Channels of Communication


(BALi, KulturBahnhof Kassel)

In the mirror of human experiences, inner worlds, and social dynamics. Through it, we recognize everyday moments, digital phenomena, mental states, and interpersonal relationships. We explore the subtle, often invisible channels of communication that shape our perception, our behavior, and our identity. A multi-layered look at the subtle and symbolically coded messengers that connect our inner world with social reality – a reflection on the control mechanisms of our lives.

Ngày Khác (Another Day)

On another day, in a neighborhood at risk of collapse, a child quietly observed the world of faceless adults.

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  • Duration: 13 Min.
  • Premiere: World Premiere
  • Nominated: Goldener Hercules
    • Director: Thanh-Giang Nguyen

    Chuzak

    A visual story about the desperate search for relieving peace. Through fighting crows - as a metaphor for masochistic self-destruction, blindness to the Will of Fate - to conquering and accepting alienating changes — both physical and spiritual - that sometimes lead to great healing, rebirth, metamorphosis from chrysalis to Imago.

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    • Duration: 2 Min.
  • Premiere: World Premiere
    • Director: Daria Kondratenko

    sick home

    How do we feel about the place where we grew up as it undergoes radical urbanization?… >>>

    • Duration: 4 Min.
  • Nominated: Goldener Hercules
    • Director: Malik Aghazy Rahaji

    _in order

    The film begins on the desktop. A text is read via Google Translate and opens a digital labyrinth. Project folders lead to subfolders, images overlap, scenes appear and disappear again. Order is sought, but the system that is supposed to provide stability begins to topple. Between self-dramatisation, archive work and loss of control, a film essay emerges that is directed against imposed order and inner overload, thus questioning the system in which it was produced.

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    • Duration: 3 Min.
  • Premiere: World Premiere
    • Director: zion vic junge

    Digital Artifacts

    Between memory and the digital realm, we create ghosts: of people around us and of ourselves, in long-forgotten game worlds that now lie dormant on hard drives. These ghosts haunt worlds that are slowly decaying and fading away. Human connections crumble if they are not nurtured—just like our memories and our data. The internet has claimed that it never forgets, but that's not true: it forgets very quickly. Our digital world is transient, even if we hardly want to admit it.

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    • Duration: 6 Min.
  • Premiere: World Premiere
  • Nominated: Goldener Hercules
    • Director: Leander Laszlo Kudjer

    1g Quetiapine

    CN: Depression In a mosaic of games, films, and media, the protagonist's perspective, a fragmented state of mind, merges, blurring the boundaries between reality and dreams. 1g of quetiapine, both remedy and oblivion, dampens the heart and shatters identity. The film collage reflects on the medicalization of mental suffering and the loneliness that lies in synthetic calm. Through chaotic layers of media, it shows how the self is not healed, but rather rendered illegible and suspended in a borderland between sedation and despair.

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    • Duration: 6 Min.
  • Premiere: World Premiere
    • Director: Siyan Liu

    김아무개씨이야기 (Kim's Story)

    It depicts the transformation of Kim, an ordinary individual with the most common surname in Korea, into a dish scrubber – a process of being “dish scrubber-ized”.

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    • Duration: 5 Min.
  • Premiere: World Premiere
  • Nominated: Goldener Hercules
    • Director: Hansol Kim

    Raum ohne Zeit

    RAUM OHNE ZEIT begleitet die Künstlerin Sarah Schrof in ihrem Atelier. Fragmentarische Klangbilder bewegen sich mit ihr durch den Raum. Beobachtend und tastend folgen sie ephemeren Materialien und Prozessen. Pflanzen werden zu Pigment, Farben nehmen Form an. Messbare Zeit wird zu subjektivem Empfinden.… >>>

    • Duration: 3 Min.
  • Premiere: World Premiere
    • Director: Alessandra Coronato

    Proxys

    In her essayistic documentary film, Katrin Esser stages the story of her mother, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease. The course of the illness is told from two perspectives: that of the Polish caregiver Violetta and that of the daughter. They take turns recounting their experiences, the limits of care, excessive demands, working conditions, exploitation within the system, and death. The only location is the apartment, which shifts between living space, museum, and crime scene. Esser's staging reveals layers of memory and shows that remembering and forgetting are very individual.

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    • Duration: 24 Min.
  • Premiere: World Premiere
  • Nominated: Goldener Hercules
    • Director: Katrin Esser