What would your bag look like if you had to leave your country right now? Once the conflict in Ukraine intensified, Yuliia, Alla, Svitlana and Maria grabbed their children and never looked back. With truly inspiring courage, they reached and passed the frontier and started a new life. They didn't have a choice. With help from the Red Cross' volunteers and employees, who demonstrated that humanity knows no border, they are integrated into romanian community and now they're helping others who need help. This is a story about courage and humanity: ”Faces of Courage”

The documentary "Do Good" is dedicated to the 100th years of the establishment of the Bulgarian Red Cross Youth. The film follows the history of the organization through documentary sources and personal stories of some of its volunteers and leaders. Their story shows why it is important not to lose faith in the humanity and in those who are willing

The purpose of our film is to answer the question "Does the humanity gene exist?". The film touches on the themes of saving lives, searching for missing people, donating, responding to emergencies and dealing with epidemics. The film also tells about the history of the noble activity of the Russian Red Cross.

The story told by Delphine Lehericey in this film which was presented in the Piazza Grande during the 75th Locarno Film Festival is that of a 75-year-old retiree called Germain who spends his days cosseted in a “dolce far niente”, middle-class lifestyle totally devoid of responsibilities. It’s actually his wife Lise who takes care of everything, whilst also finding the time for charitable and artistic activities. Her most recent feat was taking part in a dance show created by Spanish-Swiss choreographer La Ribot (who plays herself in the film). When Lisa unexpectedly dies, Germain finds himself contending with all the things he’s never had to take care of. But first and foremost, he must keep the promise he made to his wife: whoever outlives the other must bring the other’s project to a conclusion.

Inspired by real events, the story of a young mother of an autistic boy whose persistence and struggle with bureaucracy and human heartlessness have led to significant changes in the Polish education system. https://cineuropa.org/film/435483/ Małgorzata Gorol, picks up on her son’s extraordinary gifts but must also contend with the reality of the little boy’s condition. She is left all alone, revising her personal ambitions and facing up to the inadequacy of healthcare, welfare and education services vis-à-vis autistic children. This is a panorama of powerlessness, anger, joy, contentment and then bitterness and disappointment once again. It’s a celebration of women who are faced with discrimination, exclusion and home confinement. Dedicated, in fact, to “all the mothers who are forced to fight for their children”.

The story of a Ukrainian family living on the border of Russia and Ukraine. Irka refuses to leave her house even as the village gets captured by armed forces. Shortly after that they find themselves at the center of an international air crash catastrophe on July 17, 2014. It is July 2014 in Eastern Ukraine, near the Russian border, and the couple is already antsy about mounting hostility in the region, though most of the aggression is at this point invisible and off-screen. When deflagration shakes the walls of the modest house, they assume that a bomb may have hit the couple’s house. But when the couple emerges from the basement, they find outside their home fragments from the crash of the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down on 17 July 2014. This improbable but all too real development adds to the odd quality of the film, and one of the film’s strangest scenes sees the couple drive two Dutch parents looking for their missing daughter, one of the plane’s 283 dead passengers. The accident is the second ‘mistake’ from the involved military forces — the first was the bombing of the protagonists’ house. Klondike is a matter-of-fact an angry film about war seen from the inside.

Ilie, a village policeman whose professional challenges seem (at least at first) to involve only the regular drunken conflicts at the local tavern and ignoring the questionable, off-screen deeds of the mayor who buys the benevolence (and silence) of the villagers by investing mysteriously-sourced money into the well-being of the community. But then, a man is murdered in the village. As Ilie and his new colleague Vali, who has just graduated from the police academy, have very different opinions on how the investigation should proceed, Men of Deeds sets the trap for a protagonist who will soon make the wrong decision. Or maybe it is right? Aided by Ilie, the film explores a few interesting ideas: how many bad deeds turn us into a bad person? And can we be redeemed by a good decision?

Madeleine, leaves small suburban to join a nursing home, on the other side of Paris. Charles, a taxi driver, comes to pick her and in no hurry to reach, she asks him to go through places of the capital, which have counted in her life.

MARCOS is a feature length based on the life of Marcos Codeço, built on the edge between fiction and fact. Marcos is a young man that suffers with a psycho disorder called dyscalculia, leading him to misunderstand everything that involves numbers. It's almost impossible for him to comprehend the passage of time, the price and the ratio of the things, the number of the addresses. Even his own age escapes from his knowledge.

When a person wants to be the center of attention in a world where technology has torn apart time, emotions and information, then would we call that person crazy or is he just one of us, one of the many vloggers, influencers and stand-up comedians. And again, as in the first series of the Sunflower Ship, the psychiatrist Dr. Cosmos will try to decode the time in which we live. Vasil Goranov aka Peppe George is a director with two names, the first coined by his parents and the second by his friend's child. Vasil studied business and finance and design, and this naturally led him to the field of cinema, as well as his passion for drawing and telling stories. In 2017, he won the Golden Rose Grand Prize with his first film, The Sunflower Ship. Until now, he has only made independent low-budget films, in which he is a director and cinematographer, an editor, and when necessary, an actor.

A world without war is another utopia that we cannot wait any longer In this short film, Simone Massi takes his inspiration from scenes of wars that really happened – from World War II to the refugee camps

In the French Jura mountains, at the end of fictitious Middle Ages, Else is an herbalist and a midwife. With Nicole, her young apprentice, they are disturbed during their daily practice: a stranger riding a horse demands to gather all the women of the village in its small church.

The 15-minute short  is the latest in a series of films made by Iranian director Ali Asgari in which women deal with tough and sometimes humiliating events in their private lives.The 17-year old, sad-eyed, hijab-wearing Fatima (Mayra Pitambersingh) is rushed by her father to the hospital. Fatima holds a secret that could change her fate so she must place her trust in a doctor to make a tough decision between cultural tradition and medical ethics. The tension builds. What will the doctor say to her father?

When Ori picks up his soldier brother for a day at the the beach, he is horrified to see that his brother has become religious. In addition to that aggravation, the car's tire goes flat. As the sun sets, Ori is forced to choose between his "new" brother who is planning to make shabbat in a deserted place, and going to be with his sick mother.

AUGUST 13th is a film inspired by actual events of the recent past. The story follows Victor and Tanya's meeting at the end of the 11th grade school year. The two grow closer in the midst of summer vacation, despite the danger looming all around them.

Fear may come first. After him despair. Time seems to stop... The road after the discovery of the lump or the first examination may not be short, nor very easy. But it is important to know that there is a way. That life goes on. Because breast cancer is being treated - more successfully today than ever before. And a timely meeting with a specialist and making a diagnosis can be decisive for the fate of every patient!

The film follows six people with Down syndrome in Bosnia and Herzegovina who, overcoming numerous obstacles, are among the first in Southeast Europe to become students in a professional acting school, thus breaking down prejudices and barriers about the possibilities and abilities of people with Down syndrome. An amazing film story about the steadfastness of the human spirit and faith in your own abilities will take you on a journey after which you will not be the same.

The story of a doctor, awarded as Doctor of the Year by the Bulgarian Medical Union, who devoted his life to one of the most difficult parts of medicine - replantation. And to his willingness to pass on his knowledge, honesty and dedication. But it turns out that other things are important in today's world.

Kyustendil - a sleepy town in the Bulgarian mountains, has been severely affected by covid. In the tight-knit community, patients meet former classmates in the same hospital room. Banter is often heard in the corridors, but death is not far away. Many patients live in constant fear that they will deteriorate and be sent "up". "Upstairs" is the intensive care unit, where few survive. At the head of the continuous stream of emergencies is Dr. Popov. Tall and good-natured, he has a witty line for some and a Kant quote for others. His jokes don't always work, but in the quiet horror of the hospital, he exudes an abundance of human warmth. Suddenly, light and laughter reverberate through the hospital corridors.

The Democratic Republic of Congo could feed almost 1 in 2 people on Earth. Yet one in six Congolese people suffer from hunger. Yet one in two Congolese suffers from moderate acute malnutrition. Yet agriculture accounts for 70% of the population there. Faced with this paradox, the peasants regroup in agricultural cooperatives. A handful of them share their daily lives with us, that of all those they represent. Even if they don't know each other, live thousands of hundreds of kilometers from each other, participate in different agricultural sectors, their voices resonate in this powerful, sensitive and sincere documentary.

In the observational documentary film No Place for You in Our Town director Nikolay Stefanov takes the audience in the football gang from the roughest city in Bulgaria — Pernik. A once flourishing industrial center that used to provide energy to the whole country, today Pernik is mostly known with the jokes about its citizens’ roughness. Having exclusive access, Nikolay Stefanov’s camera follows the communal and personal crises to show life beyond the tough image and the clichéd jokes. Tsetso, Mimeto, Dado and the whole gang are devoted to their team’s success, carrying the fighting spirit of their ancestors, the miners. The director explores the characters’ lives with openness and genuine human curiosity, showing that there’s never only black and white and that everyone, regardless of their environment, seeks a better life for themselves and their children.

Pirin is a remote village that will be extinct in 20 years. We accompany four indigenous people who deal with it in different ways. Pirin is the last village in Europe where a dragon still exists. Georgi is Pirin's mayor and tries to fight against its extinction - he has the dream to turn the village into a tourist attraction. Maria is widowed and still lives together with her over 40 year old son. They even share a room, but he should find a wife and give birth to children as soon as possible. Iliya is a shepherd and an alcoholic. He can no longer bear the decay of the village and has decided to live in the forest, surrounded by goats and sheep, without electricity and running water. The dragon named Gincho is on everyone's lips and is feared and honoured by the inhabitants of Pirin.

It’s about a tough but very humane profession - a profession that requires heart. It’s about the people who are closest to the patients, when they are scared, when they are in pain, when they need reassurance and a warm word. It’s about empathy, about dreams that have come true, it’s about the satisfaction of doing good - about the nurses and their dedication.

Dementia is a neurological disorder, which, in severe cases, renders an affected person incapable of self-care. In specialised care centres, the efforts for the accommodated are tiring, their treatment - impossible, and the caretakers’ work - futile. Deadlock. What is such a person feeling? Is he fighting or has he already lost the battle?

Priest Julio Lancellotti tells the story of Marino, a transmasculine person who lived in the sixth century, in Lebanon, and who, after his death, was canonized as Santa Marina, considered, by progressive sectors of the Catholic church, the protector of gender identity. With scenes, reflections and interactions of a transmasculine group, the film promotes sensitive contemporary discussions about, for example, respect for the social name, resignifying Santa Marina into São Marino.

This film tells the story of a young 22-years-old doctor, who decided to work in a valley with severe climate conditions, where no other doctor agreed to work.

Little Rawa lives in a Syrian refugee camp on the northern border of Lebanon. With her brothers and sisters, she grew up in the camp like in a huge playground and no longer wants to leave. Through 5 years we follow her destiny marked by the war in Syria.

Adam, Alpha, Aris, Babadjan, Mamadou, Serge, Ibrahim... They come from Cameroun, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Mali, Congo. They've been playing their life on the world craziness' field since they left home. They are part of the more than 200 young people in underage recognition process who sleep in the streets of Paris everyday. They are waiting for their hearing before the children's judge. Last summer, the charity Utopia 56 organised a protest with the guys at Bastille in Paris that lasted 4 months. They were asking for the respect of children rights that should normally be guaranteed by the international children rights convention signed by France. In this documentary, the guys explain their situation and how they feel about it.

In a banal love triangle, everyone strives to maintain balance in their lives. The actual human drama played out in front of a camera crew poses the "fundamental" question of truth and falsehood in art. A film crew is filming on the Black Sea coast. The writer and director of the "film within the film" overflows with the filming of pretentious insipidities. Relations between team members are strained. Everyone witnesses the drama that develops between the production driver - Milko and his wife, Elena, a cashier in the team. The "other woman" is the assistant director Maria, beautiful and frivolous. In the usual love triangle, the three individually unsuccessfully search for balance in their lives. Elena refuses to accept Milko's infidelity, defines what happened as weakness and escape in a non-committed relationship. Milko and Maria hide behind their fake self-defense. Unable to deal with the situation, Elena surrenders and commits suicide. Filming continues. The screenwriter and the director have food for thought with a question - whether they really manage to reflect the real problems of the people in their film…

The documentary "Childhood 2.0" by UNICEF Bul­garia, produced by No Blink!, is dedicated to the new beginning and tells four human stories of Ukrainian families who sought refuge in Bulgaria after the start of the war. What challenges do refugee children face in the new environment? What unusual roles and responsibilities do they have to take on? How successfully do they cope with the adaptation, as well as their parents? These are some of the questions we seek answers to through the eyes of our heroes. Characters: Anastasia Petrenko, Zlata Pet­ren­ko, Lyubov Sorokina, Valentina Braila, Elena Voloshina, Timur Voloshin, Maxim Voloshin, Anton Voloshin, Tetyana Tsuvareva, Tete Shekhin Serdar, Eva Shakhova, Fani Davidova, Georgi Bozhilov, Alexander Alexiev