Films 2025
We are pleased to announce the official selection of Cinema Parallels 2025, a showcase that celebrates the diversity and innovation of contemporary cinema. The program features a variety of genres and styles, including fiction, documentary, animation, and hybrid forms, reflecting the richness and complexity of today’s cinematic landscape. We invite all film lovers, industry professionals, and the general public to join us in this celebration of independent and auteur cinema. All screenings will take place outdoors at the PECKA Visitor Center at 8:00 PM.
BULLET IN THE RIFLE Dir. Karmen Obrdalj, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, 2025, 19 min.
How happy are you on a scale of 1 to 10? Two government officials are sent out to measure the happiness of the people of Bhutan, but how are they doing themselves? A bittersweet, existential crowd favourite from the Himalayas.
Up in the Himalayas, sandwiched between China and Northern India, live the happiest people in the world. In Bhutan, 93.6 per cent of the population is happy, if you ask the country’s government. But how do you measure happiness? In the Buddhist kingdom, they send officials out to knock on doors with a questionnaire. How much rice do you have in stock? Do you have many friends? And how is your sleep rhythm? Each question is answered on a scale of 1 to 10. ‘Agent of Happiness’ invites us on a road trip through Bhutan’s remote mountain villages with two friendly officials in Gho robes, travelling to interview a diverse cross-section of the country’s citizens.
Festivals: It has played at over 100 film Festivals around the world including:
Sundance, Grant Jury Price Nominee, International Documentary Association (IDA) Awards Nominee, CPH:DOX, Sheffield, Hot Docs Canada, IDFA Amsterdam, San Francisco Film Festival, Margaret Mead Film Festival, Millenium Docs Against Gravity Festival, Sydney International Film Festival, Zurich International Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival. Docs Barcelona, Durban International Film Festival, Miami Film Festival among others
FLOPHOUSE AMERICA. Dir. Monica Strømdahl / Norway, Netherlands & United States / 2025 / 80 min
Synopsis: Mikal (12) is born and raised in the rundown hotel room he shares with his parents, both struggling with alcohol addiction. Mikal’s biggest wish is for his mum and dad to stop drinking. But what does it take for someone to truly change their ways? A 12-year-old boy defies his parents' alcohol abuse and finds glimmers of hope in an unexpected tragedy, in a heartbreaking film from the desperate flip side of America.
Festivals: CPH:DOX (2025) World Premiere, Special Mention; Movies That Matter (2025); Visions du Réel (2025); Docville (2025).
AT THE DOOR OF THE HORSE WHO WILL COME KNOCKING. Dir. Maja Kovaković / Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina / 2004 / 84 min.
Synopsis: In the heart of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Emin, in his twilight years, toils alongside his faithful horse. Through bitter cold and harsh conditions, he seeks solace and warmth in nature’s embrace and finds fleeting comfort in sharing his burdens with his only true confidant. A story about man and grief as a universal human experience that can be both isolating and unifying.
Festivals: Sheffield Doc Fest 2024, Grand Jury Award, Zagreb Docs Official Selection, 2024, DOK.Fest Munchen Official Selection, 2024, Malkedox Official Selection, 2024, Sarajevo International Film Festival, 2024.
HERCULES Dir. Marko Dukić, Bosnia and Herzegovina / Serbia / Croatia, 2024, 26 min.
Synopsis: In the heart of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Emin, in his twilight years, toils alongside his faithful horse. Through bitter cold and harsh conditions, he seeks solace and warmth in nature’s embrace and finds fleeting comfort in sharing his burdens with his only true confidant. A story about man and grief as a universal human experience that can be both isolating and unifying.
Festivals: Sheffield Doc Fest 2024, Grand Jury Award, Zagreb Docs Official Selection, 2024, DOK.Fest Munchen Official Selection, 2024, Malkedox Official Selection, 2024, Sarajevo International Film Festival, 2024.
LITTLE BALLS OF MERCURY Dir. Andrea Marquez, Argentina / 2025, 8,02 min
Through the recounting of a dream—an image from the past that insists on reappearing—the film dissects and displays the very materials it’s made of: still photography, moving image, narration, as if these cinematic elements were minerals and gems in a museum showcase. In doing so, it transforms them into an evocative exploration of what is preserved and what is lost. An archive of broken and silent images? A mausoleum of time?
By weaving together fragments of memory and cinematic form, the film not only examines the nature of preservation but also invites reflection on cinema itself. What became of its promises, its potentials, or, to borrow from Gilles Deleuze and Thom Andersen, the thoughts we once had?
Festivals: Obskura Festival Rennes, France; Cinemancia Festival Metropolitano de Cine, MEdellin Colombia; WNDX Festival of Moving Image | WNDX, Canada ; Bideodromo Bilbao 2025, Bilbao).
the talking camera that talks for those who it makes other
Dir. Vida Zamora, Mexico / United States, 2025, 3,37 min
Through color bias, audiovisual feedback, and critical dislocations, “the talking camera that talks for those who it makes other” reveals the tensions inherent to acts of image-making when visuality precedes the capturing of the image itself.
Festivals: Badnām Film Festival, India ; DIFFUSION—re:assemblage, Toronto)
THE FRAME Dir. Vasilis Nikas, Greece / 2025, 10:22 min.
An old man visits the dilapidated house where his mother, an Asia Minor refugee, grew up. The woman who had saved her from persecution after the end of the Greek-Turkish war of 1919-22, had brought her to Greece and raised her as her own child. The old man, feeling the need to symbolically bring life back to the space, hangs a photograph of his mother by a nail on one of the walls - it is the only picture he had of her with her parents. The film preserves the memory of the struggle of the Asia Minor refugees in Greece, which had to rebuild their lives from scratch.
AFTER PARTY, Bosnia-Herzegovina / 2025, 29:22 min.
We follow Stevo Grabovac, a retail clerk, during the last ten days before the announcement of the winner of the prestigious literary award for which he was nominated for the second time in his life.
ŽIVA, Dir. Tamara Maksimović, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2024, 7 min
Živa is a poetic exploration of inner struggle and liberation. Trapped by the oppressive green threads, Živa’s body and spirit begin to dissolve. From the red world, her unconscious, she draws strength and reclaims her freedom, breaking the bonds that hold her. Through movement, self-discovery, and the blending of green and red, she creates a radiant new harmony. A story of resilience, transformation, and the beauty of setting oneself free.
MACULA Dir. Mariana X. Rivera / Mexico, 25:00 min
Živa is a poetic exploration of inner struggle and liberation. Trapped by the oppressive green threads, Živa’s body and spirit begin to dissolve. From the red world, her unconscious, she draws strength and reclaims her freedom, breaking the bonds that hold her. Through movement, self-discovery, and the blending of green and red, she creates a radiant new harmony. A story of resilience, transformation, and the beauty of setting oneself free.
LAMENT. Dir. Jeffrey Langille, Canada / 2025, 4,19 min.
This film offers a lament for a troubled world by means of a cardboard model of the Earth as seen from space. (16 mm film, including plant-based, hand-processing, transferred to 4K video, colour and black-and-white, sound, 2025.)
Seventeen-year-old Nina dreams of escaping her dull village for a summer job where she could experience her first summer love and drunkenness, but her mother disapproves. After a tragic car accident takes her mother’s life, Nina struggles with grief by pushing herself into risky situations.
Nineteen-year-old Joe spends the summer in the countryside with his friends, until a call takes him to his uncle's house, where he finds his father hanged in the barn. Driven by grief, he decides to take revenge — an act with consequences his younger brother, Strahinja, will only feel much later.
JOE, Dir. Vuk Radjen, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, 2025, 27.70 min.