Paradocs

It turns out that the mythical bogeyman of the Portuguese Salazar dictatorship era was real after all. Telling his story reconstructs a time that has become surrounded with an equally mythical aura, thanks to collective silence. …

The roles are reversed when observatories are viewed with a seemingly extraterrestrial eye. A poetic miniature about interstellar surveillance and the relationship between an infinite universe and limited human life.…

Filmmaker-in-exile Yaser Kassab calls his father in Aleppo, who tells him his brother’s grave has been moved. The physical distance increases Kassab’s sense of loss, but also turns him into an outsider.…

In a breathtaking collage of ultra-short film excerpts, Frank Beauvais talks about his past, fears, thoughts and desires. The result is a superior and autobiographical sampling composition with a literary slant.…

While villagers prepare for the annual Sohrai festival, a woman from the Indian Santhali people tells her version of the creation story according to oral tradition.…

A nocturnal car ride to the scene of a calamity. The combination of impersonal Google Earth imagery, sparse dialogue and the sound of a heartbeat is emotionally gripping, while leaving room for the imagination.…

A visual journey into the minds of children visiting their parents at the San Vittore prison in Milan. Their drawings reveal how they experience the prison regime. Some see San Vittore as a castle.…

Small acts of subversive resistance—teasing tourists, crashing election parties, insulting filmmakers—in five fictive interviews with ordinary citizens who refuse to submit to the powers that be.…

How do you generate structures that won’t collapse, even under the worst imaginable conditions? This roving travelogue forges unexpected connections between ambitious Parisian structures and the tensions surrounding the gilets jaunes protests.…

This portrait of a woman who is imprisoned for a brutal murder isn’t about her crime or punishment, but about herself. With both the director and the protagonist having a passionate desire to make this film, an intriguing interplay unfolds. …

Memories fade and distort, also when they are recorded on film, which deteriorates over time. A collage of archetypal but damaged footage reveals the perishability of this medium for our collective memory.…

Fascinating sequences of optical phenomena—some familiar, some very mysterious—at the interface of documentary and experimental film. Are you seeing what you think you’re seeing?…