Let’s get personal: with the fiftien films in the two competitions at this year’s Cinedays.

Originally planned for the summer, postponed for various reasons, and now finally taking place. A rollercoaster ride.

This is also what happens to our heroes in cinema: something always gets in the way. Sometimes it’s a death, sometimes a close relative unexpectedly returns to your life, sometimes you have to go back somewhere you don’t want to go and where you’ve never truly felt at home. Or a secret is revealed – which is a good thing – but someone is troubled by it.

There is a desire for self-determination, but it has its limits. Sometimes arbitrarily imposed, sometimes due to “circumstances” that are impossible to understand, even with the best will in the world, but sometimes also because one is taking responsibility for others here and now. In the background, those “circumstances” constantly express their doubts while pretending they are not there at all – in one’s own mind, in the minds of others, above, below, next door.

Sometimes one wants to break free from them, but sometimes one doesn’t, because one is searching for the right framework for oneself – at eightien and at eighty.

In the end, euphoria and disappointment are often close together, as are laconicism and cynicism,  and then, at that point at the latest, you realise that you should talk to each other again. Maybe at the cinema. First about the film, and then about the many things it touches upon, the questions it raises.

Between grief and melancholy, feeling fed up and longing, lightness and anger, acid test and newfound courage. Fifteen stories to experience together.