10th Beyond Borders – Kastellorizo International Documentary Festival

This year’s 10th edition of Beyond Borders – Kastellorizo International Documentary Festival (24–31 August 2025) presents 42 compelling films from across the globe, 35 of which will be screened as Greek, international, or world premieres. Many of these films have already traveled to the most prestigious film festivals worldwide, while others are making their debut right here in Kastellorizo.

This year’s program revolves around two thematic pillars: memory and the future. Key themes explored in the films include issues of memory, identity, and the processing of trauma—both personal and collective. War and its consequences, forced displacement, exile, and resettlement feature prominently. Several films address forms of state power, negligence, or authoritarianism, as well as the role of women and gender identity. Environmental collapse, climate justice, and anxiety about the future also take center stage. Coming-of-age stories set against difficult backdrops and broader human-centered narratives round out the festival’s thematic scope.

This year’s program revolves around two thematic pillars: memory and the future.

On the island of Kastellorizo—an emblematic crossroads of cultural heritage and historical remembrance—the tradition of storytelling sails onward, undeterred. In a time when the world often feels like it’s contracting, Beyond Borders stays devoted to broadening perspectives. Through its cinematic works, it pursues one of the most vital and profoundly human endeavors: seeking out our shared humanity, regardless of its place of origin or destination.

The Festival’s refreshed visual identity, crafted by the creative team at Polkadot Design, is inspired by the intricate art of weaving—an age-old practice that embodies memory, narrative, and the thread of continuity. Much like the women weavers captured in 1905, the subjects of the earliest cinematic footage in the Balkans, today’s documentary storytellers interlace truth and experience using image and sound as their loom.

The Main Competition Section features 18 medium- and feature-length documentaries (including 4 Greek productions), while the μicro Competition Section includes 24 short documentaries (with 3 Greek productions among them).

Main Competition Section

Death Plan for a Dog and a Man (Christos Karakepelis, Greece, 2024, 66’).
This adventurous journey of death leads a man and his dog, almost miraculously, from their dingy hovel to wild mountains and New York City—from suffocating reality to absolute freedom. Christos Karakepelis focuses on people exiled from societal norms, tightrope-walking on the edge of insecurity.

Exam on the Edge of Time (İlkay Nişancı, Turkey, 2024, International Premiere, 89’).
Before they could even bury their dead, people in Hatay were overwhelmed by the anxiety of exams following the earthquake.  İlkay Nişancı has worked as a director, cinematographer, and editor on short films and documentaries.

Hawar, Our Banished Children (Pascale Bourgaux, Belgium–France–Switzerland, 2023, Greek Premiere, 74’).
In 2014, thousands of Yazidi women were abducted by ISIS and subjected to sexual slavery. After her liberation, Ana is forced to abandon the child she bore from rape. Four years later, Ana crosses Kurdistan in secret to reunite with her daughter, Marya. Pascale Bourgaux is a filmmaker, author, and war correspondent.

Letters from Wolf Street (Arjun Talwar, Poland, 2023, Greek Premiere, 97’)
An intelligent, personal portrait of Poland seen through the eyes of an immigrant director exploring life on a street in central Warsaw. Arjun Talwar grew up in New Delhi and studied Mathematics before being admitted to the Film Department at Poland’s National Film School in Łódź. Letters from Wolf Street, premiered in Berlinale’s Panorama section.

Lo (Thanasis Vasileiou, Greece, 2025, 70’).
One year after his mother’s death, the director returns to his childhood apartment in Athens to confront a troubling legacy. From the apartment’s now bare surfaces, fragments of family memories emerge, intertwining his personal story with the collective trauma of the Junta. Thanasis Vasileiou (b. 12 December 1975, Athens) is a Greek director and screenwriter based in Poitiers, France. Lo had its world premiere in Thessaloniki International Film Festival.

Mountain of Gold (Roland Edzard, France, 2025, Greek Premiere, 85’).
A team of gold prospectors embarks on a journey into the heart of Saharan gold-mining by traversing the remote and hostile regions of northern Niger. After a childhood in the Algerian Sahara and adolescence in the Vosges Mountains of Alsace, Roland Edzard developed a video art practice that shifts the documentary image toward fictional dramaturgy. His films have won awards at Cannes and many other festivals worldwide.

Night Recedes (Timon Koulmasis, Greece-France, 2024, 70′).

This film follows the riveting life journey of two significant artists: the renowned Greek sculptor Memos Makris (1913–1993) and the multifaceted personality of Zizi Makri (1924–2014). Timon Koulmasis lives and works as a director, writer, and producer in Paris and Athens. His fiction and documentary films have screened at major festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Locarno, and Montreal.

On Melting Snow (Mojtaba Bahadori, Belgium–Iceland, 2024, Greek Premiere, 73’).

Every landscape holds the memory of our planet—memories brutally divided by time and artificial borders. For 33 years, Sophie Cauvin has journeyed through altered landscapes, collecting and reconnecting these fragmented memories through her striking works of art. Mojtaba Bahadori is a filmmaker, photographer, and visual artist. His film explores the complex relationship between humans, nature, and art.

Sculpted Souls (Stavros Psillakis, Greece, 2025, 90’). Julien Grivel (b. 1943), a Swiss dentist, came to Athens twice a year from 1972 to 1998, treating the teeth of people with Hansen’s disease (leprosy) at the Infectious Diseases Hospital “Agia Varvara”—always free of charge. Stavros Psillakis, awarded by EDA, the Golden Alexander (2023), and FIPRESCI (2025), has directed over 40 documentaries, including No Other Way, Metaxa, and Sculpted Souls.

The Getaway (Nikita Popkov, Russia, 2025, World Premiere, 93’)

Three different people confront themselves in times of darkness. Nikita Popkov won the “Best Short Film” award at the Doker International Documentary Festival.

The German People (Marcin Wierzchowski, Poland, 2025, Greek Premiere, 133’).

The film investigates the aftermath of the racist attack in Hanau, Germany, on February 19, 2020, where nine people were killed. Marcin Wierzchowski is a director, producer, and visual artist based in Frankfurt and Warsaw. His documentary Hanau – A Night and Its Aftermathreceived won the Grimme Award and inspired The German People, which premiered at Berlinale 2025.

The Longer You Bleed (Ewan Waddell, Ukraine, 2025, Greek Premiere, 65’).

This personal documentary follows displaced Ukrainians in Berlin as they grapple with the trauma of watching their homeland burn—in real time—through Instagram pixels. Ewan Waddell is a British filmmaker working in fiction, documentary, and experimental cinema. His multimedia approach explores themes like modernity and rupture.

The Lost Season (Mehdi Ghanavati, Iran, 2024, Greek Premiere, 63’).

Seasonal dust blankets the village where Kosar lives. Lake Hamun has dried up, and the Sistan region grows more arid every year—it’s as if life itself is vanishing. Kosar dreams of going to university. Amid drought and dust in southeastern Iran, her dreams seem increasingly out of reach. Mehdi Ghanavati gained national recognition with Hamja (2017), which won six major awards and screened at international festivals.

The Tirana Conspiracy (Manfredi Lucibello, Italy, 2024, Greek Premiere, 71’ December 2000).

Famed photographer Oliviero Toscani accepts an invitation by art critic Giancarlo Politi to curate a section of the inaugural Tirana Biennale. Toscani presents four scandalous artists whose provocative works—deemed offensive, inappropriate, even immoral—spark outrage: a pedophile, a pornographer, a Nigerian activist on the run, and Bin Laden’s official photographer. Manfredi Lucibello directed Centoquaranta – La strage dimenticata, which screened at the 54th Festival dei Popoli and won the 32nd Bellaria FF.

To Use a Mountain (Casey Carter, USA, 2025, Greek Premiere, 99’).

Six rural U.S. communities are selected as potential sites for burying 77,000 tons of nuclear waste. Casey Carter‘s work explores governance, geography, environmentalism, and subjective experience. He has received support from institutions like the Sundance Documentary Film Program and IDA. To Use a Mountain is his feature debut, for which he directed, shot, and edited.

Welcome to Babel (James Bradley, Australia, 2024, Greek Premiere, 95’).

An obsessive artist, a mad plan, and the tumultuous history of Communism intertwine in this deep dive into the blood-soaked revolutions of the 20th century. This narrative is set against a tender portrait of a marriage forged in the chaos of China’s Cultural Revolution. James Bradley is a documentary veteran with 40 years of experience. Welcome to Babel marks his feature-length debut and won the 2024 Sydney Film Festival Documentary Award.

Welcome to the Orchard of England (Louis Norris, UK, 2025, Greek Premiere, 43’).

Historically known as England’s “orchard,” Herefordshire is an apple-growing region. This film, part portrait of a vanishing way of life, part celebration of a living culture, poses profound questions about human nature. Expect games, pies, dances, petty theft, and apple varieties galore. Louis Norris is a director and editor whose work explores how people relate to the places they live. His films have screened at festivals worldwide and won numerous awards.

Wild Women of Anatolia (Sedef and Aslı Özoğuz, Turkey, 2024, International Premiere, 88’).

This documentary gathers stories from five women in five Anatolian landscapes. Through their personal journeys as “wild women,” they share dreams of freedom and deep connections to nature. The film is structured into four elements: Earth, Water, Fire, and Air. Sedef Özoğuz is a writer, documentarian, and professor of Psychology at The New School in New York. Aslı Özoğuz is a writer and director based in Istanbul. She has written and directed two short films and co-directed Wild Women of Anatolia with her sister Sedef.

μicro Competition Section

Al Basateen (Antoine Chapon, France, 2025, Greek Premiere, 24’).

Albgreko (Ilir Tsouko, Greece, 2024, 27’).

Between a Rock and a Hard Place (Thanos Liberopoulos, Greece, 2024, World Premiere, 17’).

Clear Sky (Marcin Kundera, Poland, 2024, Greek Premiere, 21’).

Crossing (Karol Felicio, Brazil, 2024, International Premiere, 15’).

Death of a Format (Marios Lizides, Cyprus, 2023, Greek Premiere, 11’).

Fatbardha (Kitty Kentezi, Greece, 2024, 24’).

GIOJA22 (Stefano De Felici, Italy, 2023, Greek Premiere, 10’).

Gypsy Gadji (Dáša Raimanová, Slovakia, 2024, Greek Premiere, 28).

How to Suture the Soil? (Wil Paucar Calle, Ecuador, 2024, Greek Premiere, 17’ ).

I Didn’t Get into Berghain but I Did Meet Vica (Evan Frijters, Netherlands, 2024, International Premiere, 22’)

My Land is Burned (Abdulrahman Alshowaiki, Belgium, 2024, Greek Premiere, 30’).

Once I Got In, It Was Hard to Get Out (Nora Štrbová, Czech Republic, 2024, Greek Premiere, 28’).

P.S. (Aleš Suk, Croatia, 2024, Greek Premiere, 15’ ).

Refuge (Partha Das, India, 2024, World Premiere, 24’).

Simply Divine (Mélody Boulissière & Bogdan Stamatin, France, 2024, 14’ ).

Specters of Home – Prologue (Ava Aviva Avnisan, United States, 2024, International Premiere, 9′)

The Sun Is Low (Marta Ojrzynska, Poland, 2025, Greek Premiere, 18′).

The Truth About the Telegraph (Kieran Mpetyane Satour, Australia, 2024, International Premiere, 17′).

Through the Window (Daniel Stopa, Poland, 2025, Greek Premiere, 10′).

Vértigo (Alejandra Sánchez Casañ, Spain, 2024, World Premiere, 13′).

We Will Grow (Areti Pagoulatou, United Kingdom, 2025, 25′).

Welcome Home Freckles (Huiju Park, United Kingdom, 2025, Greek Premiere, 26′).

Work / Memories of Work (Ektoras Arkomanis, United Kingdom, Greek Premiere, 21′).

Beyond Borders – Kastellorizo International Documentary Festival is organized by the Hellenic History Foundation (IDISME), in collaboration with France’s Ecrans des Mondes. Co-organized by the South Aegean Region with the support of the Hellenic Parliament, Ministry of National Defense, General Secretariat for Greeks Abroad & Public Diplomacy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, General Secretariat for the Aegean & Island Policy of the Ministry of Shipping, EKKOMED – Creative Greece (National Centre for Audiovisual Media & Communication), Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT), Greek National Tourism Organization and the embassies of Australia, Germany, Austria, Spain, and Switzerland in Athens.