Symbiotic Era

Lichens are the Way

43min, 2024, Czech Republic & Slovakia

Ondřej Vavrečka

Selected by 2024 CPH:DOX

Lichens are amazing organisms. A combination of a fungus and algae, two life forms that once upon a time decided to enter into symbiosis with each other. Fungi have difficulty photosynthesising and algae have difficulty incorporating sugar. Therefore, their union is beneficial for both parties. Or in other words: It is better to live together than to live alone. ‘Lichens are the Way’ is a loving and thought-provoking close-up study of radically different life forms, and of what happens when we turn our attention to beings and life forms outside our own scale. Czech Ondřej Vavrečka shot his radically imaginative, organic film in Canada, where lichenologist Trevor and his partner have created a home together in the symbiotic spirit of the object of their studies.

A child dies, a child plays, a woman is born, a woman dies, a bird arrives, a bird flies off

18min, 2020, Philippines

Shireen SENO

Selected by 2021 Taiwan International Documentary Festival

Conducting a series of studies on bird migration inspired by the migration experience of filmmaker's father, the film aims to deal with a sense of mobility in various forms and times.

About the Filmmaker

Total Refusal

The artist, researcher and filmmaker collective and pseudo-marxist media guerrilla Total Refusal appropriates contemporary video games and writes about games and politics. They upcycle the resources of mainstream video games, creating political narrations in the form of videos, interventions, live performances, lectures and workshops. Since its foundation in 2018, their work has been awarded with more than 50 awards and honorary mentions - like the European Film Award or the Best Short Direction Award at the Locarno Film Festival.

The current members of Total Refusal are: Susanna Flock, Adrian Jonas Haim, Jona Kleinlein, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner & Michael Stumpf

Happy New Year, Jim

9min, 2022, Italy

Andrea Gatopoulos

It's New Year's Eve. Jim and Morten are playing videogames all night long, like every day. But Morten tonight is uncomfortable.

Eschaton AD

8min, 2023, Italy

Andrea Gatopoulos

An apocalyptic film is suddenly interrupted by a strange ad. A man in suit and tie appears to deliver a message to the spectators and the director.

The Eggregores’ Theory

15min, 2024, Italy

Andrea Gatopoulos

He does not remember much from that time. Things have faded, like the color of a painting after too much light. The only thing that bothers him is this music. It keeps popping up… He thinks he forget what it meant. All he knows, for sure, is that he cannot get it out of his head.

About the Director

Andrea Gatopoulos

Andrea Gatopoulos is a film director, producer and distributor born in 1994 in Pescara. He studied cinema with Werner Herzog and Radu Jude. Graduated with honors in 2016 in Literature, Music and Entertainment with the thesis "Virtual reality and culture of the image in the civilisation of entertainment". He is the founder of the production company Il Varco and of Gargantua Film Distribution. He is the artistic director of Il Varco - Short Film Festival, four times in the Top 100 of the best festivals on FilmFreeway. His productions have been presented in more than 120 festivals including Cannes Quinzaine, Locarno Film Festival, Venice Critics' Week SIC @ SIC, Camerimage, Rotterdam IFFR, Nastri d'Argento and David di Donatello.

As a director, he shot "Polepole" in 2021, presented at the Oscar Qualifying Energa Camerimage festival and Visioni Italiane, "Happy new Year, Jim" in 2022, presented at Quinzaine des Réaliseateurs in Cannes Film Festival and "Eschaton Ad" in 2023, presented at Locarno Film Festival.