A quiet house, an open door in the middle of the night. But peace is an illusion ‚ a son murders his father with his own hands and walks the next four hours barefoot to the police station. A crime in a village in a mountain of rural Portugal and a breach in the center of a family. (A. P.)
Missing is probably the keyword for Reginato’s puzzle of memories. From the latin-american tower window of the Mexico City, hidden stories are launched during the troubled political period of the end of the 70’s. With rare Super 8 footage, Polvo sews this poetic essay ingeniously with guitars and ogives. (Miguel Valverde)
People gather in Zagreb’s central square to witness live the international trial of Ante Gotovina, a Croatian Lt. Gen., hero in his country, indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity. We only see people’s faces. An exercise in style about the emotional contagion in a political manifestation. (C. R.)
Developing from an idea of diptych, the story of Anajara and Allison is told from two perspectives in continuity. If late night work complicates the life of one of them, the incarceration in jail of the other determines a cycle of separation. Salaviza’s skill to direct amateur actors is showed in this film, one of his more precise works. (Miguel Valverde)
If there is a perfect ground between documentary and fiction, in which a film grows in stable equilibrium, Vigil Vernier found it innately. The strangeness of the routine of two strippers in a bar in Orleans mixed with the equally bizarre annual festivities in honor of Joan of Arc. Both girls understand each other. At night they are a fiction of themselves, during the day they plunge in the narration of the life of another woman, extending it to theirs. An environment not too far from Rohmer’s romantic surgery. At first we are nervous, we await the shock, but the spontaneity of colors and movements, dialogues, makes these events, however distant they may be, seem as natural as our own routine. (M. M.)
A disturbing portrait of a Brazilian celebration in Sergipe. Since the morning, bodies covered in mud, slide in a ferocious freedom to the forest, to the trees, shouting or in a deadly silence. At night, even the fireworks can be threating to the audience. Us. (Possidónio Cachapa)
Classical music requires some formality, but only while playing or rehearsing pieces. In the dorm of a music camp, two violinists awaken and become women in small things. Rose, a twelve-year-old flutist, wants to be like them. A well-constructed narrative about a forced growth in disharmony. (A. P.)
A man films, as usual for himself, another man undressing. In that moment, he believes in the words of Bethânia’s song, which speaks about loneliness deep inside destiny. But something might be born. There, in the midst of these sex solitudes. A fiction that shows the simplicity of love and relationships within São Paulo’s LGBT community. (P. C.)
Noelia seeks a mother, like a character seeks its author. From mother to mother we enter an absurd universe, accompanied by Noelia’s camera, which can be so inconvenient that at times leads us to despair. The actress of La Niña Santa has grown and shows us that a good idea is an excellent starting point for an intriguing and fun film. (M. V.)
The sound (of silence) and the visual treatment of the peculiar atmosphere of this devastated city in Russia where Nadya, 14, lives, are the elements that transport us to an almost completely different planet. The opinion of a geologist helps Nadya decide her future. (A. P.)
A poetic approach to the acts of growing up, growing to and growing into… This animation from Julia Pott takes us into all those states. What to do with an awkward body when you’re a teenager? The time where a friend becomes everything just before he got stuck at the bottom of ones personal deep ocean. (Possidónio Cachapa)
Leila is heartbroken, a sudden breakup comes like a hectic telegram ‚ÄòTake a plane stop, fly away stop, you’re going to be someone stop, I believe in you stop, I’m doing this for us stop’ What hurts the most in abandonment? Its suddeness. The decision that pops out of a person’s head without any prior notice. Leaving the other all alone to deal with emptiness. Breaking up is not a birthday cake that you serve as a surprise and after the candles are blown and is dark you disappear. It’s the moment of choise, do you start protecting yourself or you change and start over? Protecting yourself cuts you off from everything, life, surprises, love… but not smoking. Leila changed her life to cope with her birthday cake, gets up every morning and plays music, she is ready to love again putting herself at risk again cause that’s what is called living. (Nina Veligradi)
In his first solo work, the director reflects the images of the fire in Chiado in his character, wandering sadly while talking on the phone. Fire consumes the buildings and a love rupture consolidates. A game of projections creates a super-real atmosphere, rebuilding a beautiful part of Portuguese cinema. (Miguel Valverde)
Meet the craziest refugee centre in Scotland in this sarcastic dark comedy. Two passionate asylum-seekers are trying to make their way in an absurd world mixing the bureaucratic inhuman reality and, as a consequence, a no-man’s land where reality melts into dreams of a better life. (Karim Shimsal)
A Formal is a rite of passage with its savage roots living oblivious under prom dresses. A long shot, in slow motion, allows us to follow the transformation of the event into a primary ritual, with a sacrifice and the usual group photo that states that all is well and order preserved. (Ágata Pinho)
In the background an image of Tokyo is divided into four pannels. Side by side, the four seasons of the year permeate the Japanese capital. From one side to the other, people and objects travel from Spring to Winter. A film for the spectator’s eyes to wander and get lost. A small animation charged with poetry. (Carlos Ramos)
One must look into the tired eyes of those who hope one day to be able to communicate. Mother and daughter don’t know how. Maybe the dog can help, but maybe he can’t either. André Santos and Marco Leão are new voices in the national panorama and seek to assert their cinematography through narrative, not forgetting a formal side and a very accurate aesthetic. (M. V.)
In the squalor of a room, Maria awaits. The outside world is a dazzling spot that opens and closes, only to prove to her that there are places you cannot leave. A witness-film, harsh, sometimes unbearable, about those whom, unable to find their place in the world, sustain the weight of the pyramid. (P. C.)