At the Berlin International Film Festival seven of Film i Väst’s co-productions are represented in three sections. Here is the full list:

Encounters:

  • Family Time by Tia Kouvo. It’s Christmas time and the family is gathered. Everything goes as usual; grandfather drinks too much and grandmother is trying to keep up everyone’s mood. After Christmas, the family members go back to their lives, until it’s time for yet another family occasion. A tragicomic study on family dynamics, loneliness and being together. On how we try to find connection, but don’t always succeed.

Panorama:

  • Heroico by David Zonana. Luis, 18, sees only one way to be able to provide for himself and his mother: training at Mexico’s national military academy. The rigid system of violence that is designed to turn him into the perfect soldier pushes him to his limits.
  • Opponent by Milad Alami (the picture above). Iman, an Iranian, lives with his family in Sweden in an ever-changing succession of refugee hostels. To increase his chances of obtaining residence permits for them all, he resumes his career as a wrestler – and is confronted with why he had to flee.
  • Do You Love Me? by Tonia Noyabrova. Ukraine at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Vivacious 17-year-old Kira witnesses her family and the country she lives in falling apart. The transformations in their lives arrive gradually but are sweeping. Their whole world is shaking.

Generation

  • And the King Said, What a Fantastic Machine by Axel Danielson and Maximilien van Aertryck. A visually exuberant documentary that uses powerful collages edited out of archive footage, home videos, live-streaming material and private documentation to offer a glimpse at what (or who) is at work when an image of our reality is arranged.
  • Göta Petterland/George-Peterland by Christer Wahlberg. To escape their super boring reality at school, five friends invent a magical chicken forest world in which they can dream as much as they want without being disturbed by adults. They call it “George-Peterland”. But utopia is turning against itself.
  • Madden by Malin Ingrid Johansson. To Madeleine, the muddy road to the nearby town in front of her family’s farm seems like a threshold to another world. A mystical coming-of-age story in which the teenager experiences glimpses of the unknown as feelings of longing and loyalty collide.