The passage of time during the pandemic has grown to become its own character. The world froze, together with the camera on a balcony. It’s watching a shard of the world in a frame and a unique slice of time we have all found ourselves in. But life continues under the balcony. New characters are moving along like on a stage.

In the mountains of south-west Bulgaria, according to Slavic pagan tradition, the so-called ‘Kukeri’ come together at the beginning of each year and perform a ritual to chase away evil spirits. 

After 20 years of silence, the filmmaker travels back to the house of her great-grandparents, where she passed through harmful events that left a deep imprint on her memory forever. The long-awaited family gathering runs counter to her attempts to overcome the past.

Sabine is a survivor of the 2016 attack on the Maalbeek Metro Station in Brussels, but has memory loss. It feels like the explosion and the coma happened to someone else. She tries to fill the emptiness with pictures, from an event of which she has no memory. 

A young man drowned in a river, but no body was found. His father seeks the body, day after day, on the shores of the river. A specialised emergency-situation search party is scouting the riverbed in a lifeboat. Four young men recount the accident which happened a few weeks ago. Meanwhile, the river flows on, but the mood it evokes, calm and serene at the beginning, changes dramatically.

The connection to the land, to the source of the local communities and agricultural economies, becomes increasingly abstract and increasingly characterized by a lack of awareness. What does this lack of awareness do to our perception of the forest?

From Gambia, fish is now being powdered up by Chinese corporations and exported to Europe and China to feed animals in industrial farming. As a result, Gambians are being deprived of their primary source of protein and overfishing is depleting marine ecosystems. 

At the International Butler Academy in Limburg, people from all over the world are trained to become a butler for the elite. Under a lot of pressure, they learn the old ways of butlering. 

Andrea has made her first communion. However, the ceremony lacks glamour. For Andrea, the most important thing is that things sparkle. The only problem is: Does this God exist?

After consulting with his relatives, a 35-year-old father approves of the marriage for his 14-year-old daughter. As individuals with differing perspectives his family grapple with the decision. 

A director gets hold of an old feature film from 2001, that he and his best friend made when they were 19. When he watches it he remembers his youth and understands why their friendship was lost.

Theo Montoya chose Camilo Najar, known as Son of Sodom, to be the main character of his first feature film. A week later, aged 21, he died from a heroin overdose. Who was Son of Sodom?