2020: A Very Particular Year

At the beginning of the year 2020, a relentless plague sweeps the planet and, as a consequence, a global lockdown is gradually decreed: how did people from very different latitudes, living necessarily very different situations, experience this shared solitude? How did people adapt to the restriction by decree of their personal freedoms and the transformation of many bustling metropolises into ghost cities?

Bohemia

When Melbourne’s cultural hub is left devastated post-pandemic, the creative industry, like many others, is ravaged. Set amongst the ashes of the cities arts scene, BOHEMIA is a hybrid of documentary, music video, and next generation concert film that powerfully recounts the story of this fallen angel of Australian culture and asks the looming question: “what now?”. Shadowy underground musician VANTA and debutant director Madeline Royce team up with a decorated collective of young creatives to contend that art in the pandemic need not be a compromise, but an evolution.

Hayden's Corner

The world lost Hayden Hunstable to suicide in the middle of the mandated stay-at-home orders on April 17th, just 4 days before his 13th birthday. Hayden did not struggle with depression nor did he have a history of mental health problems. He was a normal healthy and happy kid who was unprepared for social isolation. His parents attribute Hayden’s emotional suffering to a “perfect storm of routine disruption, social isolation, increased gaming, and a pressure stack of activity cancellations,” all created by the government’s mandated stay-at-home orders in the wake of the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Lockdown Generation

In the beginning it felt like a holiday, then everything changed due to Covid19.

Republic of Evil Ants

One of the greatest pests on the planet, the evil ants destroy the forest to protect their family. Memories of the covid-19 pandemic, eroded by ignorance and negationism. What's left in this great country of worms and viruses?

81 Meters

Spring 2021. A cinephile invites you on an intimate trip through the last surviving cinema houses in Latvia. This documentary essay, shot on super 8mm, opens the locked doors to picture houses during a Covid-19 lockdown, perhaps the most difficult time in the history of physical cinema space.

Netīrā zona

A look into how it is to work in the Covid-19 area at a Latvian hospital. Created by a team of journalists of Latvian Television: Aija Kinca, Ivans Milovs, Dace Kokle, and Edmunds Rimšāns.

The Essential Church

When governments use Covid emergency act edicts to restrict the gathering and worship of the Church, three pastors facing the risk of imprisonment, unlimited fines, and their own Churches splitting apart take a courageous stand and re-open in the face of a world that has chosen to comply.

In the Same Breath

This documentary recounts the experiences of people on the ground in the earliest days of the novel coronavirus and the way two countries dealt with its initial spread, from the first days of the outbreak in Wuhan to its rampage across the United States.

Homeroom

Following the class of 2020 at Oakland High School in a year marked by seismic change, exploring the emotional world of teenagers coming of age against the backdrop of a rapidly changing world.

Seeking Asylum

Seeking Asylum is a feature documentary that bears witness to the endless deterrents migrants face when petitioning for asylum in the United States. In a dismantled system that has been designed for failure, we follow one woman's journey as she searches for protection for her and kids. Many people view getting to the United States as the final hurdle of the migration journey, but we quickly learn that once in the U.S. the fight has just begun. During one of the most uncertain times in our country's history, Seeking Asylum documents the challenges asylum seekers face and shows why asylum is an integral part of the American Dream that we cannot afford to lose.

Silence

In lockdown isolation, a young man decides to stay in contact with the outside world through the vocal messages of his friends and lovers. But those voices, which initially seemed to fill the silence and keep him company, become increasingly full of suffering.

Contágio

Several Portuguese creators occupy the director's chair in this collective short film shot during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown in an unfolding of personal perspectives.

People We Come Across

What happens when a group of Finns travel to a tiny village in Benin to participate in a vaccination study? By participating, they can aid in the development of a diarrhea vaccine for children in developing countries – and, at the same time, have a different kind of vacation in West Africa. The complicated side of helping people and the clashes between two cultures rise to the forefront of Mia Halme’s delicious documentary film.

Hotels Lockdowns

If you don't wanna know, go away

Documentary filmed in New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. A Latinx look at one of the most important cities in the world, which was the epicenter of the pandemic. Thirteen testimonies that tell in the flesh what they lived through and how they survived. The coronavirus pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on Latinx communities. Latinos died from COVID-19 at twice the rate of white New Yorkers.

Phantom Sounds

Short film about Tinnitus & its impact on human psychology, through the personal experience of director, who also suffers from it

Our Baby: A Modern Miracle

What's it like starting a family when you're both transgender? This intimate film follows Hannah and Jake Graf on a journey through prejudice and surrogacy to birth during lockdown.

The Day Sports Stood Still

The story of the unprecedented sports shutdown in March of 2020 and the remarkable turn of events that followed. This sports documentary is a chronicle of the abrupt stoppage, athletes’ prominent role in the cultural reckoning on racial injustices that escalated during the pandemic, and the complex return to competition in the summer and fall.

Inocentes

In a time marked by longing and uncertainty, at the beginning of a social isolation, two friends disappear. The pandemic becomes a backdrop for the loss of innocence and the rescue of long-lost things. Ingenuous is like a farewell gift from the only link that united these two missing figures; two strangers who get lost, or maybe, just maybe, just met.