In a winter’s night, a rescue team tries to save a group of alpinists stuck in the mountain. Through the radio, a man fights to keep a girl alive with what he has: words. We never see her and, suddenly, the plot becomes more dense in the end and in the sk
In the 1930’s an Abbot in French Normandy was publishing a revue which would answer the very practical sexual question of his readers. Using the letters, the film unfolds a portrait of rural France, the ignorance, the fears, the will to be part of the flo
Filmed in Super 8mm, this film tell us the story of an ambulant sharpener who crosses spaces in a country (almost) lifeless. The universe of director Patrick Mendes is a very particular one, it’s situated at the opposite side of sensationalism. And we dis
A film begun as a portrait of S, a 75 year old man living in a remote part of Inverness-shire. S has been obsessed with Darwin’s works for much of his life. Since a child he has wondered at life on Earth and, though he never became an academic, found in Darwin many answers to his questions.
The drawings of a journey’s journal come to life. The pages of the graphic journal maintained by Herguera throughout the years he was in India, give place to the story of Inês and Ámár and to the recollections of the last visit. A film about feelings and
Tao Gu visits the city of his parents, devastated by the China’s earthquake of 2008. With an astonishing black & white photography, the ruins are filmed, the physical ruins of the buildings and the emotional ruins of the survivors. A film that inevitably
First feature film of Sergio Caballero, one of the directors of Sonar Festival. Two ghosts ‚ recognizable by their white garments ‚ go on a journey to Finisterra. A singular humorous and beautiful film, reminding us the Monty Python’s odysseys. Superb i
A group of children in Tangier in a project of a movie, oriented by a young European director. These children take a camera and shoot for the first time. But the director’s methods with them reveal its difficulties and they end up questioning the project’
It’s summer and it’s hot. The dogs are barking. It’s time to ask for the neighbor’s cutting grass machine. The editing rhythm takes us in an electric and original ambiance, where insects, as well as neighbors, have a place. (M.C.)
During an opulent and luxurious banquet, complete with contingents of servers and valets, eleven pampered guests participate in what appears to be a ritualistic culinary carnage. In this phantasmagoric, otherworldly universe an unexpected sequence of events destabilizes the endless symphony of abundance.
“Dog Memory” shows us the story of a no owner’s dog that was once a man. Animation in two times, with two kinds of images and sound, we soon discover that luxury is the capital sin which gives the film its tone. This unusual animation in Portugal really i
What shall we do when little details become tragic questions of life? Football in two different levels. The first one, the unexpected results of a decision in the enemy field. The second, a poetic one, like a repetitive element in a melody which is more e
Two African-American twenty-somethings wake up in bed together having no recollection of how they arrived there. It’s clear they’ve had sex. Then, an exercise in the mundane; shake hands, part ways. Hours later, the guy shows up at her apartment. There’s a connection. Wandering the streets of San Francisco on a Sunday afternoon, the pair take in the sights of the city less seen in today’s cinema.The immediacy of their previous physical encounter leads them to explore each other in a succession of moments so intimate the vulnerability they share changes them forever. By the time these two part ways is it literally a “brand new day.”
Bobô is a film whose narrative comes from the meeting of two women, Sofia and Mariama. The engine of the film is the synergy created between them in the defense of a child. Sofia, the protagonist of the film, is a character who lives trapped in the shadows of her childhood, the weight of their “heritage”, from which it is urgent to break free. Mariama appears as someone also linked to this “inheritance.” She follows the rules demanded by her belonging, but at a certain moment she is forced to disobey to change the fate of little Bobô and prevent her from being subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM). Characters Sofia and Mariama were redesigned with actresses Paula Garcia and Aissatu Indjai (debuting in this film), who put a lot of their experiences, personality and beliefs in them. We did a lot of research and reading, field work with the immigrant Guinean community, did some testing. This preparation allowed us a safe shooting, with space for improvisation. I think Bobô is a film with an undoubtedly feminine internal optic and logic, but the feminine here is not, as is so often portrayed, in the field of what is earthy and tangible. It lies instead with issues that transcend us: the relationship with death, the rules of the World, things that we cannot name. (Inês Oliveira)
The invisible Gravity is compared with Karma, which commands Man’s experiential universe like gravity’s governance over the physical plane. Near a cement factory we see deformed mountains by series of blasts. Together with a man struggling to transport heavy recycle garbage to win over gravity (destiny).
The life, demolition and reconstruction of the Kopaszi dam. Shot for ten years long in a forgotten landscape in the center of Budapest. People living in houseboats and wooden houses, struggling against flood, snow and investors who want them to evict. 10 years in 20 minutes.
A man-bear, neither bear, nor man, in search of his true identity between the circus and the jungle. A film about melancholy and unsuitableness. An animation drawn in charcoal about the pursuit of happiness and the need for someone who understands. (Carlos Ramos)
Fiona, a 23 year old, is hired by a German family as a maid due to the unstable emotional condition of Claudia, the mother of the family. As the film progresses you get more into the compulsive behaviour of Fiona where she behaves according to the wishes and occasionally orders of the dysfuncional family that treats her more like a servant. She gets involved in the obsession of each member of the family playing her part in the little theatrical play they have created for themselves. Mother spends more of her time in repression pretending to be the mother of a plastic doll nursing it as if she was a child rehearsing for the future mother role, having Fiona participate in her fantasy. A newcomer German director with a very distinctive cinematic language and editing style participating in the line-up with her graduation film. (Nina Veligradi)