Looking at past or present struggles one cannot ignore that what confronts us is not a series of isolated crises – everything is interconnected. Environmental destruction, the precarity of labor, the erosion of freedoms, racism and the rise of the far-right, wars, and even genocides, are not parallel developments but instead are woven into an ongoing logic of extraction and control, of profit and power.

History is not predetermined; it is a series of events that build over time, forming patterns of thought, of economic policies, of cultural and racial divisions.

History also teaches us that living on the verge requires collective solidarity. Resistance begins not in isolation, but in gathering. In listening and questioning, even ourselves. In exchanging ideas. In asking how to resist and how to strengthen communities. In imagining better alternatives and creating opportunities for collective reflection and action, sharing perspectives. In learning from the past and present struggles.

The films in PAST CONTINUOUS denounce inherited violence – be it ideological, colonial, economic, racial or genocidal – by exposing its roots and repudiating its “normalization” into history’s “grand narrative”. On one hand, it could be localized, such as the struggle for justice and dignity in the aftermath of the 2020 far-right extremist attack of Hanau in DAS DEUTSCHE VOLK, the efforts for peace and mediation clash against fueled ethnic tensions in PEACEMAKER’s Croatia, retaining a neighbourhood’s decades-old legacy of solidarity and communal living in IL PILASTRO, colonial erasure of Argentina’s indigenous Chuschagastas in LANDMARKS, or continuing fight against occupation, oppression and negation of existence in our shorts program INTERSECTING MEMORIES. On the other, its more general ramification is exposed through SOMETHING FAMILIAR’s investigation of inherited family narratives,  EVIDENCE’s procedural examination into the century-old manufacture of American neo-conservatism and WTO/99’s retrospective analysis of corporate power’s impunity and control over civic liberties. Yet the loudest condemnation and most resonant forewarning comes from the past itself, in Raoul Peck’s cautionary-tale portrait of George Orwell and his work in ORWELL: 2+2=5.

IT IS NOT THE HOMOSEXUAL WHO IS PERVERSE, BUT THE SOCIETY IN WHICH HE LIVES marked a watershed moment for gay rights. Fiercely political and camp, its critical look at 1970s contemporary gay culture and its conformity within modern, capitalist culture echoes loudly even today. One World Romania revisits this relevant and controversial film as a tribute to its prolific director, Rosa von Praunheim – whose recent passing leaves behind an indelible mark on activism, counterculture and Queer Cinema as a whole.

Inheritance is inevitable. How we carry ourselves forward is a decision that requires lucidity, rationale and most importantly, objective hindsight.