20. UNDER|DOX 09-15 OKT 2025

Pirker skillfully weaves together the 100th anniversary of 16mm film, portable typewriters, and cameras with the equally long history of women in film, comedy, (dance) performance and activism. She combines the historical and analogue with contemporary and digital film footage.

Sasha Pirker
AT 2025 | German Premiere
17 min | English

The photographs of Sergei Eisenstein’s filming during the CICI 1929 in a reconstruction. Albera completes the film project begun together with Godard using still images from that time.

On the making of the film – by François Albera

Jean-Luc Godard, François Albera
FR 1979 – 2015 / 2025 | World Premiere
8 min | French

A damaged film shot in 1982 in a Latin American country documents the violence that took place on 9 May that year. Beneath its apparent banality, the film raises suspicions of manipulation of the truth. – FID Marseille

Camilo Restrepo, Jorge Caballero
MX, ES 2025 | German Premiere
11 min | Spanish

Parte I: El equilibrista (The Tightrope Walker)

A complex, disturbing and ultimately devastating trilogy of films, „El Tríptico de Mondongo” is an experimental portrait of failure and self-destruction, as well as the painful chronicle of a friendship’s demise. Mariano Llinás was commissioned to create a documentary about Mondongo, an Argentine art collective known for their portraits of cultural icons and popular myths produced using plasticine and other unconventional materials – a task that proved overwhelming.

”El equilibrista” is perhaps the most traditional of the three films, an observational documentary that follows the creation of El Baptisterio de Colores, a dodecahedron inspired by the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence. As we witness the painstakingly intricate construction process, combined with an interview where the artists share their story, we sense the filmmaker’s frustration with the project’s direction. To enhance his portrayal of the process, Llinás begins experimenting: he incorporates Bernard Herrmann’s music to infuse everything with dramatic intensity, adds humorous and fictional elements, harshly criticises the artists’ work and slowly deconstructs the traditional idea of a portrait – much like Mondongo does in its own work. – Viennale

Mariano Llinás
AR 2024 | German Premiere
73 min | Spanish

Parte II: Retrato de Mondongo (Portrait of Mondongo)

As ”Retrato de Mondongo” begins, you can see Mariano Llinás exploring new ideas. “What if I try my own interpretation of the Baptisterio de Colores on film and see what comes of it?” he proposes, introducing a sort of competition to match the Mondongo artwork with one of his own. The idea sounds enticing, but something feels off. Llinás starts “rowing against the storm”: writing poems, showing old videos recounting his friendship with the Mondongo artists (Juliana Laffitte and Manuel Mendanha) and engaging in arguments with a Letterboxd critic who accuses him of being a “self-destructive egomaniac”. In one stunning sequence, chaos erupts: a verbal and physical fight breaks out between everyone involved, the kind one would expect in a Howard Hawks movie but not in a documentary. This clash of egos leads to a debate about narcissism in film and a painful confrontation with creative and personal turmoil. Ultimately, the film becomes an exploration of the impossibility for some filmmakers to create art that isn’t at its core about themselves. What is a portrait if not a self-portrait, an investigation into the painter’s gaze? – Viennale

Mariano Llinás
AR 2024 | German Premiere
122 min | Spanish

Parte III: Kunst der Farbe

The conflict escalates and reaches its conclusion: Mariano Llinás and the Mondongo group are no longer collaborating. The filmmaker embarks on the creation of his cinematic version of ”Kunst der Farbe”, the Johannes Itten book that inspired Mondongo’s “Baptisterio de Colores“. This becomes an exploration of colour through film and music – a playful exercise that mixes Godardian experimentation, Hitchcockian drama, and the darkly whimsical impulses of Fritz Lang’s films. In his own rhizomatic way – and with the help of colourist and cinematographer Inés Duacastella, along with a dissonant score composed by Gabriel Chowjnik performed live by an ensemble – Llinás attempts to resolve the argument woven throughout the triptych. But is this truly a “synthesis” or merely an implosion? A masterclass in film theory or a cry for help? “You’ll regret going up against us,” the actress playing Laffitte warns Llinás when he challenges her to a duel of creativity and genius. “You’ll make a fool of yourself, a buffoon,” she adds, before accepting. We then witness two dogs racing against each other down a country road. The crowd applauds. The race begins and ends at the very same time. – Viennale

Mariano Llinás
AR 2024 | German Premiere
90 min | Spanish

Archie Peach is a lost character who has left everything behind; yet this is not a sad story – in fact, it is not a story at all. Rather, it is a fragmentary thought experiment about rejection, separation, transgression and the abandonment of supposedly universal ideas. The resulting void could be filled, but with what remains vague. This is about imagination and dream; the void, on the one hand dreamlike, invitingly open, free to fill, becomes the psychedelic, unclear world of pirates.

LUZI
DE 2025 | World Premiere
69 min | English

A young poet drops his girlfriend off at her parents´ house and is amazed by its size. He bumps into her father, meets her mother and sister, and they all end up spending a long day together; fueled by conversation, food and libations.

Hong Sang-soo
KR 2025
108 min | Korean

An East German waitress with a broken heart and an Iranian YouTuber with a broken arm dream of another life and end up on a ghost hunt in the mountains.

A well-crafted piece of cultural commentary that dares to suggest a more perfect world in which we live in harmony, get the answers we seek to even the most impossible of questions, and generally find meaning in every moment. Perhaps saccharine in theory, but dynamic, unique and effortlessly entertaining, Radlmaier’s work is some of the most compelling of the year, a film that demands patience and attention, but where the reward is worth absolutely every minute
of our time. – International Cinephile Society

Julian Radlmaier
DE 2025
90 min | German

The most recent film from veteran Želimir Žilnik reflects on his own artistic journey by following the story of a man who moves back to his country to reclaim the home that had previously been owned by the government for decades, and now finally can be released to the remaining heirs. It takes the protagonist on a voyage into both the past and present, allowing him to cross paths with a range of characters, each one adding something new and compelling to his journey back home. A film that takes its time and invites us to take a memorable trip with a few fascinating characters, ”Eighty Plus” is a solid, well-made work from a master who has rarely been more honest about many of the inevitabilities that we all have to face at one point or another. – International Cinephile Society

Želimir Žilnik
RS / SI 2025 | Fipresci Award, GoEast
118 min | Serbian, German

We first see a piece of scenery being built, then a still image of the finished object – as always, the structure comes before the image. On the front, hands busy with their meticulous task are working to music; on the reverse, a historical speech accompanies the presentation of the scale model. Everything is organised chronologically, evoking not only the apocryphal autobiographical work the author has engaged in, but also the political questions that have always galvanised him. As all these pieces of scenery reveal the chambers and antechambers that produce them. By making the production conditions visible, Benning plays on the idea of war as both commerce and hobby. In the two models that encompass this series, we are hardly surprised to recognise another little boy, dumped shortly after the filmmaker’s birth. – Cinéma du Réel

James Benning
USA 2025 | Grand Prix, Cinéma du Réel
74 min | English

Along the Bosnian-Croatian border near Velika Kladuša, the paths of mine disposal experts, migrating families and locals cross. Director Nicole Vögele hones in on these encounters, laying bare the wounds of the war of the 1990s and those of the refugees of today. A deeply telluric film, a kaleidoscope of landscapes haunted by the fury of past and present. – Visions du Réel, Nyon

Nicole Vögele
CH 2024 | DocAlliance Award
138 min | Bosnian, Persian, Kurdish