Maden is the antithesis of this summer among family, with a lot of noise around the table. From the top of her 17 years, she begins to need less and less of her father and brothers and now has her little secrets. One of these, a passionate correspondence with a much older man who is in jail, withdraws her from the games and plays, from family life. Shalimar Preuss’ camera is as natural as the environment, merges with it, and takes Maden’s position even further, as she remains almost untouchable in her adolecent solitude. Alone against the world, no one will make her return as long as she doesn’t want to. (M. M.)
Africa is a nervous film, made out of hints that little by little hide and reveal intimate fragments of a man’s psychotic condition. Its rigorous construction, with a risky aesthetic full of contrasts and oppositions, makes it an experimental film with a truly original language. (Rita Figueiredo)
This animation tells the story of the Queen de Montparnasse, as she became known in the bohemian and creative Paris of the 1920s. Kiki de Montparnasse became the muse of major avant-garde painters of the early twentieth century and in this film her story is told using the different styles of each of those artists. (M. Moz)
At the motel Marín”, the most diverse “passengers” enter daily. Men in search of new experiences, romantic couples, prostitutes who earn their living by ensuring that they “like everything.” But there are also women who take care of the cleaning and other room services, each with their own story and vision of the world. (P. C.)
Before entering, a request: let’s forget what it means to watch a film, to be in a movie theater. Let’s face the colossus that is Leviathan from scratch, to better enjoy the experience that immerses all senses and swings a stormy voyage to the limits of nature and human strength. Filmed with twelve GoPro cameras (how many were lost in the process?), the film follows the travels of a fishing boat at sea on the east coast of the United States. The images are the look of Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel, but more so of the fishermen and the fish – living and dead ‚ that we encounter in these troubled waters. We feel the skin of each battle as if we abandon ourselves to the wind, the rain, at the mercy of a sea more distant than we are used to, sunny and seductive. Fancy forgetting Leviathan just to see it again for the first time. (M. M.)
A group of friends is walking in a dense forest. It’s summer, they have time to play with words, to lose to one another. One of the boys listens repeatedly to the same recording of the voices of the group. They have already been in that exact location, but they are not lost. The references announce an outcome to which they refuse to surrender. The meticulous work of image and sound of the film’s young director Jazmín López creates a space that is as real as it is magical. There is a tension in the rhythmic passing of time in Leones, sweet at first and then wild, agitated. Will the pack, as brave as this first film, receive the tragic end announced? (M. M.)
The film watches the life of an Amish family, living in harmony with animals and their religion. Time dilates. Each one of them has their task from morning until the end of the day. And when the sun sets, their eyes close gently. (M. C.)
You never know what to expect from Whateverest. Todd Terje is a Norwegian dance music producer and Inspector Norse is one of his productions. It is also the alias of Marius on the internet, a failed musician that teaches how to make homemade drugs. A current and captivating film to discover. (C. R.)
A family is suffering from an overgrowing debt which led to a deep depression of the father. Two brothers feel that they can’t just stand on the sidelines while their family falls apart. Up until now they were helpless, but now with Yaki’s enlistment to the army, like every other 18-year-old Israeli boy, he is given a rifle. Shaul, the youngest, follows Dafna, a girl from a good, wealthy family, home after school. They seem to have the perfect plan. This rifle gives them the power they need to act and from helpless teenagers they can finally become men. But every plan has a flaw. (A. P.)
A collection of drawings by hand on paper. Memories of a place, a time. Memories that are mental drawings of real things that we remember happened and existed. A train passing, people, someone waving in the distance, houses. I always thought I had a perfect memory. I never did. (C. R.)
A calm and secure voice reveals the story of two seemingly peaceful islands that serve as immense deposit: the first for unknown dead bodies, the second for all kinds of trash. They are our remains, our anonymous monuments, which society doesn’t know what to do with. (M. C.)
An old woman tells her life story. Most of the time it is not a happy story, but the way the puppet (that represents her) stands in the real world, shows how false expectations can be when one is young. This assertive and controlled documentary by Nylund shows us, however, that hope is the last to die. (M. V.)
Coni sings in a reggae band and is a single father to a three-year-old girl, captivating on screen. We feel very close tho this character that seems to be a contradiction between living the good life and the responsibility to ensure survival for both. Suddenly, everything changes. (A. P.)
When you don’t know, the truth is just what you decide it is. This is the motto for the story of the disappearance of a girl, who nobody believes will ever return. But Sam, with a hearing problem, has a visual memory which forces him to realise, that maybe he knows more about the disappearance than he previously thought. (M. Moz)
The illustrious and mysterious Grigori Rasputin, a mystical monk, a prophetic man with a beard and long hair, confidant of the czar, adept of orgies and other debauchery, hated by the aristocrats. The fascinating life of Rasputin animated by a masterly stroke full of movement and shadows. (C. R.)
We can’t say we didn’t know how it ended ‚ we are introduced to the totality of what we will see reconstituted in the beginning, with real images. But when Gauchet brings us closer, introducing us to Richard and the unexpected revenge that happens before his eyes, fiction shocks us by reality. (A. P.)
Some people spend their lives flying away from where they are. Olga, the lady from the kiosk, also has this desire. But she can’t leave. Until the winds and tides carry and transport here to where she wants the most. Melece carries in hermself the great Latvian animation school, in a deeply Swiss film, well animated and narratively au point”. (M. V.) “
A crime takes place and the characters of the crime are the building elements of the film itself – the décor, the music, the special effects, the ‘foley’, the author and the narrator – and each has their own idea of what the film should be. Thus a thriller” about abstract cinema is built, where everything is transfigured in an attempt to create a new language between the different parts that make up a movie. (R. F.)
