A weekend night in Juan’s life is used as an excuse to meet a universe of men that seem reduced, not without frustration, to be mere spectators of their own lives.
Secção: Competição Internacional | International Competition
During several summers, PV Lehtinen filmed the visitors of a beach near Helsinki. One by one, or in groups, they are drawned into the camera, carrying their silent stories, thoughts and even their far origins. (Possidónio Cachapa)
Some science projects need some special ways to get data and funds. How can an amusement park help the neuroscience research? Well, let’s say there are some up and downs in this type of cooperation. A very funny film about some very serious questions. (Possidónio Cachapa)
An 18 year-old-girl called Joy has gone missing. Another girl called Helen is asked to “play” Joy in a police reconstruction that will retrace Joy’s last known movements. Joy had everything. A loving family, a boyfriend, a bright future. Helen, parentless, has lived in institutions all her life and has never been close to anyone. Helen begins to immerse herself into the role, visiting the people and places that Joy knew; quietly and carefully insinuating her way into the lost girl’s life. Is Helen trying to find out what happened to Joy that day, or is she searching for her own identity?
The tragedy of a man driven by the sexual desire for his daughter. Is it immoral? For some yes. Is it illegal? If it’s not expressed then no. Still Life could be one of the saddest and at the same time the funniest films of the year, constituting the simplest definition of tragedy. To make the long story short, if your name is not Lolita and your stepfather is your biological father it can be embarassing. How forbbiden is for a father to sleep with prostitutes naming them after his daughter and jerkking off with her childhood photos. An obvious object for him, unable to relate with her in a emotional way created an infatuation throughout his family life. A modern family tragedy filled with all the shame and guilt that surrounds the human existence. (Nina Veligradi)
A film about the passive consent (or resignation) of a prey being chased down by a group of predator. A boy can’t escape the circular movements of the camera, there is no exit. You could consider figuring out what is actually happening and facing a devastating true, or how collective submission may lead to self-destruction. (Karim Shimsal)
A poetic tale about a young couple who is looking for their natural place on Earth. It’s also a story about Europe and Poland, with its eternal exodus from East to West while many Western people, like the Dutch in this film, for the very same reason, are heading the other way round.
Not meeting the person on the other side is the rule at the random meetings online. What about if someone , a film director, for instance, decides to meet the person behind the video? A short film about the links and interferences with the physical presence of ex-total strangers. (Possidónio Cachapa)
Father and son share a common space. On one side there’s dexterity, experience and knowledge, on the other boredom and passivity. Controlling very well the natural surroundings and with a fair use of time, Hannon presents a moment of ambivalence of feelings between what stays and what is about to disappear. (Miguel Valverde)
The camera shows us the gestures, movements, rythms, repetitions, transforming the space filmed into a theatre. The film tells us the story of a neighbourhood in Recife, Brazil, where the absurd and the comic are a part of everyday life. (Miguel Cabral)
There is a very unique environment in Neighboring Sounds, a state of soul that dwells in the neighborhood of noises, strong images and intriguing characters. The spaces surrounding them have a mix of airy and suffocating and there is always a presence lurking on and off screen. In a middle-class neighborhood in the south of Recife, urban interactions are problematized: trust, respect, authority. A military group is to provide public safety and peace, but the waters are choppy and human relations stand complex and basic instincts interfere with the rules. Children play massages on their exhausted mother’s back, adults play casual love and try to keep themselves safe. The architecture, framing the landscape, is explored as a comment and foreshadowing that something isn’t working. (Ágata Pinho)
A surprising and enchanting animation, made completely out of wool. A man returns to the nudist camp where he was raised, to spend the last days with his mother. Above all a film about loss and the interior journey that begins when the life of a loved one ends. (Carlos Ramos)
In 1943 a cosmic ray research station was set up on the top of Mount Aragaz in Armenia. During the 1980s the team of scientists here embarked upon an ambitious research project which was never completed. Today the vast complex located at an altitude of 3,500 metres is home to only six isolated people.
Night sequence shot feeding from the inspiration in road movies. Here the landscape of typical “North American roadside” gradually becomes a built landscape: the neon lights are substituted by the human element in an installation/performance that brings the viewer into a new invented landscape. (Rita Figueiredo)
A young couple is spending the day in bed. He asks her, if she wants to marry him. At first she says no.
After witnessing the deaths of his mother and sister as a child, Sang-hoon grew up with rage and hatred towards his father who was responsible for their deaths. The shadow of his past overrules his present. One day, he meets a high school girl, Yeon-hee, who is also having a tough life after her mother’s death four years ago. Without realizing how their lives may be connected, Sang-hoon and Yeon-hee share some moments of relief and escape from brutal physical and emotional abuse and pain they face everyday.
Marc needs the paving stones on which he walks to move, for fear of stepping on the lines. He starts a treatment to overcome his phobia.
As he learns his mother died, a man who had left for France to find a job and a living is now returning to Portugal. We follow his wanderings, the places he forgot. We feel the stranger he has become in the eyes of the other people. Gone long ago, he didn’t know then he would lose everything. He has now to grieve his own way. (Karim Shimsal)