Mark Adams

The impact of economic development in rural Ethiopia is brought strikingly into focus in Xinyan Yu and Max Duncan’s absorbing and fascinating documentary Made in Ethiopia, which explores the grand ambitions for a massive Chinese industrial park in a remote farming town as seen – largely – through the eyes of three very different women, all of whose futures will be hugely affected during the future trajectory of the project.

A glorious celebration of the power of cinema – and almost as importantly, of cinemas themselves – Arnaud Desplechin’s intimate and personal examination of what it means to go to the movies takes a meanderingly thoughtful journey through the history of film, delivering a warm, provocative and often thoughtfully enjoyable ‘cinematic hug’ for film lovers.

Catalan Meri Collazos Solà’s passionate, thoughtful and deeply heartfelt documentary tackles medical and societal attitudes toward poor urban air quality, and more specifically how it impacted on her when she discovered her newborn daughter's genetic vulnerability to respiratory illness. The film world-premiered May 9 at DocsBarcelona.

A gently absorbing delve into a family history, Laia Manresa Casals’ Casa Reynal will strike a chord with any viewer who has been drawn into looking into generational history with all of the subtle dramas and intrigues that impact on any family. It is not a film packed with revelations or great incidents, but it is an intimate and warm journey through time.

My Sextortion Diary may only be just over an hour in length, but it is a powerful and provocative real-life story, prescient in reflecting the unhappy reality facing those people who are forced to deal with the awful behaviour of unscrupulous hackers, and handled in moving matter-of-fact style by Spanish filmmaker Patricia Franquesa as she recounts the terrible ordeal she had to suffer.

Nishtha Jain’s absorbing film Farming the Revolution documents the 2020 march of thousands of farmers on Delhi, protesting against new farm laws imposed by the Indian government. The film takes time to detail the experiences of the farmers and protesters, whose sense of camaraderie is what gives the doc a real sense of heart and purpose, as well as outlining the politics and reaction to the protest.

For lonely and troubled Canadian teenager Billy Poulin the video camera became the friend he never had when Lawrence Côté-Collins put him in the frame, inadvertently recording his worries, outbursts of anger and deep-rooted confusion and sadness. Years later, after he has been jailed for murder, the footage she [Lawrence] shot offers a striking insight into the inner turmoils of a young man whose life had taken the darkest of turns.

In Limbo (W zawieszeniu) is an intimate and insightful look at the war in Ukraine as seen from the viewpoint of a very particular family, and presented in very personal form. Set against other films from Ukraine which focus on frontline battles, the film is a welcome and moving glimpse into the lives of an ordinary family unit at the onset of the conflict.

A protest film rather sweetly dressed-up as a science-fiction discourse, Tobias Nölle’s essay film intriguingly offers up the notion of an android arriving in modern-day Germany from a future in which humans no longer exist, determined to discover what happened to machines and also try and talk with the King of the Humans.

In Apple Cider Vinegar by Sofie Benoot, which world-premiered at VdR 2024, a kidney stone is the unusual prompt for a narrative that reflects on the often imperceptible connections between life and nature. It is a unique and almost unquantifiable film, but also an engaging and intriguing one.