Filmmaker Dea Gjinovci and her father, who has been living in exile in Geneva for sixty years, return to his home village of Makermal in Kosovo. The village was destroyed during the war, and the only thing that remains are the stories of the villagers who are still alive. It is a community of resilience, and so is their story. Together with these people, the filmmaker and her father embark on a search for traces of the past and revive her father’s memories of his childhood in Kosovo in the 1950s. They uncover shocking things, but many questions remain unanswered, such as the mysterious disappearance of the grandmother. With her docu-fiction, Dea Gjinovci shows how important it is to come to terms with history.

Dreams behind closed doors, freedom through imagination and hope: a visual and poetic odyssey about the search for freedom, love and friendship in an asylum centre – and about the necessity of breaking rules.

Isio fled Nigeria. She lives without papers in England until she is picked up and taken to an asylum centre. There, she follows every rule in the hope of a fair trial. But her roommate Farah sees things differently: those who follow the rules gain nothing here.

As Isio tries to survive in this limbo, new friendships develop – and new feelings. But the longer she waits, the clearer it becomes how fragile the promise of safety is. If you want to survive, you have to find your own way.

Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor’s tender but unflinching feature debut is inspired by her own experience in the British asylum system. The film had its world premiere at the 2025 Berlinale and opened the 2025 Pink Apple Queer Film Festival.