15-05-2026 GIEFF-Films
Marimari, City on the Back, Legacy of silence(s), Help Me Help You, Wind's Heritage, A Letter to Chinatown, Bride of Aravan, Drags in da´ House, Waterline, Rhythms of Sodade,
Marimari
New Zealand, 2024, 98 min
Location: Papua New Guinea
A Film by: Paul Wolffram
Marimari is a film led by a vision of compassion. In the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, a land where witches are still accused, tortured, and burnt, Evelyn Kunda works to rescue and rehabilitate survivors. Marimari follows her as she supports three families rebuilding their lives after violent attacks, capturing intimate moments in villages, towns, and urban slums. One of the challenges for the filmmaker was addressing the perceived otherness of the subjects for a Western festival audience. Evelyn’s compassion and persistence reveal the profound impact one person can have in the face of overwhelming odds.
Website: here
Trailer of Film: here
Screening: 15.05.2026 09:00
City on the Back
Ecuador, 2023, 76 min
Location: Ecuador
A Film by: Fadia Paola Rodas Ziadé
In Quito, where there is no formal recycling system, María and Isabel carry materials on their backs as they navigate the streets, recycling not only for economic survival but also as a contribution to environmental care. María leads a collective fight for labor rights, while Isabel raises her daughters. City on the Back immerses us in the multifaceted lives of people who serve the environment, personified through María and Isabel, whose work often remains overlooked and anonymous, while honoring their resilience and their efforts to shape a better future for themselves, the city, and the planet.
Website: here
Screening: 15.05.2026 11:05
Presentation of Installation
Legacy of silence(s)
The Netherlands, , min
Location: The Netherland, Indonesia
A Film by:
Legacy of silence(s) presents (post)colonial experiences within the filmmaker’s Indo-European family through a pop-up installation. Visitors encounter fragmented memories, objects, and documents arranged in a spatial environment that invites shifting perspectives on past and present geopolitics. Combining moving images across multiple screens with archival materials and everyday objects, the work unfolds as a non-linear experience. With approximately 75 minutes of footage distributed across various formats, the installation creates an open space for reflection on memory, inheritance, and the afterlives of colonial histories.
Further Information here.
Screening: 15.05.2026 12:50
Help Me Help You
Norway, 2024, 36 min
Location: Namibia
A Film by: Stéphanie Sassen
In Namibia’s Kalahari Desert, where outside aid has shaped local life for decades, a group of young Ju/’hoansi take part in participatory video training led by an overseas NGO. Motivated by the idea that it is not good to sit without doing something, they turn their cameras toward the roots of educational marginalisation in their community. As the young activists film school children, the filmmaker observes them in turn. Through these layered acts of filming, the documentary opens a space for conversation across generations and cultures while raising a simple yet complex question: what does it mean to help?
Screening: 15.05.2026 14:00
Wind's Heritage
Iran, Islamic Republic of, 2024, 30 min
Location: Iran
A Film by: Nasim Soheili
In the city of Nashtifan in eastern Iran, Mohammad Vali Gandami continues to care for the ancient windmills known as Asbads. At 68, he is the last craftsman with firsthand knowledge of building and repairing these structures, which once used the region’s strong winds to grind grain into flour. For decades he has maintained the mills, preserving techniques passed down through generations. Through this film, Nasim Soheili hopes to draw attention to the fragile state of these windmills and to the knowledge carried by those who have devoted their lives to sustaining this cultural heritage.
See filmmakers
Screening: 15.05.2026 14:50
A Letter to Chinatown
United Kingdom, 2025, 48 min
Location: Hong Kong, United Kingdom
A Film by: Alexandra D'Onofrio, Elena Barabantseva
Ten years after British Born Chinese, the filmmakers return to Daniel He as he prepares to graduate from Oxford and step into adult life. Raised behind the counter of his family’s takeaway in Manchester, Daniel grew up navigating expectations from different cultures. As he moves between cities and responsibilities, questions of belonging and identity become more pressing. Through this film, Alexandra D’Onofrio and Elena Barabantseva seek to explore what it means to grow up between cultures and to reflect on the responsibilities, connections, and sense of home that shape a coming of age in a globalised world.
Screening: 15.05.2026 15:45
Bride of Aravan
Australia, Germany, India, 2025, 48 min
Location: India
A Film by: Lesley Branagan
During a transgender festival in South India, Bhavadarini and her community reenact an ancient myth that elevates them to goddess status, in stark contrast to the prejudice they face in everyday life. The Aravan festival, with its rituals and collective spiritual expression, offers a rare space for recognition and transcendence. Following Bhavadarini, the film reflects a long-standing relationship with the community and observes the paradoxical position they occupy between reverence and marginalisation, situating their experience within wider questions of identity, belief, and social acceptance.
Website: here
Screening: 15.05.2026 16:35
Drags in da´ House
Brazil, 2024, 67 min
Location: Brazil
A Film by: M. Leaha, P. Braz, DiVina, Satine and Gab
When two anthropologists meet three drag artists, the encounter sparks a documentary project on São Paulo’s vibrant queer and drag scene, where performance functions as political existence, communal belonging and creative resistance. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the project is transformed as fieldwork becomes impossible. The collaborators reimagine the film at a distance through video diaries, screen recordings and online performances, shifting it into a long term, reflexive and multimodal collaboration. Filming becomes shared, with artists recording themselves in their homes and daily lives, reshaping authorship into a collective process.
Screening: 15.05.2026 17:25
Discussion after the last film.
Rhythms of Sodade
Japan, 2025, 109 min
Location: Cabo Verde
A Film by: Kay Aoki, Masashi Nagara
On the island of São Vicente in Cabo Verde, Carlos lives with alcohol and drug dependence, shaped by the enduring presence of “sodade,” a complex sense of longing rooted in histories of displacement and memory. Developed through more than a decade of engagement, the film approaches sodade not as something to define, but as something lived and embodied. Through Carlos’s voice, gestures, and musical practices, it emerges as both a personal experience and a shared cultural condition. Moving between memory and everyday life, the film traces how sodade persists through rhythm, repetition, and the ongoing negotiation of absence and connection.
Screening: 15.05.2026 20:00
Waterline
Portugal, 2025, 68 min
Location: Not Specified
A Film by: Rui Simões
Victor Gama, an artist of Angolan origin working across continents, develops multimedia projects that connect environmental concerns with artistic practice. Moving between remote communities and international stages, his work draws attention to ecological degradation while engaging with local knowledge. Composing with instruments he designs himself, Gama combines sound and visual forms in a multidisciplinary process rooted in experimentation and tradition. Drawn to this approach, Rui Simões follows his practice, tracing how it resonates across places, cultures, and relationships with the natural world.
Screening: 15.05.2026 22:15