AFO 61 official selection is ready!

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

We looked for films that convey both the exact data and the authentic feelings of sadness and joy. These films do not portray science only as a neutral tool, but also as a way of living in this world. Science is embodied in the competition films – by researchers, landscapes, community memories, cells dying under a microscope.

The common ground sought by this year’s selection does not only belong to humans; it also belongs to the bears wandering the melting Canadian landscape, to the mourning wildlife and the giant glaciers which silently bid us farewell. It belongs to the shared world that is captured on film with attention of a diary entry.

The selection is based on four mutually unobstructive criteria: scientific relevance, originality, product quality and artistic execution. The resulting tension determines the atmosphere of the International Competition as a whole. A film that excels in accuracy but lacks in form cannot compete, and the same goes for a visually captivating film void of social feeling.

This year’s competition seeks the common ground between the microscope and the Super 8 camera, between entropy and loss of loved ones, between scientific facts and lived experience of human and more-than-human kind. Because to see the world through the eyes of people who hold it so dear changes how we see it – even long after the credits roll.

Ondřej Kazík, Programmer and International Competition Coordinator

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION SELECTION:

• Afterlives (Afterlives, dir. Kevin B. Lee, Germany, Belgium, France, 2025)
• André Is an Idiot (André Is an Idiot, dir. Tony Benna, USA, 2025)
• Expedition to the South Pole – Is Antarctica Melting? (Expedition zum Südpol – Schmilzt das ewige Eis?, dir. Tatjana Mischke, Ines Reinisch, Germany, 2025)
• Humboldt USA (Humboldt USA, dir. G. Anthony Svatek, USA, 2026)
• Ideas of Order (Ideas of Order, dir. Erin Espelie, USA, 2026)
• Just Our Heart (Just Our Heart, dir. Maartje Nevejan, Netherlands, 2026)
• Life in Fluo (La Vie en fluo, dir. Rachel Guénon, Samuel Guiton, France, 2025)
• Looking for Simone (Le Deuxième Sexe: Sur les traces de Simone de Beauvoir, dir. Nathalie Masduraud, Valérie Urréa, France, 2024)
• Menopause Mystery (Mysteriet om Menopausen, dir. Louise Unmack Kjeldsen, Denmark, Norway, Germany 2026)
• Nuisance Bear (Nuisance Bear, dir. Gabriela Osio Vanden, Jack Weisman, USA, 2026)
• Out of Plain Sight (Out of Plain Sight, dir. Daniel Straub, Rosanna Xia, USA, 2024)
• Phenomena (Phenomena, dir. Josef Gatti, Australia, 2026)
• Shells: Shaped by Nature (Shells: Shaped by Nature, dir. Henk Ekermans, Austria, 2025)
• Snow Leopard Sisters (Snow Leopard Sisters, dir. Ben Ayers, Sonam Choekyi Lama, Andrew Lynch, United Kingdom, 2025)
• Super Nature (Super Nature, dir. Ed Sayers, United Kingdom, 2025)
• The Documentary Journey of Madame Anita Conti (Voyage de documentation de Madame Anita Conti, dir. Louise Hémon, France, 2024)
• Time and Water (Time and Water, dir. Sara Dosa, USA, Iceland, 2026)
• Underland (Underland, dir. Rob Petit, USA, United Kingdom, 2025)
• When Animals Grieve (Meme Les Animaux Pleurent, dir. Jacques Mitsch, France, 2025)
• Yrupe (Yrupẽ, dir. Candela Sotos, Spain, 2025)

CZECH & SLOVAK COMPETITION

The Czech & Slovak Competition section is a meeting point for diverse creative approaches, formats and areas of science documentary film. Through archaeology, sociology or personal portraits, the authors travel into the past to reach a new understanding of the present. They scrutinise law, explore the complex relationship between the man and nature and uncover the possibilities posed by AI, which fundamentally transforms our day-to-day life and retroactively reprogrammes our minds. We are convinced that this year’s competition selection includes a plethora of topics which through time explore and explain the world as we know it today.

Karolina Matějková, Programmer and Czech & Slovak Competition Coordinator

CZECH & SLOVAK COMPETITION SELECTION:

• 1+1+1 (1+1+1, dir. Ondřej Vavrečka, Czechia, Slovakia, 2025)
• AMOOSED: a moose odyssey (AMOOSED: losí odysea, dir. Hana Nováková, Czechia, Slovakia, 2025)
• Death of Death (Smrti smrt, dir. Dāvis Sīmanis, Czechia, Latvia, 2025)
• Flying into the Landscapes of the Past (Lety do krajin minulosti, dir. Josef Císařovský, Czechia, 2025)
• Into the Carpathian Wild: Summer (Život v Karpatoch: Leto, dir. Erik Baláž, Slovakia, 2025)
• Resilience (Při zemi, dir. Tomáš Elšík, Czechia, 2025)
• Smoke (Smoke, dir. Robin Kvapil, Czechia, 2025)
• Stone Age Voyagers (Mořeplavci pravěku, dir. Tomáš Kratochvíl, Czechia, 2025)
• The Cost of Convenience (Cena za snadnost, dir. Vojtěch Klinger, Czechia, 2026)
• Troublemaking Women (Potížistky, dir. Bibiana Beňová, Kateřina Kořínková, Czechia, 2025)
• Visitor Jindřich Polák (Návštěvník Jindřich Polák, dir. Jakub Skalický, Czechia, 2025)

SHORT FILM COMPETITION

This year, the Short Film Competition will once again offer a wide range of topics and artistic approaches. As part of the five programmes, the audience will be able to delve into the secrets of the natural realm or the body and to witness what the world is losing, what is changing and what technologies or conflicts await us in the near future. You can look forward to personal storytelling interlaced with science, tales of political tactics, films produced with the help of generative AI and a fair amount of animation.

Magdaléna Jedličková, Programmer and Short Film Competition Coordinator

SHORT FILM COMPETITION SELECTION

• 9,192,631,770 Hz (9,192,631,770 Hz, dir. Todd Chandler, USA, 2025)
• Beyond Words (Beyond Words, dir. Kim Brand, Netherlands, 2024)
• Bioshorts – Moldavite (Biošortky – Vltavín, dir. Daniela Hýbnerová, Czechia, 2025)
• Bioshorts – Seen, unseen (Biošortky – Vidím, nevidím, dir. Daniela Hýbnerová, Czechia, 2025)
• Bloody Mess (Bloody Mess, dir. Megan Wennberg, Canada, 2024)
• Don’t Give Them Room to Grow (De l’entretien des sols, dir. Karine Bille, France, 2025)
• EX-tract (EX-tract, dir. Marcel Barelli, Switzerland, 2025)
• Frog Safari (Varžu safari, dir. Agnese Laizāne, Latvia, 2025)
• Grimm’s Nightmare (Grimm’s Nightmare, dir. Andrea Erja, Sophie Lösch, Germany, 2024)
• Life Invisible (Life Invisible, dir. Bettina Perut, Ivan Osnovikoff, United Kingdom, 2024)
• Orchids: Darwin’s Conundrum (Orchids: Darwin’s Conundrum, dir. Thomas Cassar, United Kingdom, 2025)
• ouarda ouarda: yet another floral film (ouarda ouarda: yet another floral film, dir. Samy Benammar, Canada, 2025)
• Polio (Polio, dir. Klára Kubenková, Czechia, 2025)
• Reindalen (Reindalen, dir. Morgan Heim, Norway, 2025)
• Sincerely, Victor Pike (Sincerely, Victor Pike, dir. Gregor Petrikovič, United Kingdom, 2024)
• The Day the Sun Stopped Shining (De dag dat het zonlicht niet meer scheen, dir. Maria Stuut, Frederik Stuut, Belgium, 2025)
• The Last Observers (The Last Observers, dir. Maja K Mikkelsen, Sweden, USA, 2024)
• Their Eyes (Their Eyes, dir. Nicolas Gourault, France, 2025)
• The Wonder Within (Het wonder daaronder, dir. Nina Jeanne Landau, Belgium, 2025)
• To Know a Place (To Know a Place, dir. Brendan Young, USA, 2024)
• Translocations (Translocations, dir. Nick Jordan, United Kingdom, 2025)

IMMERSIVE MEDIA COMPETITION

This year’s competition selection comprises both digital and physical immersive experiences which together show that immersivity and immersion are a spectrum rather than a single list of formal or narrative tools. The limits of immersivity are pushed along with the possibilities of the interactive technology used as well as with each creative and artistic choice. One can work playfully with the hardware, the location, the theatrical features and the atmosphere. All the projects are curated with attention to the effect of their exhibition and installation. So apart from trying on a VR headset or visiting a digital planetarium, the audience this year will for the first time be able to experience through physical objects, direct interaction with a computer or a venture into the exterior.

Dominik Vontor, Head of Programming

IMMERSIVE MEDIA COMPETITION SELECTION

• Anamnesis (Anamnesis, dir. Petr Salaba, Czechia, 2024)
• Ashes to Ashes (Av jord är du kommen, dir. Marika Hedemyr, Sweden, 2025)
• Blue Archives (Blue Archives, dir. Aram Kebabdjian, Stéphane Perraud, France, 2024)
• Little Eve: Stories of Planet Earth (Zvídavá Eva: Příběhy planety Země, dir. Klára Jůzová, Czechia, 2025)
• MAMLAS-1 (MAMLAS-1, Šimon Janoušek, Jakub Vránek, Alžběta Volhejnová, Alexandra Verzier, Czechia, 2025)
• Out of Nowhere (Out of Nowhere, dir. Kris Hofmann, Austria, Germany, 2025)
• Reality Looks Back (Reality Looks Back, dir. Anne Jeppesen, Omid Zarei, Denmark, USA, 2024)
• Starry Animals: Mountain, Sea and River Constellations in Colombian Skies (Animales Celestes: Constelaciones de montaña, río y mar en los cielos de Antioquia, dir. Catalina Del Mar Rendón, Wendy Giraldo, Santiago Arango, Colombia, 2024)
• Steps of Progress (Kroky pokroku, dir. Jan Kalvoda, Michal Mocňák, Czechia, 2025)
• Ways of Knowing: A Navajo Nuclear History (Ways of Knowing: A Navajo Nuclear History, dir. Kayla Briët, USA, 2025)