Jerzy Palacz

An environmental spy infiltrates the global syndicate for illegal timber trading. With the aid of a hidden camera he documents the chain of illegal activities, from harvesting of the wood to the marketing of “washed” products in supermarkets. This turns out to be an excellent motor for political change.

Jake De Long is one of the top computer programmers in the world. Hiding in an abandoned warehouse in Luxembourg, he is working on a secret website to be launched soon. As he does, he is warned that the police have discovered his whereabouts and are about to storm in. He manages to escape and fly back to Canada, where his colleague Valérie is waiting for him to get on with their life mission: the kidnapping of four very influential personalities.

This film does not deal with Chernobyl, but rather with the world of Chernobyl, about which we know very little. Eyewitness reports have survived: scientists, teachers, journalists, couples, children... They tell of their old daily lives, then of the catastrophe. Their voices form a long, terrible but necessary supplication which traverses borders and stimulates us to question our status quo.

An unnamed man narrates the downward trajectory of his life from beyond the grave, from delinquency to the string of fateful decisions and foolhardy moves that tied him inextricably to the opiate that was the elusive love of his life.

A series of snapshots from the life of a fictional actress named Shirley serves to weave together thirteen paintings by Edward Hopper (e.g. "Office at Night", "Western Motel", "Usherette", "A Woman in the Sun") into a fascinating synthesis of painting and film, personal and political history. Each station in Shirley’s professional and private life from the 1930s to 1960s is precisely dated: It is always August 28/29 of the year in question, as the locations vary from Paris to New York to Cape Cod.

Pianomania takes the audience on a humorous journey through the secret world of sound and accompanies Stefan Knüpfer in his extraordinary work with the greatest pianists in the world. To select the instrument that corresponds to the vision of the virtuoso, according it to his desire and accompany him until he goes on stage, Stefan Knüpfer has developed nerves of steel, a boundless passion and above ability to translate words into sounds.

St. John’s Night is a traditional midsummer Latvian celebration where family and friends get together to build bonfires, drink and have a good time. According to a legend, on this night lovers and those who wish to fall in love can search the woods for the "magic fern".

A working day in Austria, 2004. Nine modern working-class heroes are engaged in their daily struggle of survival, accompanied, motivated and influenced by the country’s most popular radio station.

This film journeys deep into the heart of Austria’s favorite daily newspaper, the Kronen Zeitung, the most widely-read paper per capita in the world. The “Krone’s” 2.7 million readers represent 43% of the Austrian press market. A reflection of the Austrian soul, this newspaper serves as a prism through which we can understand the rise of the populist Right in this country and examine the dangerous flirtation between media and politics. Director and editor-in-chief Hans Dichand’s ingenious populist strategy allows him to reach the greatest number of readers: the paper’s style and content play on base human instincts such as the fear of the “other,” the opposition between “good” and “evil,” and the common man’s sense of powerlessness in the political arena. He then wields the might of this enormous audience to influence politicians and impose his nostalgic vision of a pure, prosperous, and peaceful world.

After a cunning escape from the boarding school, Oliver and Peter find their way to the back parts of Gastein Valley, where they fall into the hands of the paranoid Professor Niedlich. He gives the boys compulsory lessons, far worse than at school.

In spring 1999, NATO allies conducted a bombing campaign against Yugoslavia as part of the Kosovo War. The action was supposed to destroy Yugoslav military installations and was seen as a humanitarian operation. But the bombings were aimed around urban areas and civilians were killed as well. This documentary focuses on the everyday people -- regardless of their religious or political differences -- who suffered on the ground and became witnesses to the overwhelming tragedy around them.

Grossglockner is Austria’s highest peak and the eastern Alps’ most impressive summit. Rising to a height of almost 3900 meters, the ‘BLACK MOUNTAIN’ towers over an Alpine natural paradise, the Hohe Tauern National Park, where ibex and chamoix roam the cliffs, wild flowers grow in amazing profusion and golden eagles soar above the valleys.Georg Riha presents dizzying perspectives of the glaciers, sheer cliffs and steep ravines that shape the face of this rocky giant and continue to attract and challenge a steady stream of mountaineers.

A revealing and devastating portrait of a trio of aspiring real-life Viennese models. Vivian will stop at nothing to be a magazine cover girl. Lisa fills her time with routine plastic surgery and cocaine binges, while innocent Tanja focuses on the mystical through tarot cards, yoga, and raw animal energy.

"Ceija Stojka" is a portrait of 64-year-old Austrian Rom Ceija Stojka, who, after a nomadic childhood, settled in Vienna many years ago. In the recent past, Ceija Stojka’s fame as an author, painter and singer has spread outside Austria. She represents the opening of Rom and Sinti society to the world of the "gadje." This process and all the difficulties it involves is unique in the history of the Rom in Central Europe. The central theme of this documentary is the fusion of two extremely different worlds in this fascinating woman. Beginning with Ceija Stojka’s present life, her biography is reconstructed in this film portrait. At the same time, a critical chronology of images portrays the common associations with the "gypsy," examples of which pervade Ceija Stojka’s life. A comprehensive consideration of the gypsy’s image, from romanticized projections to images of exclusion, discrimination and destruction, and finally the present ambivalent relationship between Rom and non-Rom.

The lives of a Serb family are torn apart by the pressures of the not-too-distant war with the Croats. The film addresses the fundamental question "Can love survive between political enemies?"

Main character of this movie is Rene Rupnik, a former math teacher. He is forty years old and lives together with his mother in a desolate block of flats. Ever since his early youth women with big breasts have fascinated him, because they symbolise a kind of earth mother to him. He has never had an especially close relationship with his own mother; she was too 'bony' for him. Object of Rene's fantasy is the actress Senta Berger, to him everything a woman should be. Standing by the blackboard and explaining the mathematical laws of sine and cosine ('sinus' is bosom in Latin), Rene sings the praises of the female curves and those of Santa Berger in particular. Filmmaker Ulrich Seidl let the former teacher speak freely about his obsessions and desires, intercutting his monologues with scenes from the protagonist's day-to-day life.

What does modern art mean for ordinary visitors to an exhibition?

A warm summer night - waiting for the bus - observations.

The inside of a Viennese section of the Austrian Socialist Party (SPÖ). The number of members has gone down, but otherwise everything is still the same. The group of indefatigable comrades and their new district representative, Brigitte Ederer, are accompanied in their groundwork; at the weekly section meetings, in their work in the district parliamentary party, at outdoor festivals, pensioners' parties and children's discos, collecting contributions door to door, during arduous confrontation with the inhabitants of the locality, and, not least, at the district elections. The election result of 9th October 1994 was a disaster for the party.

"Aktion K" is a documentary about the greatest mass exodus from a nazi concentration camp, which took place at the upper Austrian hills, in 1945. The following hunting is still known there under the cynical title "Mühlviertler Hasenjagd" - "The Mühlviertel's hare hunting".

The sun blazes down from the sky with destructive power; exposing oneself to its light means death. People have transposed everyday existence to the night. In the metropolis of HALF WORLD a culture based on various languages and lifeforms has grown rampant. Everyone is looking for a way to survive.

"At the Edge of the World" was filmed in 1991, the year of independence, and 1992, the year of war. One year between life as it was then and life as it is now, between rejoicing and destruction. The civil war in Georgia destroyed the utopia of freedom and left behind a battlefield, both in the country itself and in the minds of the Georgians.

Merab, Nino, Levan and Ludmila talk about their town, Tbilissi, the capital of Georgia, in a film both tragic and beautiful. Tbilisi in the first year after independence and shortly before the civil war, Sarajevo at the end of the war in what once was Yugoslavia. In Goran Rebić’s DURING THE MANY YEARS, people tell of the changes experienced since the breakaway from the Soviet Union.

Vexation game - a thriller about our feelings and the affairs of others. Two are happy. Four are confused. The audience still think they know what is going on. Reality is but a question of perspective.

A musical narratrive about Yugoslavian immigrants haunted by the hymns of their homeland.

Four men on a roofl. One of them wants to jump off, while the others are singing a fare-the-well song.

The Macedonian Soltana is the last original inhabitant of Europe. She still remembers the first automobile: she thought it was a terrible monster. She is neither capable of reading nor writing. At the age of 18, her family takes her to Austria, where she has the opportunity to marry a rich man. No use to think twice about it - Soltana obeys. As a woman, she says, she has no alternative. In Soltana's life no big events took place. But those who look closely are bound to discover tremendous openness and vitality in the small steps of her life.