The traits that distinguish humans from animals are a favorite topic in science and art. This topic is usually explored to emphasize our superiority. Historically, there have also been different, darker approaches to this idea: those who massacred Aboriginal peoples or exterminated Jews during World War II justified their actions by claiming their victims were less than human, closer to animals. “Time,” on the other hand, is a fluid concept, open to a wide range of interpretations. The era we live in calls for questioning everything we know and all the terminology we rely on. Civilization, for example. Environmental Impact Assessment reports. Tourism, art, media. All of these can—and should—be questioned.

The phrase ‘A leakage occurred in the gold mine’s waste pool’ represents more than just a leakage—it’s irony, humor, a scream, and a silence beyond words: fifty thousand tons of toxic liquid have leaked(!) This is the leakage. Meanwhile, a hungry child stealing bread becomes news as ‘theft.’ Here lies the unsettling truth: we can no longer trust language. And if we cannot trust language, what can we trust?

During the final talk of this year’s festival, I spoke about our commitment to not growing as a festival. I tried to explain how festivals receiving ten thousand film submissions annually have become detached from reality and truth, transforming entirely into commercial platforms. I also mentioned how documentary filmmakers from so-called developed countries (another term that desperately needs questioning) view the Third World as fertile ground for exploitation. They’ve exploited everything we have—our mines, fruits, vegetables, carpets, biodiversity—and now, they are exploiting our pain. At this point, I realize there was one more sentence I should have added: even this observation, the claim that Western documentarians exploit Eastern pain, is not an absolute truth. Exceptions exist, and our festival embraces these exceptions. Filmmakers like Alberto Vendemmiati, Roberto Lazzaretti, Christopher Walker, Katharina Weingartner, Marina Garzon Molina, Daniel Lambo, Andres Veiel, and countless others, whose names I cannot list here, journey from the West to the East in search of truth. This, too, should be said. It should have been said.

This is how it is. But we started with the concept of time, and here we are, burdened with the heavy and unbearable weight that the times we live in impose on us. What difference does it make to look at or look away from what is happening in Palestine? We bear the agony of being utterly powerless. Could you have imagined that those deciding the future of the world would not only remain silent about the mass killings of tens of thousands of children and civilians, the bombings of schools, churches, mosques, homes, and hospitals, but would actually endorse them? Endorsement from the countries of Rilke, Hesse, Adorno, Thomas Bernhard, John Dos Passos, Romain Gary, and Huizinga. We live shamelessly in an era where shame itself feels insufficient. There is no hope. How can we empathize with the wretched fathers running to a hospital that might be bombed at any moment, cradling their injured or lifeless children? This is the age of evil. Its legacy heralds a generation drenched in blood, a generation driven mad by pain.

And what about Sudan? Millions are starving—a hunger that defies expression in words. Yes, language has failed too, but how else can we communicate? Inevitably, through language again. Unfortunately and inevitably, through language. There is no other choice. Just as we are powerless to act against the meaningless statistics of children buried daily in the black earth—children deliberately killed in Turkish hospitals, in Palestine, or dying from starvation in Sudan. They are all children. Innocent. But does this word—innocence—even hold meaning anymore?

There is enough food to feed the children in Sudan, but it cannot reach them. Could we have protected the children in Palestinian and Turkish hospitals? At the very least, we can—and must—talk about this. About the meaningless terminology, the so-called developed but savage and ruthless nations, and the decayed concept of civilization. Silence serves the interests of the death merchants who rule the world. We must not stay silent. We must speak. This is all we can do: speak. Defending life against death begins with speaking. Even though language is flawed and inadequate, its remedy is also speaking.

This festival, we hope, offers a small, local, and slow space for all of us to speak. That is the purpose behind the year-long efforts of around twenty people and all the work that has gone into this.

And yes, the time has come: submissions are now open!

We are eagerly looking forward to seeing the films created by dedicated documentary filmmakers who, sometimes risking their lives, pursue the truth with passion and sincerity in every field of ecology, no matter where they are in the world.

With love, greetings, and wishes for peace…