The Other Spaces section offers wonderful film surprises

Hit the road / Jaddeh Khaki
Director: Panah Panahi

We do not choose the family or the country where we are born. At first glance, it seems like an ordinary family trip. The grumpy father has his leg in a cast, the older son drives clumsily, the younger one tirelessly makes a fuss, and the mother tries to harmonize all the different energies. However, it is not as it seems. The journey, full of laughter, jokes and smiles, takes a disturbing turn, which we learn about only from small hints. In his debut, director Panah Panahi masterfully combines a classic road movie with a quiet but urgent social message about a country where freedom often ends just outside the car window. Humor, urgency, unobtrusive tragedy and unusually strong and believable characters combine in an intimate portrait of one family.

Emergency Situation / Extraordinary event
Director: Jiří Havelka

A small train passes through the picturesque Czech countryside. Inside, people are sitting, talking, or otherwise silent, peeking out of windows or sleeping. The train suddenly breaks down and driver Miloš has to get off the train to fix the problem. However, the train, standing on a gentle slope, starts running back to the starting station of its own accord, and the terrified Miloš has no choice but to trot after it. The passengers appreciate that they are going again, but soon realize that they are going in the wrong direction. They protest loudly and demand information. The driver’s cabin is hermetically sealed and no one speaks from behind the door. The first attacks of panic are spreading among the passengers – that it would be a kidnapping, revenge or a complete failure of the system?

One second / Yi miao zhong
Director: Yimou Zhang

China during the Cultural Revolution. A prisoner escapes from the labor camp. In search of a stolen roll of film that captures his long-lost daughter, he risks everything – for one second. He soon encounters a petty thief, an orphaned girl haunted by her own terrible loss. A beautiful, moving and deeply personal tribute to the redemptive power of film in the spirit of Cinema Paradiso by Zhang Yimou, a three-time Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film.

Murina
Director: Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović

During a weekend at the Adriatic Sea, teenage Julija decides to replace her domineering father with his rich foreign friend. Julia’s adolescence looks like a perfect idyll from the outside. She spends her days on the rocky shore of the Adriatic, in a cozy boarding house run by her father Ante. However, relations within the family are far from harmonious. Ante is a manipulative, jealous bully. The tension between him and his daughter and wife, Nela, grows when an old family friend, Javier, comes to their house. The film by Croatian director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, which won the Best Debut Award at Cannes, stands out for its penetrating style, precise character study and perfectly captured summer atmosphere; the latter hides an inconspicuous, but nevertheless essential life transformation from the main heroine.

Somewhere Over the Chemtrails / Kdyby radši hořelo
Director: Adam Koloman Rybanský

The volunteer fire department has to face a completely different challenge than any ordinary fire. The film Somewhere Over the Chemtrails had its world premiere at the prestigious Berlinale film festival. The inhabitants of a Czech village are preparing for Easter, the festivities are in full swing, the guys in front of the pub are commenting on green beer and the danger of chemtrails, when the celebrations are interrupted by a van that crashes into the fountain in the square. The driver manages to disappear, but it is clear to everyone that it was a terrorist attack. The safety of the entire village now depends on the firefighters, on their determination and selfless work.

Nightline / Promlčeno
Director: Robert Sedláček

Film thriller in which Karel Roden in the main role uncovers an old and almost forgotten crime. The protagonist embarks on a journey of revenge, and everyone who is touched by his story is in for a shocking revelation. The film opens up the topic of statute-barred crimes and has already won several awards at foreign festivals. The plot of the film takes place during one summer evening. Karel Roden as the mysterious man Radek returns to Prague for a few hours after twenty years to find a certain young woman and come to terms with the past once and for all. He is helped in his search by an ambitious radio presenter, who includes his story in her live night show.

Gold
Director: Anthony Hayes

In the middle of the vast, unique and unforgiving Australian desert, a gritty thriller about the greed that can cloud the human mind takes place. How far can people go in the pursuit of immense wealth? Two strangers wander through the Australian desert. Virgil (Zac Efron) goes after a job that will change his life, and he is to be brought there by a not so friendly driver Keith (Anthony Hayes). Along the way, their car’s engine overheats, so they have to stop in the middle of the parched wilderness. As Keith fixes the car, Virgil is caught by a golden reflection at his feet. They start digging and discover the largest boulder of gold anyone has ever found. The initial enthusiasm turns to helplessness when they find that it is beyond their strength to pull such a large lump of gold out of the ground.

The Power
Director: Corinna Faith

Nurse Val is waiting for her first working day in a dilapidated London hospital. She is young and tough, so the head nurse immediately assigns her the night shift. And what’s worse. A power outage is planned for this night. Most of the hospital is evacuated, only patients from the intensive care unit, who probably would not survive the transport, and a handful of employees remain. The lights go out, the gloom slowly turns into darkness flows through the hospital. A terrifying and inhuman evil lurks in the darkness. And Vala’s innocence is exactly what has awakened the hidden evil. Val suddenly regrets not answering yes to the question of whether she is afraid of the dark.

Ghost Stories
Director: Jeremy Dyson, Andy Nyman

Skeptical professor Phillip Goodman deals with disproving seemingly supernatural events. But three inexplicable cases fall into his hands, and the moment he starts to solve them, he himself gets into a terrifying horror spiral. Just because someone doesn’t believe in ghosts doesn’t mean that ghosts don’t believe in them. Or maybe they don’t even exist. One such skeptic is Professor Phillip Goodman, who has set himself the task of explaining and revealing seemingly supernatural phenomena and finding out their true nature. And precisely because of this, he is joined by one man who invites him to investigate three inexplicable cases. So Professor Goodman embarks on a quest to find a rational explanation for these supernatural stories.

Jane by Charlotte
Director: Charlotte Gainsbourg

Charlotte Gainsbourg’s directorial debut is a documentary portrait of her famous mother, British actress, model and singer Jane Birkin living in France. The camera accompanies the daughter and mother through concert halls, places with great emotional value and everyday duties, and with the help of intimate conversations it reveals the family history, intimate memories and behind the scenes of the artistic creation of the late father and husband Serge Gainsbourg. Topics such as motherhood, the cult of beauty, alcoholism or stepping out of the shadow of one’s parents are subjected to thorough analysis in sensitive and open conversations between the two protagonists.

A Chiara
Directed by: Jonas Carpignano

A sensitive Italian drama about coming of age and the loss of illusions set in Calabria, a territory with its own rules. Fifteen-year-old Chiara lives in the south of Italy. She has many friends, two sisters and attentive loving parents. A violent incident and the subsequent disappearance of her father will irreversibly affect her happy life. The facts that the father kept from Chiara and to which the rest of the family turned a blind eye come to the surface. The film won the Europa Cinemas Label award for the best European film in the Quinzaine des réalisateurs section at the Cannes Film Festival.

Leave No Traces / Zeby ni bilo sladów
Director: Jan P. Matuszyński

Poland, 1983. The country is shaken by the case of Grzegorz Przemyk, a high school student and the son of the opposition poet Barbara Sadowska, who was arrested by a militia patrol and severely beaten. After two days of agony, Przemyk dies from his injuries. The film, based on real events, follows the story of Jurek, the only witness to the incident. Initially, the state apparatus, including the Ministry of the Interior, downplays the whole matter. However, when more than 20,000 people walk the streets of Warsaw for Przemyk’s coffin, Jurek overnight becomes the number one enemy of the state. The repressive regime uses all the possibilities of its apparatus, secret service, militias, media and courts to discredit and silence Jurek, Przemyk’s mother Barbara and everyone else.

Knor
Director: Mascha Halberstad

9-year-old Babs has loving parents, a best friend, a beautiful yard to play in, and a garden in which fruits serve as healthy vegetarian food for the family. But one day this idyllic world is disturbed by the arrival of a cowboy from America. Babsa’s grandfather from America fulfills his granddaughter’s great desire to have her own pet. Since her father is allergic to animal hair, he gives Babs a pig named Kvik.