Bustarenga, Ana Maria Gomes, Portugal, France 2019, 30’
Playful and never banal reflection on love and on the social construction of gender roles, of masculinity and femininity. The director has the ability to weave a personal and sociological story at the same time, within which she can fully get involved in first person, thematizing her relationship with a culture and a tradition she is both daughter and witness. The result is a choral story animated by significantly genuine, open and vital portraits of a rural world presented without idealizations or myths.

Pouštět draka (The Kite), Martin Smatana, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland 2019, 13’
A moving coming of age story on the cycle of seasons – of nature and life – and on the importance of the things that remain. A touching, sensitive and genuinely compelling work despite its (apparent) simplicity. Thanks to a style made of playful materiality, it returns the heady freshness and profound wisdom of a children fairy tale.

Qu’importe si les bêtes meurent (So What If The Goats Die), Sofia Alaoui, France 2019, 23’
For the way of mastering the script, the direction of the actors, the glorification of nature and making us meditating outdoors, opening windows on other possibilities of living our relationship with the supernatural and the intimate and social part of our spirituality.

Kolektyviniai sodai (Community Gardens), Vytautas Katkus, Lithuania 2019, 15’
For its way of problematizing the return to a rural world through a wise and cultured cinematographic language, which also makes references to the history of cinema, and for the rich historical references on the collective gardens of the Soviet era and dachas nowadays.

Tony and The Bull, John McFarlane, UK  2018, 16’

Tuda, gde net dorog (Where There Are No Roads), Leonid Balanev, Russia 2019, 10’
A film that proceeds as a good engine, with the incessant pace of innovation, enriched by many and formidable archival materials. The film excellently tells the genius of a person with a filmic language and a narrative that emulate the speed of the engine and innovation.

Anna, Dekel Berenson, UK, Ukraine, Israel 2019, 15’
A sharp, sensitive and empathetic portrait of a middle-aged woman who relies on the dream of a better life, desperate for change. A melodramatic yet modest evolution of a character who becomes aware of the absurdity of the present and the false hopes of the future. For the changeable and transformative capacity of the leading actress, capable of restoring the duplicity of a female figure that alone holds the film in its entirety. A woman who has compromised with certain social structures in order to survive, but who at the same time cannot completely surrender to disillusionment, tragically clinging to the hope that there may really be more out there for her.

La storia del lupo e della cicala, Filippo Biagianti, Italy 2019, 15’
An intense testimony of a part of Italy that is disappearing. The simplicity and resilience of a true rural citizen narrated with elegance and originality.

Tony and The Bull, John McFarlane, UK 2018, 16’
The story of an animal that knows how to redeem and comfort the life of a man; a lifesaving friendship that is never taken for granted and invests animal kingdom without distinction and enriches life in all its expressions.

I Feel Your Eyes, Grégoire Verbeke, Belgium 2019, 25’
Almost an observation documentary built on the dialectic between micro and macro, day and night, interior and exterior. The narration, with extended and relaxed times, proceeds in pictures, highlighting the little details of an everyday reality shared between man and horse. A (not only) physical closeness that translates into true sharing of long waits, sacrifice and laborious preparation for an event that never seems to arrive.