Directed by: Michał Marczak
Poland, United Kingdom, 2016, 100 min

With his portrait of Warsaw youths Krzysztof and Michał, the nonconformist Polish director, who continually veers from the traditional parameters of documentary filmmaking toward hybrid forms, pays tribute to the generation of twentysomethings that grabs life by the horns each day, even after the rest of the town has gone to sleep. This formally elegant film fully pulses to their tempo, whether tinny techno or melodic house is laying down the rhythm.

Directed by: Cláudia Varejão
Portugal, Switzerland, Japan, 2016, 113 min

This lightly lyrical documentary takes us to a remote corner of Japan, where a community of traditional pearl hunters sets out to sea each day to dive down several metres below the surface in search of shellfish, octopuses, sea urchins and lobsters. If we adjust our breathing rhythm to the tranquil tempo of the passing scenes we will be rewarded with a fascinating world where, in equal measure, time-honoured rituals and companionable warmth introduce a sense of requisite harmony.

Directed by: Vitaly Mansky
Germany, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, 2016, 112 min

“I became a Russian citizen simply because I happened to live in Moscow when the Soviet Union broke apart,” says the celebrated Ukrainian documentarist. A few decades later his family in Ukraine face the dramatic consequences of further turbulent change, and their fresh experience of the revolution shows us that the media presentation of the country’s East-West dichotomy is deeply flawed.

Directed by: Tomáš Bojar, Rozálie Kohoutová
Czech Republic, 2016, 76 min

Last season, when a new team, consisting primarily of Romany players, made it into the lowest Czech football league, most of their opponents decided to boycott them. Will the FC Roma teammates be able to convince everyone that they’re not a bunch of ruffians from the fringes of society and that they just want to play football?

Directed by: Leire Apellaniz
Spain, 2016, 93 min

Miguel Ángel, an itinerant projectionist who fell in love with celluloid in his young days, witnessed the arrival of digital film projection and is slowly coming to terms with the fact that, for his small business, the coming summer season may be his last. This observational film tells a very human story which intersects with an account of a profession in inevitable decline. 

Directed by: Alma Har'el
USA, 2016, 82 min

The highly anticipated sophomore effort from an Israeli director who has returned five years after her successful debut Bombay Beach, this time to uncover the essence of something as universal as the emotion of love. A documentary essay interweaving three true life stories and exposing naïve notions of the existence of “true” love that is free of pain.

Directed by: Miroslav Janek
Czech Republic, 2016, 90 min

A foremost Czech documentarist with a unique authorial vision challenges us once and for all to stop perceiving autism as a medical diagnosis. Let’s take hold of the surrounding chaos and overload our senses! In such a state one may understand autism as a fascinating way of thinking that’s often maddeningly difficult to decipher.

Directed by: Alice Diop
France, 2016, 96 min

This exquisitely measured, softly engaging documentary observes the events at a suburban Parisian doctor’s office where free consulting services are offered to immigrants from around the world. Dedicated to his profession, the internist provides them with a safe haven that prevents their lives from hitting rock bottom.

Directed by: Manuel Abramovich
Argentina, 2016, 75 min

When ten-year-old Flavio Cabobianco published a New Age book with his brother in 1991, it became a nationwide sensation. But what if underneath it all the supposed child prodigy was, in fact, merely a lonely, wounded little soul? And how do you defy Flavio’s ambitions now that he is an adult and might choose to shake off his protagonist’s role and plonk himself down in the director’s chair? Let the remorseless tug-of-war for creative control begin…

Directed by: Keith Maitland
USA, 2016, 83 min

August 1, 1966, a hot day in Austin, Texas. An unknown shooter occupies the upper floor of the clock tower on the university campus and begins firing at passersby. Outstanding rotoscope animation enhances this reconstruction of the first mediatized school massacre in the United States.

Directed by: Daniel Abma
Germany, Netherlands, 2016, 88 min

“Homophobia no, socialismo si!” shouts the official slogan of progressive Cuban politics. Thus, once a year, top plastic surgeons are invited to Havana to fulfil the dreams of five inhabitants eager for sex reassignment surgery. A full-blooded documentary that tracks the obstacles three candidates face on the way to attaining a procedure they have so long desired.

Directed by: Mohamed Siam
Egypt, USA, France, 2016, 60 min

A young Egyptian filmmaker turns in a scathing report on the dissolution of his homeland, whose people had barely tasted their suddenly-acquired freedom when they found themselves choking on the turbulent events of the months that followed. The candid testimony of plainclothes police officers, the cornerstone of the old system, reveals the waning enthusiasm after the early post-revolution period and offers a bleak look at Egypt’s future.