Five Films You Need To See at ZagrebDox (recommended by their film selectors)

Every year the death toll rises in the drug war along the Mexican-American border. The government cannot guarantee safety in the border region, and some inhabitants see no alternative but to take matters into their own hands. Risking his life, filmmaker Matthew Heineman follows two groups fighting the cartels. On the Mexican side, the charming doctor Jose Mireles and his autodefensas hunt gang members; back in the United States, veteran and former drug addict Tim ‘Nailer’ Foley tracks Mexican immigrants and smugglers in the inhospitable desert of Arizona, then hands them over to the authorities. Heineman penetrates deep into the shadowy world of organized crime. We watch masked men make crystal meth, experience frenetic gunfights and gain insight into the personal lives of the vigilantes. Their objective is to fight crime, but in the heat of battle, morals get lost and the line between good and evil isn’t always clear.

Mr. Byong-man Jo is 98 years old but still strong enough to carry lots of firewood. He is so playful that now and again it makes his wife cry. When he works in the garden, he sometimes throws leaves on his wife. When it snows, he starts a snowball fight. When his wife does the washing in the small stream, he likes to pour water on her. The wife, Mrs. Gye-Yeul Kang is 89 years old. She still cooks three meals a day for her husband and has never fed him a cold meal. They always wear traditional Korean clothes, go to the aged college twice a week, go to the market every five days, have picnics with the neighbours, and enjoy dance parties. They are still young. Recently he has started growing weaker by the day and sleeps a lot. When she wakes him up for a meal, he acts irritated and is mean to her. These changes make her worried, frightened and lonely. She thinks he is trying to make her dislike him because his time to pass away is drawing near. She often looks at the river in silence. Forty years ago they moved here from across the river, and when their six sons and daughters got married, they went back across the river. Her husband will go across the river one day leaving her behind.

The Nordic social model is an ideal organization of society, a peak in the history of civilization and a shimmering example for others to follow. Or is it? What kind of society have we actually created for ourselves? The Swedish iconoclast Erik Gandini takes a loving and critical look at our little corner of the world from the other end of the telescope and finds the recipe for the good Nordic life in a manifesto published by the political elite in Sweden in the 1970s. Here, one finds that happiness is a life lived in freedom – from others. And so it has been ever since. But the question is whether our individualism and independence have isolated us from each other. Is the price of happiness a lifetime of loneliness? Like a sociologist from another planet, Gandini travels across the globe (and Scandinavia) drawing startling parallels between our way of life and all the other forms it could have taken.

If you’re looking to understand Russia, the Bolshoi Ballet is a good place to start. This visually stunning documentary takes us inside the Bolshoi’s world of great artistry and intense rivalry during one of the most dramatic periods since its founding in 1776. On January 17, 2013, Sergei Filin, Ballet Director of the Bolshoi Theater, was cornered outside his home and attacked with acid. He suffered third degree burns and lost sight in one eye. Over the following year, as the company struggles to regain its footing, the filmmakers gain remarkable access to what occurs behind the scenes and on stage. While Filin recuperates, theater manager Vladimir Urin takes over; and former principle dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko goes on trial as the mastermind behind the attack. In candid interviews with key members and observers of the company, we see how the crime reveals deep fissures in the institution. Bolshoi dancers train their bodies from early childhood for careers that have an early expiration. Their dreams can be fulfilled or derailed by whoever runs the company. That leads, inevitably, to tensions between performers and managers.

(T)error is the first documentary to place filmmakers on the ground during an active FBI counter-terrorism sting operation. Through the perspective of ‘Shariff’, a 63-year-old black revolutionary turned informant, viewers get an unfettered glimpse of the government’s counter-terrorism tactics and the murky justifications behind them. Taut, stark and controversial, (T)error illuminates the fragile relationships between an individual and the surveillance state in modern America, and asks: who is watching the watchers.