Balomania is a real-life action film in the form of a documentary about Brazil's tradition of hand-crafted hot air balloons. This dangerous pastime is illegal in Brazil, but hasn’t stopped many from continuing to create these fantastic works of art in secret. Danish filmmaker Sissel Morell Dargis gains access to these underground community of “baloeiros” – balloon builders – who work deep within the favelas of Brazil. Although continually running from authorities and bounty hunters, they are able to create hot air balloon masterpieces -- sometimes the size of entire apartment blocks! The film is part of the Community Boundaries category.

In the Ecosystems category, the documentary Life and Other Problems opens with the heart wrenching story of a two-year-old male giraffe from the Copenhagen zoo who was deemed genetically unfit to breed and subsequently euthanised. The public outcry following his death was enormous. This event became the inspiration for Max Kestner’s work exploring the philosophy, biology and evolution behind some of the most provocative questions about the meaning of life and death, the idea of consciousness and our place in the universe.

Another film featured in the Ecosystems category is The Battle for Laikipia. In this documentary, the scarcity of natural resources awakens a long-dormant conflict in Kenya between the indigenous people and the descendants of colonists. Previously, these two communities coexisted peacefully, but the effects of climate change have reawakened deep wounds as the two groups fight for their home. This film serves as a warning for the possibility of very real conflict that has yet to come.

Politics and nature also clash in the documentary The Soul of the Bossales from the Searching for Freedom section. The local population in Haiti is still dealing with the aftermath of the devastating earthquake, which has further complicated an already difficult reality. Through the stories of four characters - an activist, a priest, a filmmaker and a worker - viewers experience different perspectives of modern-day life in Haiti. Similarly, Leonard Cohen’s documentary, Flavours of Iraq also gives viewers insight into a nation that is often misrepresented in Western media. When Iraqi-French journalist Feurat Alani needs to travel back to his parent’s home country to attend his father's funeral, he embarks on a colourful journey full of his own memories and reflects on his dad’s journey from Iraq to France. The documentary is set against the background of the critical events that occurred in Iraq between the years 1989 and 2017.

Julie Keeps Quiet is a fiction film in the Female Gaze category that deals with the topics of knowing when to speak up and when to keep quiet. The story follows Julie, the star player at an elite tennis academy, whose long-term coach falls under investigation and is suddenly suspended over the suicide of one of his protégées. The team is encouraged to talk to the authorities about past interactions with their coach, but Julie is extremely reluctant to disclose the true nature of what was an inappropriate teacher/student relationship. The film’s muted colours, slow pace and the lack of dialogue very cleverly expresses how different types of trauma can be internalised.