Being Seen Seeing

Lebanon today. The traces of the civil war are all too tangible as government corruption becomes unbearable. In a country where conflict and peace are caught in an endless cycle, musicians from different backgrounds pool their talents to create an underground music scene. Each evokes his or her representation of Lebanon: its shifting geographical, political, historical and social borders, its painful passage through conflict and instability. A touching portrait of a young generation trying to build an oasis in a hostile environment where the forces of destruction continue to wreak havoc.

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

A blend of drama and documentary, this film follows several people caught up in the turmoil of the modern world. The drama centres on a woman who has burned out and who holds up her own despair – and her attempts to rebuild her life – as a mirror to the rest of us. With a blend of gravity and humour, Sylvie Groulx's film shows the absurdity of a society dedicated to the cult of speed at all costs.

Sylvia Kristel – Paris is a portrait of Sylvia Kristel , best known for her role in the 1970’s erotic cult classic Emmanuelle, as well as a film about the impossibility of memory in relation to biography. Between November 2000 and June 2002 Manon de Boer recorded the stories and memories of Kristel. At each recording session she asked her to speak about a city where Kristel has lived: Paris, Los Angeles, Brussels or Amsterdam; over the two years she spoke on several occasions about the same city. At first glance the collection of stories appears to make up a sort of biography, but over time it shows the impossibility of biography: the impossibility of ‘plotting’ somebody’s life as a coherent narrative.

A documentary in which Marcel Hanoun examines, delimits, paces up and down and criss-crosses the town of Langres, offering the houses, walls and everything which makes up the identity of a place, an opportunity to express themselves through the time of seasons but through that of History.

This travelogue emphasizes Copenhagen's harmonious residents and tone. We see well-known landmarks and get a quick history of some of them.

Documentary film that takes a visual and anthropological journey through man's spirit across the thin line dividing excessive faith in religious believes and the passion with which he devotes himself to worldly pleasures in a city that coexists in harmony with its double standards. Religion, faith, politics, violence and death are intimately bound in this social portrait.

The library is a stronghold of humanism, but today libraries are more than places for borrowing books. At the Royal Library in the heart of Copenhagen, researchers and intermediaries work side by side with the library's visitors who come to read and study, but also to participate in talks, concerts, lectures and exhibitions that fill the halls all year round. This documentary looks behind the scenes in a year where Marina Abramovic and Olafur Eliasson contribute to the program, and where colonial history and climate change take center stage.

A boy from Vila do Conde records a love letter on a cassette. His voice blends with music, archive images and stories from the past, some lived and others heard.

A City Runs Through the Festival is an anatomy of the Festival through the eyes of its own audience.