Four JUNGE AKADEMIE fellows from the Film and Media Arts Section present films from their repertoire and discuss topics and processes related to their work in various social, political and artistic contexts.

With Lisa Gertsch, Nida Mehboob, Marusya Syroechkovskaya, Melisa Liebenthal, and Dennis Vetter (moderation)

Melisa Liebenthal, The Face of the Jellyfish, 2022, 75 min — Melisa Liebenthal, *The Face of the Jellyfish*, 2022, 75 min
© Melisa Liebenthal

With Lisa Gertsch, Nida Mehboob, Marusya Syroechkovskaya and Melisa Liebenthal

The four films in this programme deal with personal and political experiences: friendship and desire, grief and transformation, the body as a repository of history, and landscapes as projections of violence and hope. In very different cinematic forms – from documentary diaries to essayistic and poetic narratives to experimental visual works – they open up intimate approaches to existential questions of our present.

What these works have in common is a persistent focus on fragility: on relationships under pressure, on the self undergoing change, on memories that refuse to rest. The films reject simple answers, instead relying on intimacy, time and trust in the power of the cinematic image.

Film Programme

5 pm

Lisa Gertsch – Electric Fields

Feature film, CH 2024, 80 min, original version with English subtitles

In six poetic and playful episodes, Lisa Gertsch unfolds a universe in which everyday life and the inexplicable flow into one another. With haunting black-and-white images, the film creates spaces in which lovers transcend time, a man sleeps through a season, and a deceased person comes back to life through a radio – scenes in which normality is disrupted and new paths of thinking open up. In a tragicomic, wistful atmosphere, Electric Fields deals with love, loneliness and the instability of human existence in a visual language that is as moving as it is thought-provoking.

Direction, Screenplay, Editing: Lisa Gertsch
Production: Lisa Gertsch, Sabotage Filmkollektiv GmbH, ZHdK
Cinematography: Simon Bitterli
Sound Design: Daniel Eaton, Martin Scheuter
Cast: Julia Jentsch, Michael Neuenschwander, Sophie Hutter, Ole Eisfeld, and others

Nida Mehboob – A Night That Took Everything

Documentary film, PK, FI 2025, 20 min, original version with English subtitles

Based on a single night, Nida Mehboob's film unfolds a haunting portrait of loss, shock and the rifts that a sudden experience leaves in the lives of those affected. The young protagonist struggles with the tragic death of her father, who was wrongfully convicted under Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws. As she deals with grief and injustice, she reflects on the harsh realities of a society that punishes the innocent. Mehboob works with fragments, images from memory, quiet moments and spaces in between to visualise an experience that defies any linear narrative. A Night That Took Everything approaches vulnerability, grief and the fragility of human relationships in a poetic, cinematically sensitive language.

Direction: Nida Mehboob
Production: Kari Ahotupa
Cinematography: León Torres
Editing: Jette Keedus
Sound: François Yazbek
Production: ELO Film School Finland

7 pm

Marusya Syroechkovskaya – How To Save a Dead Friend

Documentary film, DE, FR, NO, SE 2022, 103 min, original version with English subtitles

Sixteen-year-old Marusya lives in Moscow and is convinced that she will not live to see the end of 2005. Many of her friends are already dead – suicide seems to be the last act of resistance among young people in Putin's Russia. Over several years, director Marusya Syroechkovskaya follows herself and her circle of friends with her camera through everyday life, friendships and intimate encounters. The result is a radically personal documentary that is at once a diary, a declaration of love and a testimony to a generation searching for stability, closeness and meaning.

Direction, Screenplay: Marusya Syroechkovskaya
Production: Ksenia Gapchenko, Mario Adamson
Camera: Marusya Syroechkovskaya, Kimi Morev
Editing: Qutaiba Barhamji
Music: Felix Mikensky
Protagonists: Marusya Syroechkovskaya, Kimi Morev

9 pm

Melisa Liebenthal – El rostro de la medusa (The Face of the Jellyfish)

Feature film, AR 2022, 76 min, original version with English subtitles

With a precise eye for bodies, gazes and power relations, Melisa Liebenthal examines the construction of femininity and desire. One morning, Marina wakes up and does not recognise herself. When she encounters her mother on the street, her mother perceives her as a stranger. The film accompanies Marina's search for identity: who is she – defined by her parents' genes, her identity card, family photos, biometric data or the love of the people around her, including her Colombian boyfriend? Between analysis and intimacy, El rostro de la medusa develops a subtle, visually powerful language that negotiates questions of self-perception, belonging and desire.

Direction: Melisa Liebenthal
Screenplay: Agustín Godoy, Melisa Liebenthal
Production: Agustín Gagliardi, Eugenia Campos Guevara
Cinematography: Inés Duacastella
Editing: Florencia Gómez García
Cast: Rocío Stellato, Vladimir Durán, Camila Toker, and others

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