Six-year-old Andong is obsessed, and nothing, not even his mother’s constant nagging can help curve his persistent infatuation. So it didn’t come out as a surprise to anyone, when, one fateful day, the precocious little boy went into a mad frenzy over the prospect of landing the, much-coveted, love-of-his-life.
Sabina leaves Switzerland and her mother to go to Azerbaijan and be with her father and her sister. Emotionaly charged she is trying to balance herself between two worlds, two cities, two cultures, two identities. She is trying to bring things together, to form herself and also deconstruct the image of father-hero. The Azerbaijani culture and its strick tradition change the way she knows things work. What is beautiful in Switzerland is slutty in Azerbaijan yet she is willing to stay. An emotional journey into a separated family through the eyes of a 17 years old girl and through the lens of Eileen Hofer, refusing to decide between fiction and documentary, creates a honest cross-cultural portait of life, self-discovery and abandonment gaining two siters Sabina and Narmina. (Nina Veligradi)
A building-elephant escapes from a city built with animal bricks.
A skinny man, an ordinary man, wakes up and thinks: “It has to be today!”. It turns out that this skinny man has something very important to do, although a few tasks and a few domestic hazards on his way won’t let him to successfully accomplish his goal throughout a day that seems to last an entire life.
Maya recounts an incident from her childhood and finally in the ‘last act’ gathers courage to tell her father that he was wrong. The film is based on a real life incident involving young boy beaten to death by residents.
An accidental encounter between a person who wait and other than flees.
This is the story of a lonely man named John. He lives his life alone trying to connect with anything or anyone he can. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between hysterical laughter and hysterical crying.
While emptying the house where we lived all our life, we can find sleeping memories. Pedro finds a story from the past that connects him and his family to an armed revolutionary organization from the eighties, the period when his father disappeared. Pedro will have to revisit the past and in that journey he will awaken his survivors and bring to life his ghosts. Before, what mattered to his father and to his comrades were their politic ideals. Today, what matters to Pedro is to awake the Human story that everyone tried to hide and forget. One day, one has to do something, unexpectedly. As the “April Showers”.
The weather is great at the Mediterranean island Formentera opposite Ibiza, it’s summer and everything is loose. Nina and Ben, a Danish-German uptight couple arrive for vacation staying far away from work, their kid and all their daily routine. There, they interact with post-hippies friends of Ben’s. Everything seems laid back until the dangerous free-spirit of hippies interferes with the boundaries of the couple and Ben starts flirting with Mara. It’s the crucial moment in the script where things change direction and instead of having a couple re-connecting we have an existential nightmare for both protagonists, when a member of the trio ‚ Mara ‚ disappears. The structures are shaken, guilt enters their relationship and the script enters a dark territory right beneath the Mediterranean sun. Disciplined style of direction and a cinematography without sun-proof absorbing every glimpse of light. (Nina Veligradi)
The passion for cars and speed absorbs Alex’s life, pulling him away from his companion Rachel and their daughter. When driving his yellow car on the freeway, Alex accidentaly runs over a young man and runs. As guilt grows inside him, he is unable to forget the incident. Christophe Sahr’s first feature, Voie Rapide is definitely one of the great surprises of French filmmaking today, operating a well sustained narrative and a confident dominion of images that sometimes wink at Cronenberg and his film Crash. (Catarina Cabral)
The family doesn’t need stories, it only needs to be observed, as Radu Jude, filmmaker long linked to IndieLisboa, does in exemplary way in this 2nd feature film. What could be the beginning of a happy holiday becomes a nightmare for this father who just wants to spend time with his daughter, from whom he lives separate due to the divorce. The spiral of violence that the film proposes is consciously used by the director through the choice of close shots and hand-held camera, creating a huis clos to which the viewer feels as trapped as the character. And if you think that movies are only there for extraordinary storytelling, look inside. Then watch your backyard. (Miguel Valverde)
“… All the Stars” tells the story of Lea, a young man who falls of a precipice, survives, and after that tremendous event, begins to think that he has a gift of survival which he shows to his closest friends. But this “gift” ends up enslaving him with an unbearable weight that he cannot tolerate, fame.
Two polish friends work illegally in a sawmill in Norway. An accident shakes their everyday life and the spectator’s consciousness. A strong and precise directing, punctuated by small moments and shots of extreme intensity. A human approach, without excesses of sentiment, that encourages reflection. (Carlos Ramos)
Through the guitar and voice of António Zambujo, a consecrated fado singer, we hear the melody of a man who refuses to grow up, attached to his childhood memories. With meticulous lines and curious metamorphosis that conveys time, we feel like listening/watching until exhaustion to this emotional farewell to boyhood. (Miguel Valverde)
Rodri will be 47 soon and he hasn’t worked in eight years. His older sister tries to help him find a job, but it is not easy to persuade him to accept a job which is not up to his aspirations. A family drama where everyone gets mad because they all love each other. (M. Moz)
In just a few minutes and even lesser words, we are confronted with a short story which repeats itself three times a year, during seven hours. (M. Moz)
Ghali and Mohammed are two friends living in Casablanca. One is the son of a rich family, the other his employee. They drink alcohol, they want to wander around with a girl without being harassed, they try to be alive, young. But what can you do in a corrupted country that hates its youth? (Karim Shimsal)
In the middle of the forest, an old man insists on resisting the confusion of the world. The only sounds that he allows himself are the ones of Nature around him and the typewriter which composes his thoughts. An essential documentary about the vividness and clarity in the eyes of a man who refuses hypocrisy and worldliness. (P. C.)