A group of friends get together for a birthday dinner. It’s the end of the meal and the atmosphere’s high: people are singing, drinking, hugging each other, telling jokes. Then someone asks a riddle: “In the Amazon, three ants are walking on a tree stump‚Ķ”. The evening will soon change tune.
Sometimes under the nose of a man there are things that only he fails to see. A tortoise that will not move from the same place reveals the stubbornness of a man who goes to the other side of the world to find it. An animation with color and different scales, based on a short story by Almada Negreiros. (Carlos Ramos)
August 1, somewhere in the Aubonne countryside, Cécile and her ten-year-old daughter Marion have just acquired an old 1970’s Ford Taunus estate car. But their voyage is delayed incessantly. Perhaps, however, the way ahead will open up for Cécile and Marion once the problems have been solved. As far as the moon.
If one day the earth stopped rotating around itself, one of the sides would loose the light from the sun. But if someone read a sequence of phrases out loud, during that time a light brighter than daylight would shine. In a film textured of engravings and collages, this story is told ‚ an imaginative narrative, disturbing and prophetic. (Miguel Valverde)
“Life at a Distance” is the title of Haruki’s unfinished novel. Yoshido is preparing a film of the same name based on his deceased friend’s manuscript. When Martin meets Haruki’s ghost near the forest that borders the house he doesn’t yet know that he’ll become the main character in this distant life.
A young mother, two children, and the fragments of a day in a Parisian suburb.
For Roque, arriving from the countryside, the University in Buenos Aires was an opportunity to meet girls, but it is with politics that he falls in love. Between classes and parties where popularity, curiosity and insecurities are measured, everyone is looking for themselves, but Roque is discovered by the intriguing Paula and her passionate speech. In more or less informal conversations, students talk about capitalism, marxism, quote Rousseau or Hobbes, discuss the necessity of war and the hypothesis of a new social order. When differences seem to divide the Student Union, chaos is installed and Roque steps in as a leader, fighting for a righteous education. With a raw style, hand-held camera and closed shots that bring us close to the characters’ struggles (interior and exterior), we stumble on them as they stumble on each other. (Ágata Pinho)
Mathieu, 15 years old, a student at an agricultural high school in France, works part-time on Paul’s farm, a small-size dairy farm on the plateaux of the Haut-Doubs region bordering Switzerland.
With a varied iconography working as a stimulating dialogue, the director portraits the life of a conman. The set of animated pieces illustrates his vices and troubles as cards, women, applause, decline and ascension follow on. Music and distant sounds, of people and places lost somewhere in 1963, ignite the experience. In an offish bar we listen to conversations, billiard balls colliding and a lonesome piano. The collage of stimulus immerses us, agitates us, soothes us and it is our breath that slows down as the films’ rhythm slackens and we gain space to think about what we just absorbed. A voice whispers you lost something, the most precious thing that children possess and in between destructions, life is gambled, consumed, money gained and money lost. (Ágata Pinho)
Written in two movements like a musical score, “Kinogamma” meanders in a melodious evasion. From a slow movement based on a bluish arpeggio, it slips into a staccato rhythm followed by an orangey-colored trance. A melody rises and the camera lovingly films the poem, embracing unfamiliar faces.
The tormented escape of a young African from his native land. The search for a better world, where war is not a part of everyday life. Even when the will of one man is unshakable, everything else around can play a prank on him. An animation that leaves us breathless as we accompany this bitter journey. (Carlos Ramos)
Josh returns to Buenos Aires for an unpaid internship, he is searching for something maybe nothing non the less trying to reconnect with his previous visit to the city and it’s people, with a girl lost from his life. Older and wiser he feels estranged without really having a realised connection of his place, he seems lost. Suddenly, behind the flowery wallpaper in his bedroom wall he receives a surreal knock. At the other side is Anna signaling her presence. He listens for a while but still Josh appears not to be present of his life. Hoocked on skype and imaginary e-mails he is not getting in touch. Absence appears to be the main theme of the film, its atmospeare nichelic and emotionally confused, caught between past the present. (Nina Veligradi)
Thibault has many responsibilities despite his age: he takes care of his flock, of his bees and of his land. The little man dominates his work perfectly. We return to the essence of life, earth, fire, water… We find his dreams, his problems, his friend Ophélie who comes from the city and some of his friends. (Miguel Cabral)
About two young people formatted by a culture of success with two men embodying a nihilistic and dematerialized vision of the society.
For Alex and Nica (Gael Garcia Bernal e Nani Furstenberg), in love and soon to be married, the world is bright, colorful and the objects around them so incredibly alive that they seem like toys. Everything is allowed. They are young and will spend this Summer discovering the Caucasus Mountains, in Georgia. Dato, their guide, shows them around and keeps them company, but as they dive in the royal green of the mountains, a gesture makes all the difference and seems to threat his masculinity, her protection, forgiveness as a rehabilitation of their relationship. Silence slowly replaces what were once automatic smiles and settles down between them, as they pack up the tent. The director, in her third feature film, adapts a story from Tom Bissel and shows us the most improbable, surprising shots. The music, with Richard Skelton’s piercing string composition, predicts the loneliness ahead. (Ágata Pinho)
It was a house, just like a one built of toy blocks.
Since the sea level was rising higher and higher,
the house too was built higher and higher.
This is a story of a grand pa living in the house and his memories of life with his family.
António, Zé Maria and João live in the House as they build it. For two years they restarted processes over and over according to their functions in the House. The transformations of the rooms forces constant changes in its organization. The rooms for eating, dressing or relaxing change. As do the inhabitants. Time passes. The inhabitants move into and out of shot. The camera doesn’t follow them. It stays there focusing on the particular. Natural light invades the geometric spaces, intensifying as the work advances. The sound environment also changes. The silences intensify. The contrasts are stronger and stronger. At the end we see the men who make the film for some, the work for others, or simply a house.
One evening, my grandfather Tahar died in palliative care. Zouina, his stepdaughter is there. Aziz, his son is there. Fayçal is there. I am there. God is not there? Kamel arrives too late.