sind transnationale Bergbau- und Energiekonzerne, die die Länder oft skrupellos ausbeuten. Ohne Rücksicht auf die Natur und die lokale Bevölkerung. Die Journalistin Erika González porträtiert die drei Aktivistinnen, die sich für den Schutz der Umwelt und ihrer Communities einsetzen.

It is with great emotion that we rediscover the magical langage of the late screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, as he researches the painter Goya. An incredible trip through culture, emotion, cinema, painting and Spain.

The northernmost city in the world, Longyearbyen, is the most populated settlement in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. A Czech social anthropologist attempts to make a new home for herself here with her family whilst also researching social transformations in the local community. The loss of jobs in the mining industry, as well as the complicated relationship between Norwegian natives, foreign immigrants, and tourists all contribute to the city's change of atmosphere whilst the surrounding snowy mountains melt and avalanches threaten the daily existence of the local population. This portrait of the microcosm of an ice town is a raw glimpse into the contemporary globalized world.

In a mountain town, where corn and poppies grow, the girls wear boyish haircuts and have hiding places underground to escape the threat of being stolen. Ana and her two best friends grow up together, affirming the bonds of their friendship and discovering what it means to be women in a rural town marked by violence. Their mothers train them to flee death, to escape those who turn them into slaves or ghosts. They create their own impenetrable universe, but one day one of the girls doesn’t make it to her hiding place in time.

The story begins in a small village in central Bosnia in 1989, when Asad, a 25-year-old boy, returns from school with the desire to marry his childhood sweetheart. Not knowing that his son already has marriage plans, father Agan arranges his son's marriage with the father of another girl whom Asad does not even know. After the sudden death of his father, the whole village begins to remind Asad of his bequest to his father, and until then the boring everyday life in the village becomes a dynamic and comical revelation of all the characters and their individual stories.

Student Fereshteh has to hide her illegitimate baby for one night from her parents who turn up for a surprise visit. Her friend Atefeh helps her. They embark on an odyssey through Tehran during which they must carefully weigh up who their allies are.

When a team of mercenaries breaks into a wealthy family compound on Christmas Eve, taking everyone inside hostage, the team isn’t prepared for a surprise combatant: Santa Claus is on the grounds, and he’s about to show why this Nick is no saint.

In Rome, Gianclaudio Lopez, a retired teacher, sets off in search of his former students who are now approaching their thirties. A Class Story mixes sequences of the video diary that the teenagers had filmed at the time and sequences shot now in which the protagonists, adults, remember this period and speak of their dreams, illusions and regrets.

Freda lives with her mother, sister and little brother in a popular neighbourhood of Haiti. They survive with their little street food shop. The precariousness and violence of their daily life pushes them to do everything they can to escape their situation in the hope of finding a better life.

Nathalie Adler is on a mission for the EU in Sicily. She organizes the next visit of Macron and Merkel to a migrant camp. Their presence has a high symbolic value to show that everything is under control. But who still wants to believe in this European family on the verge of a nervous breakdown? Probably not Albert, Nathalie's son, an NGO activist who arrives without warning. He, moreover, no longer believes in his mother.