SPARTACUS AND CASSANDRA by Ioannis Nuguet

The ‘Roma problem’ is still a hot European issue, getting new meanings in the recent context. On the other side, the Roma culture and life way have already been investigated in many documentaries. Spartacus and Casandra is approaching this universe with a fresh and joyful approach, looking empathically through the eyes of children in their daily relations both with their family and kin group and French institutions. The film thus manages to go beyond the common stereotypes of poverty or criminality, victimization or accusation, black or white, and picture out in an emotional and comprehensive way the multi-layered complexity of Roma life and social challenges. 

I AM THE PEOPLE by Anna Roussillon

A remarkable debut feature. Having established an ongoing intimate and genuinely affectionate relationship with the members of a peasant family living in a village near Luxor, the filmmaker allows us to witness the unfolding events of the Arab Spring in Cairo seen from the point of view of ordinary people whose voice are normally not heard or valued.

The film provides a human cinematic depiction of everyday life in the Egyptian countryside as well as genuine discussions between the filmmaker and the protagonists, filled with wisdom and tenderness, while the political turmoils that might change their life happen in the background.

This film does not only touch this part of the world – it is a tender, human, complex expérience that allows us to rethink our own conception of democracy, and our place as political beings.

Documentary storytelling at its most compelling and empathic with a true universal dimension. 

WITH OT WITHOUT YOU by Hyuckjee Park

A discrete and delicate observational approach of the life of two old women living side by side in the korean countryside. A film with a deep respect for his characters, and a real sense of time in catching the tiny daily epiphanies while death is approaching.

MY HOME by Jiri Stejskal

For its plea for respect of difference and individuality in a globalized society through deep insight into characters, subtle sense of humour and stunning visual imagery which maintains surprise until the end.

OUTSIDE by Andrei Schwartz

Outside is a universal story about guilt and punishment, framed in the context of communist and post-communist Romania. Andrei Schwartz is disclosing step by step the trajectory of a complex character, imprisoned for murder but presenting himself rather as a victim of the communist system, and trying, once liberated, to remake a life in post-communist times. The documentary is thus screening in an almost fictional and passionate way a real individual life story, offering in the same time a metaphor of using and abusing communist memories. Nothing and nobody is what one would expect at a first face!

John Albert Jansen - THE ALPHABET OF FEAR

The prize for directing is awarded to John Albert Jansen for the way he built a both intimate and reflexive portrait of the Nobel Prize winner Herta Müller. Combining biography and bibliography, confessions and personal insights in a balanced cinematic story, John Albert Jansen managed to recreate Herta Müller’s literary universe into an original cinematic language, thus staging in a comprehensive way not only an exceptional public personality, but also a representative moral and political life trajectory.

SUPER UNIT by Teresa Czepiec

For using a multistored flatbuilding as a main character and a metaphor for society. The film has a very strong visual style, consequent in sound and image with modern shooting techniques.