Wes has it all laid out. His business partner just needs to see it. And his wife. And the people from the West Coast, California, where there's smog and people and no space. They surely want a home, or a second home, in Utah. It's close to Vegas, sure they'll love it. The people.

“One cannot even be sure, whether it is a sect, a mystery cult, a new religion, a church, a people, a nation, or an American subculture; indeed, at different times and places it is all of these.”

– Sydney E. Ahlstrom, historian (1982)

With Sure Fire, director Jon Jost accomplishes that what Lynch tries. A mundane gem with an ominous undertow, but all without the need for mystery or eccentric characters.

 

Just Utah, and its people.

Kidlat, while on Earth, wonders if on the Moon a yoyo behaves any differently. Thanks to his brilliant crew of Bavarian toddlers, his parents' collective aspirations, and generous donations from the First World in the form of assorted junk, he launches the first Filipino space program to find out.

“If you don't eat too many Gummy Bears you could be my co-pilot.”

– Kidlat Tahimik, speaking to a budding crew member

Sinong lumikha ng yoyo? is a remarkable display of imaginative filmmaking. Together with Kidlat we ponder about practicalities, suddenly see connections that were obscured by too much thinking, and realise all the new possibilities we have in life. Part documentary, part animation, part fantasy, part sci-fi, Kidlat transports us to yet unexplored spaces!

Grauzone takes place in one of the three spaces documented in Murer's beautifully titled documentary Wir Bergler in den Bergen sind eigentlich nicht schuld, daß wir da sind [We, the mountain people, who live in the mountains are not really to blame for being there] (1974). One valley lives in tune with its natural rhythm, the second experiences a transition to modernity.

Sie fallen unerwartet in einem traumlosen Schlaf.

The third space, the “grey zone” – both this film's title and a descriptive term for an undefined neutral zone – is where the Bergler have become technology dwellers, where they live on summits made of concrete instead of rock. Where rumours about a #pandemic stir an ancient, unnamed fear. And symptoms: the sudden urge to wander out in nature, an acute melancholy, an overall hyper awareness. A young, prosperous couple become infected and pick up secret radio transmissions. What they believed was concrete, solid, immovable, suddenly shows signs of a shift.

A film crew from Calcutta arrives in a small Bengal town to make a film about the 1943 Bengal Famine. Initially, their arrival sparks joy and wonder but while filming, the participants – travelling back and forth between 1943 and 1980, Calcutta and rural Bengal, and reality and re-enactment – come to realise that #famine has many faces.

A bridge to celebrate the 1937 Golden Gate Bridge opening.

“Here I was born, and there I died. It was only a moment for you; you took no notice.”

A black forest. A man walks through, holding a smoke machine. Then a carriage with a familiar coachman. Dracula! Where are we? No, not 19th century #Transylvania. The film stock reveals bullet holes in ancient walls, and beyond these walls a ladder, maybe scaffolding. A pneumatic drill, more crew members, lights, a clapperboard. Are the characters aware of that? Them seem to interact with the disturbance yet oblige to the interruptions of the movie set. In a state of hypnopompia, guided by kuroko, maybe?

“cut”

Pere Portabella created a hyper-reality with his Cuadecuc, vampir. A director dismantles the man-behind-the-curtain, Franco, the other #Franco while setting up scaffolding for the next Spain. Everything's a reality, or an illusion, then nothing is.

Nevinost bez zaštite is a treasure trove. Of fantastic people, feats, footage, and genres. We sit down to watch #Serbia's first feature talkie, also named Nevinost bez zaštite (1943), and are joined by the people who created it.

“Dragoljub Son of our native land! Teeth and muscles, Tried and true All our hearts go out to you!”

While they speak, and occasionally burst out into song, about living in Yugoslavia under Nazi, then communist control, we meet Dragoljub!, the movie's lead with the jaws of steel. A man of great works, humanitarian and other, demonstrates his iron will. And while so, we all, starstruck and in love, sing:

“When they hammer your head, The skull is hard, And never cracks, Mother's little babe of steel! Dragoljub Son of our native land!”

At night, a small group of prostitutes frequent a local 面薄 / mee pok #restaurant. One of them, Bunny (Michelle Goh), caught the hawker's eye, but she's not interested in the “mee pok” (the “fish ball”, as they call the vendor) (Joe Ng) and besides she has a boyfriend. Then, a car crash. Bunny is left for dead in front of the eatery. He takes her in, preparing endless meals

“Sir John MacDonald, Jacobite captain of cavalry. Aged, frequently intoxicated, described as 'a man of the most limited capacities'.”

– narrator