Film
ANHELL69
In a city surviving on the drug legacy of Pablo Escobar, an existential chasm emerges among the young queer community, filled with dancing raves. But the monster lurking beneath the surface is waiting for the first rays of morning.
Faith gives people strength and helps them feel safe, whatever the object of that faith is. What the word conveys goes far beyond the religious meaning we probably think of most often in this context. In the New Gods category, we reflect on both the new and the old idols that people look up to today.
The prayers of the protagonists of two films – Polish Prayers and The Cathedral – are directed to the Christian God. While in the first of these, Antek begins to reassess his strong Catholic beliefs as the film progresses, in the second Justo is helped by his faith to complete a seemingly unthinkable, almost Sisyphean project.
The next two documentaries tell of how young people lose hope and their illusions. Anhell69 follows a generation of LGBTQ+ people in Medellín, Colombia. All they have is the present, and they drown their feelings of emptiness in drugs and superficial pleasures. In the second film, compulsory military service thwarts the lives of men and women in Israel. This spectacular documentary entitled Innocence uses letters and glimpses into the childhoods of those who died while in the military to provide a picture of a militaristic regime that has no regard for the lives and mental health of its population.
And our new gods? For some they may be medications, as portrayed in the film Happy Pills. Through six stories it illustrates the wide range of reasons why some people try to improve their lives with a myriad of pills. The theme of the film Breaking Social focuses on social systems and human solidarity. It reflects on whether humanity is inherently good and born to cooperate. If so, then why do anomalies constantly appear in the world in the form of riots or individuals who feel that social norms do not apply to them?