Wars and armed conflicts

13 films
A digest on the site, a note on Twitter, pictures on Instagram. Images of the war appear and disappear, and it still goes on. This subject cannot be encapsulated in a single frame.

  • 1489

    dir. Shoghakat Vardanyan
    dok2023

    The film title is the number used to mark the Armenian soldier lost in action who fought against Azeris in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. While the family is trying to find the student’s body, his sister is recording the search and accompanying emotions on her smartphone.

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    film still 1489

  • An Orange from Jaffa

    dir. Mohammed Almughanni
    fab2023

    A few kilometres from Jerusalem, the Hizma checkpoint. There has been tension here for decades. Mohammed, a young Palestinian with a temporary Polish identity card, tries to get through the Israeli checkpoint. A succession of drivers refuse to give him a lift. Farouk, a taxi driver agrees.

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    film still An Orange from Jaffa
    Awards:Special Award

  • Captive

    dir. Lika Nadir
    fab2023

    Russia. On the monitors of a nightclub, beautiful girls dance in front of an uninterested clientele. From the radio and television come recruitment announcements for a ‘special military operation’. In the drawer of Savvy's young bodyguard lies a gun. Would he be able to use it to kill someone? In the name of what? Love? Propaganda?

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    film still Captive

  • Claw Machine (CLAW MACHINE)

    dir. Georges Salameh
    anim2023

    The story of an immersion into the experience of being uprooted. Fragments and words. The unspoken, the indescribable. Memory shaken. Eyes closed. The city is under siege. Drift towards the unknown. The dilemma: resistance or migration? Mediterranean voyages of no return.

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    film still Claw Machine

  • Everything Needs to Live [PL audio description] (Wszystko ma żyć)

    dir. Tetiana Dorodnitsyna, Andrii Lytvynenko
    dok2024

    Whoever saves one life, saves the entire world – that’s the motto of Anna, the strongest woman in the world, who loves animals. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Anna joined by a group of volunteers are doing everything possible to save as many wounded and abandoned animals as they can in these difficult days.

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    film still Everything Needs to Live [PL audio description]

  • Fahnenflucht

    dir. Emil Ahlhelm, Konradin Schuchter
    dok2023

    If you are a man, you have only two options during a war – stay and fight or leave to save your life. Not everyone wants to lay down their life for their homeland and this should be respected. A story of people who refused to participate in the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine on account of their beliefs.

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    film still Fahnenflucht

  • Flowers of Ukraine (Kwiaty Ukrainy)

    dir. Adelina Borets
    dok2024

    On a flowery plot of land, in the middle of a block of flates in Kiev lives 67-year-old Natalia, who has been fighting for years against investors who would like to build another property in place of her house. And just when it seems that fighting the developers is the worst thing that happens to her, Russia's attack on Ukraine begins.

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    film still Flowers of Ukraine

  • Intercepted (Przechwycone)

    dir. Oksana Karpovych
    dok2024

    What are Russian soldiers talking about when they call their families from the front? The phone conversations recorded by the Ukrainian secret service in the first six months of the war reveal a completely different picture than the one created by the Kremlin propaganda. When set against post-apocalyptic views, they make a paralysing study of enslavement and conformism.

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    film still Intercepted
    Awards:Silver Horn / Special Award

  • Kuba

    dir. Marcin Strauchold
    dok2023

    Janusz Morgenstern was a director of films and TV series that left a permanent mark on Polish cinematography, such as ‘Good Bye, Till Tomorrow’, ‘To Kill This Love’ or ‘More Than Life at Stake’. Morgenstern’s portrait is woven out of broadcasts, photos, interviews with his loved ones and his own films.

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    film still Kuba

  • Life Is Beautiful (Al Haya Helwa)

    dir. Mohamed Jabaly
    dok2023

    When Mohamed Jabaly, a young Palestinian filmmaker, was invited to Norway, he did not realize he would have to stay there over the next seven years. He could not go back to Gaza because Israel had just closed the only border crossing with Egypt. As a result, he made a tragicomedy about Palestinian fate.

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    film still Life Is Beautiful

  • Nabu

    dir. Joanna Rusinek
    anim2023

    Nabu’s carefree childhood is interrupted by bombs falling on her native village. The brave girl is trying to escape and find a safe haven. A remarkably touching animation about the fate of refugees as seen by a child, presented with great sensitivity and subtlety.

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    film still Nabu

  • Of Caravan and The Dogs (Of Caravan And The Dogs)

    dir. Askold Kurov, Anonymous 1
    dok2024

    In Russia, those who hail the truth are considered foreign intelligence agents. One example is journalists of Novaya Gazeta, which received the Nobel Peace Prize six months before the invasion of Ukraine. How to maintain independence when the screws are being put on even harder?

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    film still Of Caravan and The Dogs
    Awards:Golden Horn

  • Putin's Playground

    dir. Konrad Szołajski
    dok2024

    Russia has been trying to rebuild its empire for years. Its invasion of Ukraine deprived us of our sense of security. A couple of documentary filmmakers from Poland embark on a journey to look for answers about threats for Central and Eastern Europe.

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    film still Putin
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