Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki

This emotional film by the award-winning director Tony Palmer includes a performance of the “Third Symphony” by The London Sinfonietta alongside powerful footage of Górecki at Auschwitz and Birkenau.

"Born in Palestine. Died in Lebanon." "Born in Palestine. Died in Syria." "Born in Palestine. Died in Jordan." The camera pans across an endless row of white tombstones. The Shadow of Absence takes death as its subject yet in doing so presents a powerful statement about Palestinian life. Weaving elements of his own story of dislocation into the Palestinian collective narrative, filmmaker Nasri Hajjaj reverses the usual focus of the Nakba documentary by exploring the denial of the Palestinian right to death and burial in the homeland.

Mourning. Funerals. The origins of culture are built on farewells. Burial mounds, tombs, mausoleums and pyramids were filled with objects that belonged to the departed. Bandaged, mummified, they were buried alongside their owners since they were extensions of their hands, legs and bodies. An eighteen day vigil in the Modern Art Gallery of Majewski’s native town of Katowice was an attempt to pay a simple homage to a young woman who died in a car accident. It evolved into a mysterious ritual connected to the myth of the fountain of life-giving blood, an archetype of female cyclicality. Reminiscent of priestesses from Böcklin paintings, silhouettes in lucid gowns moved in a slow motion making the audience participate in a ceremony that felt like an ancient funeral, creating a symbolic mausoleum at the Gallery.

Stopover in Dubai is a chillingly simple – and riveting – found-footage documentary on a reconstructed murder. The original film was produced by the Dubai State Security service, edited from CCTV footage recorded in and around the Dubai hotel where Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was found dead, his room locked from the inside. Al-Mabhoub was a founder of a military branch of Hamas, and was reportedly on Mossad's hit list (though he had other enemies as well). The retrieved footage tracks the team of no less then 26 assassins on their way to the kill. Marker took the film as it is and replaced the news program’s generic, royalty-free, techno-lite soundtrack with a haunting, ominous string composition written by Henryk Górecki for the Kronos Quartet.

Stopover in Dubai is a chillingly simple – and riveting – found-footage documentary on a reconstructed murder. The original film was produced by the Dubai State Security service, edited from CCTV footage recorded in and around the Dubai hotel where Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was found dead, his room locked from the inside. Al-Mabhoub was a founder of a military branch of Hamas, and was reportedly on Mossad's hit list (though he had other enemies as well). The retrieved footage tracks the team of no less then 26 assassins on their way to the kill. Marker took the film as it is and replaced the news program’s generic, royalty-free, techno-lite soundtrack with a haunting, ominous string composition written by Henryk Górecki for the Kronos Quartet.

In the heart of a deep forest runs a river. On its banks, men and women sit and talk, opening up to each other. In this remote setting conducive to reflection, they wonder what it takes to attain inner peace, debate the wisdom of passing something on to future generations and realize that, in love, the perfect ‘soulmate’ is a near-impossible ideal. The sun sets behind the mountains and the swimmers bitterly acknowledge the failure of certain dreams, but still find meaning in contemplating nature, the stars and the moon.

By giving farmers a voice and showing their struggle for survival, this sensitive portrait of farmers shows a contemporary peasant world, revealing its profound culture and interrogating the present state of the world.

Christopher Wheeldon's Within the Golden Hour is based around seven couples separating and intermingling, to music by Vivaldi and Ezio Bosso and lit with the rich colours suggested by sunset. In Flight Pattern, Crystal Pite combines Górecki's haunting “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” with a large dance ensemble to create a poignant and passionate reflection on migration. Between them, Medusa is new work inspired by the Greek myth, created for The Royal Ballet by the acclaimed choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, which juxtaposes Purcell arias with an electronic score by Olga Wojciechowska.