Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 

Anders and Harri are best friends. They both like music but Anders also loves trains. One day they set out for the town of Geta where a tragic railroad accident occurred in 1918. They are so moved by the memorial site that they write a song about it. A non-sentimental film about friendship, fear, and trains.

During the routine execution of her job, a Bulgarian immigrant named Maia – one among the nameless hordes of male and female cleaners – muses about life and its meaning, thus allowing a look into her surprisingly diverse past. This existential film about cleaning is also a tribute to the thousands of anonymous individuals carrying out serious work for laughable pay.

A debut filmmaker decides to get at the truth of the causes of an age-old grudge between his father and elderly Mr. Frost, two men who have long had adjoining backyards. This staged documentary features compelling visual compositions and the disarmingly dry humor of the distinctive inhabitants of western Jutland.

The actual diary entries of a man who decided to commit suicide by starving himself to death, elaborated into a literary form by Japanese writer Masahiko Shimada. Drawing on the novel, this evocative cinematic reconstruction of events provides a hypnotic record of the feelings of someone who voluntarily forfeited his life.

What does it mean to live in a Mexican village where half of the population has left to find work in the USA? What do parents go through who haven’t seen their children in years, or children who grow up without their fathers? Juan Carlos Rulfo (winner at the 2006 KV IFF with In the Pit) and Carlos Hagerman present a decades-old problem from the perspective of those left behind.

Gripping reconstruction of one of the most dramatic sporting events of all time, the 1975 rematch between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier for the heavyweight boxing title. Archive footage and testimonies from those who witnessed the “fight to the death” illustrate not only the drama in the ring, but also US sociopolitical realities of the 1960s and 1970s.

A 53-year-old psychiatrist still lives at home with his mom. After a long period of emotional abstinence, he meets Ewa and his enthusiasm over his new love evokes a hysterical reaction from his imperious mother. An intimately-drawn tragicomedy by a great talent of Polish documentary filmmaking, part of a documentary series that follows up on Kieślowski’s Decalogue.

Until 1947, India and Pakistan were part of British India. The peculiar “festival” of symbolically closing the border, which takes place each evening at Wagah, the lone border crossing, connects for a symbolic moment two nations that, after decades, still feel like part of a unified region.