by Barbora Berezňáková (Slovakia/Czech Republic 2019)

The director investigates a top level kidnapping case, exploring the chain of events and the emotional impact for the witnesses. Premiere at Warsaw IFF 2019. Cinematik IFF – Cinematik.doc Award.

“The RCS experience was one of the most eye-opening experiences after my studies. The consultants were very sensitive people with a lot of understanding for my film as well as the approach I took to the topic. Even that the story was quite complicated and of a local character, they understood the specifics and gave me sophisticated insight into both the structure of the film and the style I chose.” Barbora Berezňáková, director.
“From my point of view, the consultations with both Iikka Vehkalahti and Menno Boerema helped the director in the last phase of editing to focus the story, change some unclear spots in the narrative and they both gave her their insight in a very sensitive way. We were as well very pleased by very quick feedback which helped us a lot as we were under time pressure.”
Hana Blaha Šilarová, Czech Producer.

by Elsa Kremser & Levin Peter (Austria 2019)

How a Moscow street dog was sent into space and returned as a ghost.
Laika, a stray dog, was the first living being to be sent into space and thus to a certain death. According to a legend, she returned to Earth as a ghost and has roamed the streets of Moscow ever since. Following her trace, and filmed from a dog’s perspective, SPACE DOGS accompanies the adventures of her descendants: two street dogs living in today’s Moscow. Premiere at Locarno Film Festival 2019.

“We are really very thankful for the help RCS gave us during our editing process. It really gave us trust into our film, in a time when we where quite critical with ourselves – especially with the more abstract episodes of the storytelling and also with the overall philosophical arch of it. So it helped us to come finally to a version that we love ourselves, that works in terms of dramaturgy, and that is radical, without compromises.”
Elsa Kremser, director.

by Maria Arlamovsky (Austria 2019)
ROBOLOVE is a film about the future of human interaction with humanoid, android robots. It explores how we will bond with robots that resemble human women and men. Robots that will serve us at home, teach us, help us, comfort us and perhaps be our cuddly partners. Premiere at DOK Leipzig 2019.

by Ai Weiwei (2019)

Through a documentary film (and a series of portraits made with Lego pieces), the artist explores the personal and social consequences of the disappearance of the 43 students from the Escuela Normal Rural de Ayotzinapa on the night of September 26-27, 2014. This project makes a bid for constructing memory as an invisible tie that binds us to our ancestors and maps out an obligation to the generations that succeed us. World premiere at Sundance 2020.

by Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts (UK 2019)

FOR SAMA is both an intimate and epic journey into the female experience of war. A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. FOR SAMA was awarded the Prix L’Œil d’Or for Best Documentary at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. Further selected awards include the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary and the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the SXSW Film Festival, the Special Jury Prize for International Feature Documentary at Hot Docs, the Audience Award at Sheffield Doc/fest and Best Documentary at the European Film Awards. Oscar 2020 nomination – Best Feature Documentary.

“I cannot recommend RCS highly enough. They took a look at our film when we thought we’d finished everything. Their notes were brilliant and helped us to see with new eyes where we could really push the emotion and clarity of the cut. Their insights lifted the film to another level.”
Edward Watts, director.

by Archana Phadke (India 2019)

Three generations of the Phadke family live and work together in South Mumbai. As they prepare for a family wedding, director Archana Atul Phadke, who is not in any hurry to marry, observes the shifting, often very funny household dynamics, as both her mother and grandmother wonder how they have tolerated their husbands for so long. Premiere at Sheffield DocFest 2019, where the film won the New Talent Award. Best Documentary – Indian Film Festival Stuttgart. DMZ Docs – Best Film Asian Perspective Award.

by Hye-Ryeong Park (South-Korea 2018)

A deep homage to Mother Nature through a heart-warming culinary journey. Jiho Im, better known as the “Wandering Chef”, travels the Korean peninsula, in search of the most unique ingredients, honouring Mother Nature with whom he has a very strong and personal relationship. For him, Nature is at the core of his life and his creative work. One day, he meets someone very special on the road leading him to the most incredible challenge of a lifetime: conceiving and cooking 108 plates in 24 hours – significant of 108 agonies of life in Buddhism – to pay tribute to his adoptive mother. Premiere at Hot Docs 2019.

by Dalia Kury (Norway 2018)

How do you tell completely authentic stories from Syria? Would former prisoners be able to reveal their deepest feelings to an interviewer? The Jordanian filmmaker Dalia Kury came up with a solution. For Privacy of Wounds, she reconstructed a prison cell in a Norwegian cellar, in which three Syrian immigrants agree to be locked up. With unmanned cameras constantly filming them, they spend three days without daylight on thin mattresses, talking about their time in different Syrian prisons. They tell the most appalling stories: of the deaths of fellow prisoners, torture techniques, and a growing sense of being abandoned. Premiere at IDFA 2018, Mid-length competition.

“RCS was instrumental for the crucial progress we made on the way to our IDFA premiere. The combination of Iikka and Yael gave us both very specific detailed feedback as well as a big picture philosophical angle on our film. Since IDFA the film has been nominated for awards at festivals such as Gothenburg, HUMAN, Tromsø IFF, One World and Haifa IFF.”
Jonathan Borg Lie, producer.

by Kati Juurus (Finland 2018)

Cinema Dadaab takes the viewers to one of the world’s largest and oldest refugee camps, Dadaab. A dreamlike place forgotten by the rest of the world. Here Abdikafi Mohamed runs a simple cinema, which offers moments of dreaming and mind travelling for the refugees, who cannot leave the camp. The film premiered at Helsinki International Film Festival Love & Anarcy in 2018.

by Claudia Tosi (Italy 2018)

Manuela and Daniela dream of changing their country, Italy, but have to meet the harsh reality. From the feminist fights against Berlusconi to the last elections of 2018, the film explores the last ten years of Italy through the political actions and the everyday life of the two compelling women. Premiere DOK Leipzig 2018. DOK Leipzig – Golden Dove International Competition, FIPRESCI Award, Award of the Interreligious Jury. Biografilm Festival – Audience Award.

“I thought the film was there, even though there was something that was not working, but I could not say what it was. I came to RCS with the idea to do some make up but it turned out that there was much more than a bit of make up to do. By going once again through the footage (10 years of footage!) in order to provide answers made us discover a treasure hidden because of decisions made long ago. The film has incredibly improved, the protagonists have become tridimensional, the storyline is at the service of the protagonists.
Working with Iikka and Menno allowed me and the editor to watch our film from an International perspective and discover weaknesses and strengths. There is no doubt I will ask RCS’ help also in the future.”
Claudia Tosi, director.