Filmed over a decade, Djina Was Here is a portrait of one woman's search to be seen and loved. Through transition, chronic pain, family, and institutional struggle, the film follows her lifelong process of becoming, leading to a farewell she carefully shapes on her own terms.

Djina Was Here is a decade-long portrait of one woman’s search to be seen and loved. Born in Curaçao, Djina spent years in the Netherlands as a pastor, hiding her true self. At fifty-one, she begins her gender transition, only to face chronic pain after a failed surgery. The film traces her path through love, family, and medical struggle. It stays close to the tensions that shape her experience without forcing them into simple conclusions. A careful, intimate, complex story on self-determination, resilience and vulnerability. 

During India’s farmer’s protest, a documentary filmmaker follows the farmers from the frontlines back to her own ancestral village in this personal story about farming, rebellion and what it means to participate in a democracy.

Set in the aftermath of the world’s largest farmers’ protest in India, Jamhuriyat explores what democracy looks like for those long excluded from political power. Moving between protest sites and moments of everyday life, the film follows a community whose participation in the movement sparks a deep political awakening. Beyond mass rallies and slogans, it is in the intimacy of shared fire pits; through stories, songs, and conversation, that a collective voice emerges from the ground up. After a historic victory, the farmers return home with new questions about what democracy means beyond protest. As local elections approach, they confront how lasting change is carried into daily life. Weaving personal reflection with collective experience, Jamhuriyat sees democracy as a lived practice; one that can be forged from below, and reshaped by those long kept at its margins.

At a remote research station in the Utah desert, a group of international researchers simulate life on Mars. As they rehearse humanity’s future beyond Earth, the dream of leaving the planet exposes our uneasy relationship with the one we already inhabit.

A group of astronauts moves across a red desert landscape under the blinding sun. They appear to be exploring an unknown planet. As night falls, they retreat into a compact white habitat. Inside, they remove their suits and enter daily life: cooking, tending plants, writing reports, monitoring systems. Days unfold between the vast openness of the terrain and the compressed interior of the base, marked by repetition, fatigue,and quiet tension. Slowly, the illusion fractures. What first appeared to be Mars reveals itself as a simulation in the Utah desert. Earth is not distant: it is right beneath our feet. 

Embedded within the mission, the artist and filmmaker Elisa Strinna engages the group through subtle interventions that invite reflection, doubt, and dialogue. Through conversations, sensory exercises, and small disruptions of routine, the crew is prompted to question not only their roles as researchers, but also their desires, fears, and the narratives that shape their presence there

Supported by:
Mondriaan Fonds, CBK Rotterdam

Based on the testimony of Isabel, who fled Spain as a child in 1936 and eventually settled in Mexico, TANGO RETIRADA follows her journey across Spain, France, and Mexico. Combining contemporary landscapes, oral histories, music, and an original experimental cinematography, the film explores the relationship between perception, memory, and history, asking how childhood experiences of war continue to resonate across generations.

The project is a collaboration with
Dr Javier Sebastian Eskauriatza at the University of Nottingham (UK)