25 August, 2020


Through a special collaboration with the online platform for documentary films DAFilms, DokuFest is delighted to stream online a selection of short and feature-length documentaries that have competed at DokuFest.

Deniz Tortrum’s PHASES OF MATTER and the Bosnian-Herzegovinian film THE INFIDEL by Nejra Latić Hulusić are part of this year’s competition, while the other films were screened in the Balkan Docs section last year.

PHASES OF MATTER
Deniz Tortum, 2020
Turkey, 71 min

Phases of Matter follows living and inanimate residents of a teaching hospital in Istanbul, moving from the operating room to the morgue, between life and other states, the real and the virtual.

Watch the film here.

THE INFIDEL
Nejra Latić Hulusić, 2019

Bosnia and Herzegovina, 63 min

A young Bosnian, raised in a radical Islamist commune, is trying to rebuild his life after being accused of taking a part of a terrorist attack.

Watch the film here.

ON THE WATER
Goran Dević, 2018
Croatia, 79 min

A portrait of a former industrial city through a river that passes through its center. The river is today a place of relaxation and leisure. When we meet people who appear on the water or riverside the social conflicts of transition arise in all directions. Sometimes the river reveals the remains of past that left traces in the water. What will remain behind us?

Watch the film here.

AETHER
Ruken Tekeş, 2019
Turkey & Italy, 81min

A filmmaker’s 21-day homage to capture the ethereal essence of her unique ancient homeland soon to be submerged by a hydroelectric dam, AETHER is instinctively carried and driven by emotions, feelings and observations. It reveals the place’s truths following its own unencumbered chronology. An invitation to a free-minded voyage into nature’s cycle of birth-death-rebirth in the oldest continuously inhabited place on Earth, Hasankeyf.

Watch the film here.

BIGGER THAN LIFE
Adnan Softić, 2018
Macedonia, Germany & Italy, 30min

In Skopje, a government plan costing several hundred million euros is creating a brand new, ancient city center; the project is called “Skopje 2014.” So far, some thirty government buildings and museums, as well as countless monuments in the classic style have been erected in the Macedonian capital, in an attempt to put Skopje on a par with Rome and Athens. In some cases, existing socialist structures were incorporated into the new builds.

Watch the film here.

CENTAR
Ivan Marković, 2018
Serbia & Germany, 48min

The architecture of the building still communicates a past idea of the future, while the materials reveal its current state. The vast complex network of corridors, atriums and halls now feel almost abandoned. Through the relentless effort of the maintenance workers who bear the burden of restoring not only the physical space but the image of an ideal imagined by its creators. The film works at documenting the materiality of the workers movements as they function in unison and alone; a performative ritual that goes between the individual and the collective.

Watch the film here.

GREETINGS FROM FREE FORESTS
Ian Soroka, 2018
United States, Croatia & Slovenia, 99min

Underground resistance is made literal in Ian Soroka’s debut feature, which excavates the buried histories of the Partisan Liberation Front, who resisted the Fascist occupation of Yugoslavia during World War II. Through rich landscape cinematography, haunted archival images, and the vivid testimonials of local hunters, foresters, tour guides, and historians, the film traces the hidden historical currents beneath Southern Slovenia’s verdant terrain, exploring cave hideouts, quarries, archaeological sites, unmarked graves, and even a subterranean bunker that became a film archive. Winner of DocLisboa’s Lisbon City Grand Prix.

Watch the film here.

ELECTRIC ORGASM FOR FUTURE GENERATION
Marija Vukić, 2019
Serbia, 57min

The first documentary film about the Serbian and Yugoslav rock band Elektricni Orgazam.

Watch the film here.

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY IN THE WORLD
Želimir Žilnik, 2018
Austria, Croatia, Serbia & Slovenia, 101min

The film follows a group of young migrants in Vienna who break through the administrative labyrinths to gain status and residence. We see their anxieties, mutual encouragement and achievements. While mastering the foreign language, they demonstrate skills in their professions, clarity and knowledge on entrance exams for schools and universities. It is also a story about new and old friendships, about the feeling of freedom in the new environment, without the pressure of war threats and the patriarchal stance of the family life.

Watch the film here.

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