Nominations

• A Blooming Business by Ton van Zantvoort | The Netherlands 2009 | 52:00 min.

This is where the cheap roses in our flower shops come from: huge farms in Kenya. Images of a disaster illustrate the murderous cost of globalisation and our avarice.

• Bloody Mondays & Strawberry Pies by Coco Schrijber | The Netherlands 2008 | 87:00 min.

A filmic meditation about time and life, boredom, work, stress and perfect calm. A hypnotic mental journey.

• In Search of the Riyal by Kesang Tseten Lama | Nepal 2009 | 89:30 min.

Nepalese migrant workers in the Middle East: modern slaves, exploited to the maximum. A shocking report about a fiercely capitalist Asia beyond all romantic clichés.

• Nuclear NTR, Nothing to Report (RAS Nucléaire, Rien à signaler) by Alain De Halleux | Belgium, France 2009 | 58:00 min.

The privatisation of energy production, outsourcing of jobs in nuclear power plants, employees subjected to a ‘management by fear’ and their impact on our security. Terrifying.

• On the Border of Desperation (Förtvivlans Gräns) by Nima Sarvestani | Sweden 2008 | 58:00 min.

Fuel smugglers between Iran and Iraq, the most gruesome slog and a life at the limits of humane existence. Life in Iran beyond spectacular headlines.

• PianoMania – In Search of the Perfect Sound (PianoMania - Auf der Suche nach dem perfekten Klang) by Lilian Franck and Robert Cibis | Austria, Germany 2009 | 93:00 min.

Lang Lang, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Alfred Brendel cannot work without him. The portrait of a piano tuner who is a master of his profession. The precision of music, craft and film.

• The House (La Casa) by Tayo Cortés | Colombia, Spain 2009 | 70:00 min.

Sisyphos in Bogotá: a garbage collector’s family caught in a cycle of poverty and misery and a fatal ménage à trois. A narrative as powerful as a Greek tragedy.

• Shanghai Fiction by Julia Albrecht and Busso von Mueller | Germany 2009 | 133:00 min.

A migrant worker, a businesswoman, a university professor and a German architect in the Chinese Babylon of the 21st century. A forced march through contemporary urban madness on film.

• The Hectic Life of a Dismissed Worker (La tumultueuse vie d'un déflaté) by Camille Plagnet | France 2009 | 59:00 min.

The 'Great Z' who used to be a machinist for the Burkina Faso national railway lost his job, friends, wife, everything. A tragicomedy as restless, melancholic and brilliant as this poet of the redundant ones.

Sanya and Sparrow (Sanja i Worobei) by Andrei Grjasew | Russia 2009 | 61:00 min.

Two lost souls in a Russian quarry. Endless dialogues in no man’s land, friendship at the bottom end of existence – and an unexpected happy end.