Brilliant film, full of life, observing and arranging, lots of music, the end credits invite you to dance, young people, well read the intro from the catalogue to know where we are in the world:

“There is a lot of talking in ‘Balane 3’. About politics, friendships, love and sex – and sex especially. We are in Inhambane, a medium-sized city in the south of Mozambique. Here we meet the young inhabitants in their own element. They work, hang out, go out dancing – and then they talk. 

‘Balane 3’ is a social film. A panoramic snapshot of life as a young African right now, in this particular place (the film is named after the neighborhood where it was shot). In other words, there’s a lot going on, and Ico Costa’s spinning analog camera is always at eye level with the young participants.

Costa has made a number of films in Mozambique across documentary and fiction, about and with the country’s young generation, and has developed a method based on co-creation, relationships and trust, where all participants actively contribute – not just to tell their own story, but to transcend the narrative itself.”

I would call it a situational documentary, scene follow scene – one of them you see in the photo: The young girl is having her birthday celebration, her mother cuts the cake, who is to have to the first piece she asks the daughter, who gives it to mother, after that to grandmother and birthday song is there as well, of course. You enjoy the situation as they do.

Many scenes give you an impression of the culture, gender questions are constantly being raised or rather the girls/young women talk about the young men, and the other way around (one young man to another: why don´t you like to jerk off… I am ashamed, he answers), and there are pretty daring public dance scenes and one long scene at the end with a dancer, amazing. Documentaries can take us to places, where we can’t go ourselves, in this case it is obvious that the director has the trust of his wonderful protagonists. Full of joy and yet there is a graffiti on the wall: Our survival stopped us from living. A social film it is written above, yes, but also a film that says Life is beautiful.

Portugal, France, 98 mins.

Eleanor Mortimer’s debut feature might be the most inspiring science doc of the year. Funny and serious, light and dark, poetic and informative. “Why we called it planet Earth when more than 70% of its surface is water?” says Mortimer’s playful voice over in the beginning of the film. And, indeed, the film is full of water with sea creatures that seem to come from another planet. But they live in planet Earth. Such a paradox that our civilization is willing to go to Mars while we have a vast portion of our own planet completely unexplored!

The film follows a crew of passionate biologists into the deep ocean. There’s no light five kilometers under the sea surface, however, it turns to be a realm full of life. In order to stop minery in international deep sea waters, it is crucial that marine scientists can map and categorize a vast amount of animals living in the oceanic darkest areas. But such work takes years, how much time do we have? 

A robot named by the Egyptian goddess of death Isis not only conducts such  necessary research but turns to be an extremely talented DoP. The team of biologists cannot believe what they are seeing and the audience will be mesmerized by their enthusiasm. Isis films an extraordinary array of creatures never seen before and still unnamed. So the biologist must give names to the unseen. And lucky for us they have sense of humor! A beautiful unknown creature who moves elegantly in the deep sea is temporary called Spanish Dancer; a starfish with a special skin it’s named as Wedding Dress Star; a pink luminescent alien-like creature becomes the Barbie Pig. Mortimer’s film is full of love for our planet and it is a must see for the young audiences.

United Kingdom, 2025, 101 minutes

Review by Pol Roig

I will write about this film again and again. Here just some few notes. The film will travel to all festivals and it will win awards. Happy that it simply has been made. It was not the idea, Alisa told the audience at CPH:DOX. It was her friend and colleague Marina Stepanska, who said that “there is a film” in the material – your letters to your son, the video clips, what you have shot… She told the audience that there was only 20 hours of material making a tribute to the editor, Polish Kasia Boniecka, “she is a magician”.

The tone of the film. Beautiful, balanced, Alisa´s voice, the voice of Théo in the face time clips, her colleagues at the front, the constant sound of bombing, I had to shake my head after the screening to get it away, the decision not to include any battle scenes, Alisa did not shoot any, everything is so well thought and she survived (!) contrary to many of her colleagues, we see them at the end credits with the sad information that they did not make it. And we see – like in the film of Olha Zhurba – a long sequence, where cars, with coffins, on the road pass people kneeling to pay respect. It gives me tears in the eyes every time I see it.

Alisa and Théo, Mother and Son. A love story. A hope for the future?!

Olha Stefanishyna er “The EUkrainian” med formentlig akkurat så mange rejsedage som Jens Stoltenberg havde på sit sidste år som NATO’s generalsekretær i flg. festivalens åbningsfilm “Facing War”. Svenske Nordenskjiöld har været tæt på hende, hun er diplomat, men holder sig ikke tilbage, når Ukraines sag skal tales på de store adresser i EUropa. Jeg må ikke anmelde filmen før premieren den 24. marts så dette er en anbefaling, hvor jeg har valgt at give ordet til filmens instruktør, en tekst taget fra pressematerialet:

”I disse dage virker det relevant at spørge: Hvordan ville verden være, hvis flere kvinder ledede verdens stormagter?

Efter at have filmet Olha Stefanishyna i to år, fangede jeg et intimt øjeblik af hende. Hun kigger ind i kameraet og taler direkte til sine børn og siger, at hun ønsker, at de kan “leve det liv, de vil”. De fleste forældre kan nok relatere til dette. Men det faktum, at hun er vicepremierminister i et land i krig, et land der er blevet invaderet, gør ønsket skræmmende alvorligt.

Hvad kræver det, for at ukrainere kan leve det liv, de ønsker? Hvad kræver det for nogen at leve det liv, de ønsker, i en verden, hvor autoritære regimer vinder magt?

Da jeg først mødte Olha Stefanishyna ved et EU-møde i Prag i juni 2022, vidste jeg med det samme, at hun var én, der kunne personificere og gøre den komplicerede og komplekse historie levende. Hvis man vil tale om Europas fremtid og demokratiets fremtid, skal man bruge en følelsesladet, skarp, jordnær og fascinerende person...

Det er 30 år siden, jeg for første gang tog til Ukraine. I løbet af det sidste årti, har jeg lavet mange workshops i Kyiv og Odessa. Mange af de folk, jeg har mødt, er blevet fantastiske filmskabere. Nu har nogle af dem været nødt til at opgive deres kameraer for våben. Når Ruslands fuldskalainvasion begynder, har man i Ukraine ikke noget valg, hvis man vil bevare muligheden for at vælge. Det er hjerteskærende på så mange måder.

Selvom jeg har tilbragt mange måneder i Kyiv efter fuldskalainvasionen – og hørt Ukraines soundtrack, luftalarmerne mange gange – er jeg blot en besøgende. Mit job har været at rejse mellem Kyiv og andre europæiske hovedstæder, at forstå det diplomatiske bånd, at undersøge den politiske koreografi, og gennem en hovedkarakter lave en overbevisende film, en “politisk thriller”, som jeg håber vil blive i folks hjerter og inspirere til kritisk tænkning.

Hvad lærer Ukraine os? Tror vi stadig på, at demokrati og de værdier, som EU-familien blev grundlagt på, er værd at kæmpe for? Jeg håber, at nogle seere vil reflektere over disse spørgsmål, og også over hvilke ledere de ønsker for fremtiden.”

Producers: MALCOLM DIXELIUS, Sweden, OLHA BESKHMELNYTSINA, Ukraine, CHRISTIAN POPP, France, SERGIO GHIZZARDI, Belgium.

2025, 90 mins.

It’s looking at you, the bull. From the big screen in the cinema Grand in Copenhagen. Together with an almost full hall on a Wednesday afternoon, the first day of CPH:DOX 2025, I booked a ticket for Catalan Albert Serra’s first non-fiction film. Admired for his fiction films, considered a true auteur, he had a masterclass last year at DocsBarcelona, that I missed but I understood that he and editor Artur Tort told that they had spent 9 months of editing the two hour long bullfighting documentary! And that Serra said that it would have been impossible to find an actor for the role of torero. That’s why he decided to leave fiction for this film. He found Andrés Roca Rey, see photo.

You also hear the breathing of the bull. It’s ready for the fight that in most cases ends with its death. And in some cases with blood on the torero, again see photo of Roca, as they call him, in a hotel room undressing after a fight assisted by what you could call his butler. The same man is the one who – in a precious scene – dresses Roca starting with feminine underwear and pink socks before the heavy colorful outfit is settled on the body of the young man.

A fight yes, but also a show, that Serra has his focus on. No spectators are seen, but they are heard, we see Roca in the arena alone with the bull with his red cloth, moving, inviting the bull to attack, the sound is strong, Roca communicates with the bull, he gets advice from his team and praise, all is hearable and even more so when they are back in the car, the sole other location, “you’ve got balls”, “you are the best”, simple dialogues in this world of men.

It’s all about the image. I don’t remember having seen so poignant closeups of a bull suffering; with blood all over it keeps the attack until Roca delivers the death blow with his sword after the bull has received lances in its body. Serra comes back with detail after detail of Roca, bull after bull, taking dancing steps with inviting sounds toward the animal and a face that changes expression depending on how close we are to the final sword thrust. In some sequences Roca performs as a kind of Shakespearean character supported by strong music, classical.

I would never enter a bullfighting arena, it’s disgusting animal cruelty what is going on there to entertain us – Serra is not telling us what to think about this cultural phenomenon – up yo you, but I was caught by the drama as it was magnificently conveyed on the screen by a filmmaker, who knows his métier. One man in the arena.

Spain, France, Portugal, 2024, 125 mins.