Credits

Regie

Sharine Rijsenburg, Hassan Saeed Madlough, Mohamed Essam Abouelenain, Paul Edward, Helmy Nouh, Andreas Koefoed

Storyline

Friday 18 April

Bubbling Baby – dir: Sharine Rijsenburg
Bubbling music is one of the most spirited manifestations of Caribbean-Dutch cultural heritage. The propulsive and highly danceable music symbolises freedom, power and ownership of the diaspora. This vibrant documentary celebrates bubbling’s storied history, tracing the historic and cultural roots of the club music, while exploring the contemporary scene that keeps pushing the envelope. By explicitly forefronting the female voices of bubbling, filmmaker Sharine Rijsenburg composes a joyful and feminist symphony of a musical scene that perfectly embodies an emancipated way of living.

Antidote (ترياق) – dir: Hassan Saeed Madlough
The film tells the story of Ali, a boy from Saihat, who uses his father’s cassette recorder to record folk singer Habib Ben Ali. After the singer loses his voice due to throat surgery, Ali visits him with the last recording of his voice.

Carpool – dir: Mohamed Essam Abouelenain
Elderly Patrick offers free rides to university students, while the music of Umm Kalthum floats through his car like an echo from the past. Her songs form the thread running through his memories of Suzane, his deceased wife. With each passenger, he shares fragments of their loving life together. Some students listen, others wave his words away, but Patrick’s warm stories and the timeless sounds of Umm Kalthum leave an indelible impression.

Fish in the Sea – dir: Paul Edward
An experimental short film exploring the dynamics between humans and the underwater world. With a fluid combination of music, poetry, and rhythmically edited images of marine life, the film creates a hypnotic experience. The underwater landscape and fish become a mirror for our relationship with nature, as image and sound come together in a meditative dance of harmony and disruption.

Night of Love – dir: Helmy Nouh
A man feels he has fought but been defeated and is now in a state of confusion. In a particularly intense moment, while lying in the arms of his beloved, he asks himself the question: is he still able to embrace life, or has his being been forever destroyed?

Saturday 19 April

Bubbling Baby – dir: Sharine Rijsenburg
Bubbling music is one of the most spirited manifestations of Caribbean-Dutch cultural heritage. The propulsive and highly danceable music symbolises freedom, power and ownership of the diaspora. This vibrant documentary celebrates bubbling’s storied history, tracing the historic and cultural roots of the club music, while exploring the contemporary scene that keeps pushing the envelope. By explicitly forefronting the female voices of bubbling, filmmaker Sharine Rijsenburg composes a joyful and feminist symphony of a musical scene that perfectly embodies an emancipated way of living.

The Ghost of Piramida – dir: Andreas Koefoed

Last century, the Soviet Union built the mining town of Pyramiden, not far from the North Pole, on the island Spitsbergen in the Norwegian Svalbard archipelago. The Russians who went to work there were dreaming of a better life, but that dream didn’t last long. The settlement has long since been abandoned. 

Three members of the Danish band Efterklang travel there to sample the atmosphere and make field recordings for a new album. They tap, rub and blow into everything they can find, shoving planks back and forth, climbing into pipes, and recording the sound of stacks of Soviet documents falling to the floor. The scenes of recording in Efterklang are interspersed with archive footage from a former inhabitant who moved to the settlement in 1946. 

In voice-over, he talks about life in Pyramiden: the expectations, the work and getting used to the extreme climate, as well as how, during a skiing competition, the people there came face-to-face with a polar bear. Described at the time as “the pearl of the Soviet Union,” the photogenic town was a rewarding subject for photographers and filmmakers alike. And even now, the abandoned buildings with photos still hanging on their peeling walls are a fine visual complement to their surroundings.