The prestige of Short Documentary Films Competition "IMAGE OF THE WORLD - WORLD IN IMAGES" was recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences which has chosen Camerimage Festival as the ACADEMY AWARD® qualifying festival in the Documentary Short Subject category. This means that the Golden Frog award winners in Short Documentary Films Competition at Camerimage will qualify for consideration in the Documentary Short Subject category of the Annual Academy Awards® without the standard theatrical run, provided that the given film complies with the other Academy rules.

Bella, William and David are a fishing family. One night, a heavy storm catches father and son out at sea. After Bella’s worst nightmare comes true, she embarks on a journey into her own ocean, the only place where she will find her loved ones again.

Directed by: Maricarmen Merino
Cinematography: Bruno Santamaria
Producer: Henner Hofmann

There is a film about the Phone Hotline for Children and Youth 116 111. Consultants for 116 111 work in a small apartment in Warsaw's Saska Kępa. They receive more than 400 calls daily from all the regions of Poland. Fear of air accidents, parting with a boyfriend, the father - an alcoholic, the teacher – an exhibitionist, sleepiness caused by just swallowing a dozen pills – Consultants for 116 111 must be able to face all the problems that the children face...

Polish title: Dzieci dzwonią
Directed by: Andrzej Mańkowski
Cinematography: Weronika Bilska
Producer: Andrzej Mańkowski

This is the story of one day in the life of a Georgian family. A fisherman's family celebrates Christmas day.

Original title: Рождество
Polish title: Boże Narodzenie
Directed by: Ruslan Fedotov, Aleksandra Kulak
Cinematography: Ruslan Fedotov, Aleksandra Kulak
Producer: Moscow School of New Cinema

Atly, Pir Bibi’s son and a camel driver, died 50 days ago in camel attack. His widow and two children now live with Pir Bibi. His daughter, Fereshteh, who has cancer, relates the story of her father’s death on the feast day.

Directed by: Behrouz Nouranipouri
Cinematography: Fardin Batmani
Producer: Soureh Cinema Org

The Island of Hestmannøy, known as Horseman island, has only a few inhabitants left. While others leave, one man has found his paradise here. The farmer Kurt only lives from what he grows himself, in breathtaking surroundings. This movie portraits him and his daily life.

Original title: Se Litt Tilbake
Directed by: Trond Kvig Andreassen
Cinematography: Audun Fjeldheim
Producer: Lillehammer University College

This Academy Award winner is one of the most inspirational, uplifting stories of the year. At 109, Alice Herz Sommer, the oldest survivor of Hitler’s Holocaust, still practiced the piano for two and a half hours each day. She remained fiercely independent until her death on 24th February 2014. She believed her life was long because of “good music” rather than “good genes”. A relentlessly positive and optimistic outlook plus her deeply-held belief in the essential goodness of her fellow man kept Alice Herz Sommer alive for over a century.

Polish title: Pani spod szóstki
Directed by: Malcolm Clarke
Cinematography: Kieran Crilly
Producer: Bunbury Films

Only 165 kilometres away from the largest city in the southern hemisphere, in a small shack, lives Matias. Surrounded by what it is left of a lush forest, Matias spends his life with his dogs and chickens. A man who embodies an entire culture threatened with extinction.

Directed by: Ricardo Martensen, Felipe Tomazelli
Cinematography: Luiz Eduardo Carlin
Producer: Trilha Mídia Produção Cinematográfica LTDA

From the early hours until home time – there is a lot to do. It is a routine work, still done very skillfully and with attention to smallest detail. Prepared, dissected and filled up – laborious work to contradict death, yet a technical profession. Bent forward in green coats over the most genial system ever – the human anatomy.

Original title: Das genialste System überhaupt
Directed by: Irina Heckmann
Cinematography: Irina Heckmann
Producer: Irina Heckmann

Chantrea is banned from home by her sons when they discover she has HIV. She accepts her exile, even though supporting her family was the reason she was working as a prostitute. She starts collecting litter to survive, and meets Shrey – an abandoned and lonely girl working as a prostitute to support her little children – who sees Chantrea as a kindred spirit and asks her to become her mother. Two lonely Cambodian women get together and create a new family, supporting and loving each other.

Directed by: Simone Manetti
Cinematography: Simone Manetti
Producer: Meproducodasolo SRL

Sitting in her favourite oak tree, 11-year-old Filine encounters little wonders in the natural world around her. She sees the beauty and dramas of the life in and around a tree most people are not aware of. Then, as trees fall down in the forest, Filine starts to fear that one day she will lose the special oak tree. The rebellious girl makes a plan to stop the tree chopping in the forest. But what if nothing changes anymore? Once Upon a Tree is a youth documentary for children of all ages. The film is an intimate portrait of a young girl and her special relationship with the oak tree. An emotional insight into the creativity, fantasy and fears of this young girl who wishes her life would never change. Filine is convinced that if people took the time to look at the trees better they would see how special they are and they wouldn't chop them down.

Original title: Het Meisje en de Boom
Directed by: Marleen Van Der Werf
Cinematography: Dick Harrewijn, Marleen Van Der Werf
Producer: HUMAN

Director Jayisha Patel travels to the province of Granma, Cuba, named after the yacht with which Fidel Castro, Ernesto Che Guevara and their revolutionaries landed in Cuba in 1956. There she encounters a young family who mourn the death of their son, who at merely twelve years of age committed suicide. It is lesser known for the tragic fact concerning the high suicide rate amongst the youth there. The film depicts the families’ grieving, accompanied by the community and searching for reconciliation in life.

Original title: Un Paraíso
Directed by: Jayisha Patel
Cinematography: Jayisha Patel
Producer: La Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión San Antonio de los Baños (EICTV)

Tut is a 52-year-old fisherman living in Kampot. In spite of the language barrier, he recounts for the first time and without any words his past during the Khmer Rouge regime, demonstrating the torture he experienced in prison the year he turned fifteen.

Directed by: Alexandre Liebert
Cinematography: Emilie Arfeuil
Producer: Guy Ratovondrahona

On 3 October 2013, a boat carrying 500 Eritrean refugees sunk off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa. More than 360 people drowned. Abraham, one of the survivors, walks through a graveyard of shipwrecks and vividly remembers the nightmarish experience. Meanwhile at the harbour, hundreds of coffins are being loaded onto a military ship.

Directed by: Morgan Knibbe
Cinematography: Morgan Knibbe
Producer: Deepfocus

This short, black-and-white documentary, features people who live in a depopulated village, destroyed by the war, in the south of Nagorno-Karabakh. Impressionistic pictures from the life of an older woman and her son show them drying huge amounts of walnuts in their devastated house, which is their only occupation. Everything here seems to occur as if in a daydream and the oneiric atmosphere and the woman’s story about the dead that haunt her under the walnut tree at the spring come as no surprise.

Polish title: Rodnik
Directed by: Marcin Sauter
Cinematography: Marcin Sauter
Producer: Fundacja Bydgoska Kronika Filmowa
Polish distributor: Fundacja Bydgoska Kronika Filmowa

Aneta ‘rebelled to the max’ at the age of nineteen and wound up in prison for murder. Nine years later, her daily routine takes her from behind the walls of the prison to a care home for the elderly. One of the residents, Helena, has been ill ever since infancy. She is fascinated by Aneta’s personality and story of her life.

Polish title: Punkt wyjścia
Directed by: Michał Szcześniak
Cinematography: Przemysław Niczyporuk
Producer: Studio Munka - Stowarzyszenie Filmowców Polskich
Polish distributor: Krakowska Fundacja Filmowa

Superunit is a huge apartment block designed in line with Le Corbusier's vision as a “housing machine”. This 15-storey building can accommodate up to three thousand people. The lift stops every third floor, and therefore in order to reach their apartments, residents must walk through a real labyrinth of corridors and stairs. The main characters of the documentary are people living in the Superunit, where they experience important moments of their lives. There, their emotions pulsate, their hopes are born and their desires are – or, perhaps, are not - fulfilled. Seven hundred and sixty two entrance doors to seven hundred and sixty two stories. The authors introduce only some of them.

Polish title: Superjednostka
Directed by: Teresa Czepiec
Cinematography: Paweł Dyllus
Producer: Wajda Studio sp. z o.o.
Polish distributor: Wajda Studio sp. z o.o.

What are the limits of personal sacrifice? How much responsibility can one person take on? The film tells the story of a match factory worker who takes up a remarkable challenge. We observe several crucial months in her life, as she attempts to turn her dreams into reality. It’s the story of extraordinary transformation, and of a love that gives her life meaning.

Directed by: Paweł Łoziński
Cinematography: Paweł Łoziński, Wojciech Staroń
Producer: Łoziński Production sp. z o.o.
Polish distributor: Łoziński Production sp. z o.o.