In these strange new times, we are forced to adjust by developing new habits and getting rid of some of the old ones. No handshakes. No hugs. Wear a mask. Stay 1,5 metres away from each other. Wash your hands. Stay at home. Keep your social distance, practice self-isolation...

Thus, inexplicably, you notice that your time in lockdown is slipping past so fast, bonds are getting stronger, as you are getting used to meeting via Zoom and Facetime. And one day, you look around and ask yourself... Is it necessary to leave isolation?

Curated by Sasha Prokopenko

1 Bottle o'wine

Anne Isensee

Germany / 2020, 5 min

Normally, you would drink a bottle of wine with your friends or family. Assuming you drink at all. But during the Corona confinement, nothing is normal. So a young animator drinks the bottle alone by herself and animates a movie.

Recitative

Shir Handelsman

Israel / 2019, 5 min

An opera singer stands on a lifting platform reaching to the sky and sings a Martyr's wish for redemption. His fantasy spectacle creates a counterpoint between human voice and mechanical sounds of other platforms moving in space. The music, taken from one of J.S Bach's cantatas, is the Recitative Movement which describes the ascension of Christ and expresses the desire to become one with God.

MEMBRANE

Max Philipp Schmid

Germany / 2019, 14 min

Has the catastrophe already happened or is it about to? Two men and a woman sit in their bunker-like apartments, as if they were in a waiting room. Overwhelmed by the flood of media information and guidebook words of wisdom, they seek stability in the piano play of the educated middle-class and Far-eastern self-optimization techniques. Their passive bewilderment turns into frenzied activism. Now something has to happen! But nothing does.

ALL INCLUSIVE

Corina Schwingruber Ilić

Switzerland / 2018, 10 min

Under the spell of mass entertainment at high sea.

ALONE

Siyeon Kim

South Korea / 2019, 3 min

A city seems to be packed with particles of dust, an ethereal hallucination in a virtual world. Departing from the boundless universe of data, we set foot on one of the narrow streets of Seoul. It feels even smaller than a dot.

Postcards from the end of the World

Konstantinos Antonopoulos

Greece / 2019, 23 min

Trapped in a seemingly dull family vacation, Dimitra, Dimitris and their two daughters will have to find a way out of a secluded island in the Mediterranean, when confronted with the unexpected end of the world.

ISOLATIONSHIP

Sarah May Handler

Austria / 2020, 4 min

A young woman retires from the world. Solitude allows her to completely unwind. By withdrawing socially she experiences serenity - in contrast to her loved ones...