For the first time in the history of Tempo Documentary Festival, a short film inaugurates the festival. The 14-minute-long Man with Pigeons is a film about tenderness, disgust and devotion by Lina Maria Mannheimer, who in 2019 participated in Tempo with the feature film documentary Parning. Man with Pigeons depicts a man in the Paris district of Marais, who daily – and to the horror of some residents – feeds and looks after some of the city’s most hated creatures. The film is competing for SEK 25,000 in the Tempo Short Award, which is the festival’s competition section for short documentaries. The prize is awarded in collaboration with the Swedish Film Institute. The 22nd edition of Tempo Documentary Festival opens on 8 March and runs until 14 March. This year, the overall theme is ‘Tempo moves home’ and the festival will be digital.

Other titles in the Tempo Short Award category will be announced at a later date. In the category for feature film documentaries competing for the TEMPO DOCUMENTARY AWARD, the following titles are nominated:

ABOLIS RESA by Yasaman Sharifmanesh
ARICA by Lars Edman & William Johansson Kalén
BE MY VOICE by Nahid Persson
DRÖMPRINS by Jessica Nettelbladt
EARTH: MUTED by Mikael Kristersson, Åsa Ekman & Oscar Hedin
FLY SO FAR by Celina Escher
IMADS BARNDOM by Zahavi Sanjavi

Among the nominated feature-length documentaries is Imads barndom (Imad’s childhood), in which the filmmakers closely follow the Yazidi woman Ghazala and her two young boys who return to Iraqi Kurdistan after two years in captivity with IS. Will the traumatised and aggressive 4-year-old Imad be able to return to a normal childhood? World premiere at Tempo.

It will also be a world premiere for Fly so far, a depiction from El Salvador where a miscarriage can lead to the woman being convicted of murder. The film follows Teodora, who is to serve 30 years in prison for murdering her stillborn daughter, and her and 17 other women’s fight against their senseless punishments.

In Arica, the filmmakers dig into the poison scandal surrounding Boliden’s export of sludge to Chile in 1985. Most of the waste ended up on ground next to a playground. Today, 35 years later, a high percentage of the inhabitants of the small community have been affected by cancer.

Earth: Muted depicts the life of three cultivators in southern China who go against the authorities’ requirements for recommended spraying of food. These demands have led to a large number of the earth’s bees being eradicated and growers resisting by carrying out organic farming and hand pollination.

In Be my Voice, we meet the journalist and women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad who has started a movement on social media against hijab compulsion in Iran. Thousands of women film themselves without veils and stand up to the regime despite being subjected to beatings and imprisonment.

In Drömprins, we get to follow 27-year-old Erik who has gender dysphoria and embarks on a long pilgrimage to try to find the meaning of life and to heal body and soul.

Aboli’s resa (Aboli’s journey) has its world premiere at Tempo and depicts 17-year-old Abolfazl who, after three years in Sweden, is deported and lands in Kabul, Afghanistan for the first time in his life. Once there, he is informed that he has been offered a job in Sweden, but how can he get back without the required ID documents?

Tempo Documentary Award is arranged in collaboration with the Swedish Film Institute. The prize is SEK 75,000 and goes to the film’s director. All nominated films will be shown during Tempo Documentary Festival March 8-14, 2021. The prize will be awarded to the winner at the closing gala on Saturday, 13 March.

The entire festival program and digital festival passes will be released on 10 February on tempofestival.se