A stunningly beautiful lyrical journey in love and loss, in tradition and imagination, in memory and death set in central Russia. Aist and Miron, two friends, embark into a farewell road trip dedicated to Miron’s wife. Their destination? A royal fire for
What shall we do when we only have a few hours to retrieve the lost time? United by an unexpected roughness, a father and a daughter who hardly know each other try to answer this question.
The less you know about this surprising debut feature by talented british auteur Alicia Duffy, the better. An immensely intense psychological journey, gradually navigating the audience towards the point of resolution through a subtle power of its plot tha
Can a summer be a bummer? Not for this group of college friends that met up by accident and continued hanging out aimlessly, enjoying the beginning of their summer vacation. Isaac breaks up with Maya and joins up with his older brother Ben and his ex-girl
First we are troubled by the references to the past made by the protagonist while diving into the sea. The incompatibility grows between what is seen and what is told as past, culminating in a birthday party. A touching example of how Time can be generous
Castro Marim was the place where sexual “deviants” (homosexual) were sent on an inner exile working on salt production as forced labour. A young girl is caught between remaining memories, a discovery of her body and a sexual experience with another woman.
Charlotte is a married woman and she works as a doctor. She secretly receives her patients in an immaculately decorated apartment that she rents without her husband knowledge. But are these encounters for real or obsessive sexual fantasies? After “Wolfsbe
A film that has as main actor a complex of tidal pools designed by Siza Vieira, in Leça da Palmeira. More than a record of a work of architecture, this is a film that explores the concepts of space and sound. A film about a place and its entrails, built with the solidity of rigorous plans. (C. R.)
There is a strange aura around the pool which is not only the threatening black clouds hovering over the water. The air is heavy, we breath it with difficulty, we wait for a majestic thunder announced. One by one, the various characters that inhabit this pool during the day arrive, as strange as the scenery around them. A girl without a leg, a boy who limps, one with Down syndrome and another that simply stopped talking. Air and water surround these young people, one by one, making them increasingly natural. Or were they like this when they arrived on the scene? The majestic thunder is coming, but it takes shape in the conflict between the four, under the apathetic gaze of the swimming coach. (M. M.)
Bao and his older sister travel in the carriage of a train. Each trip is always a different adventure. You never know what each day might brings as new. We never expect an accident. When a derailment occurs, the euphoria of the trip gives way to fear and despair. A delicate animation about the loss of a loved one. (C. R.)
A piece that brings historical and autobiographical memories of the author. In this first feature film Wahrmann incorporates with subtlety and fairness various filmic materials and layers of understanding that the film proposes. Andrew goes to live with his father after a separation. His brother disappeared during the military dictatorship in Brazil. The father lives alone and reclusive in his memoirs. His only company is a dog, Whale. The reunion between the two is difficult and distant. Hoping to get close to his father, André shows Super 8 films of his brother, filmed in the 70s. Visits to the Kremlin and hymns and Soviet choruses… This claustrophobic huis clos that revisits the ghosts of the past leads us to reflect on family memories and the fight against forgetfulness. In the role of the father, Carlos Reichenbach, icon of the new Brazilian cinema and recently deceased. (A. I. S.)
Trevor Newandyke is as bad a stand-up comic as he is a good pyromaniac. If he had these qualities reversed, perhaps his day-to-day life wouldn’t be as difficult as it is. The choices of Joel Potrykus, who writed, produced, directed and edited here his first feature film, are incredibly smart. Ape is not what it seems to be at first sight: the humorous tone masks the aggressiveness of a protagonist who is also a complete anarchist. The house, the bills, his work, are only accessory problems. What really matters is to set it all on fire. One day, Trevor finds the devil selling apples on a street stall and the two of them make a pact. A strange apple in exchange for a joke and behold, a Pandora’s box of chaos is opened. (M. M.)