All Films

Paradiso

2008 • 10 min

The viewer is led through 2 adjoining rooms: a white anti-chamber that leads onto a very high, black room via a small door. In the Paradise of Cesena church, we are suspended in a region that is inaccessible to the human eye, where what can be seen is shown as a mark in the visible area.

Sparkling Love

2008 • 3 min • Brazil

Danzak

2008 • 19 min • Peru, United States of America

Nina is a ten-year-old girl whose life dramatically changes when her father, a master Scissor Dancer, asks her to fulfill his last wish.

The Beetle

2008 • 55 min • Israel

Yishai Orian, the owner of an old Volkswagen beetle is about to become a father. His mechanic says that the car will not last long, while his wife complains that the car is unsuitable for a baby. Attempting to keep his beloved car, Yishai goes on a journey that begins with the previous owners of the beetle, continues to Jordan to renovate the old car, and ends with the birth of his first child.

Amapô

2008 • 12 min

Through a life story the film deals with issues related to human rights, such as the right to difference. The character's life is presented from others, otherness as a logic. The spectators complete the senses and gradually realize that this is a homosexual who, still in his adolescence, became a transvestite; "Amapoa" is a term that comes from Yoruba and has become transvestite slang for women. The film has a brutal ending, revealing that the character suffered a strong violence. Homophobia. The approach leads to identification with the character and allows reflections on the intolerance of today's society.

Reflexions

2008 • 60 min • Sweden

The purpose of the work is to illuminate the human process in the 21st century. In times of personal independence and immense opportunities relationships have become non-relationships. The nature of being human thus becomes a complex navigation through dangerous waters where everyone feeds on their neighbor and the possibility of love is blocked by a constant emotional distortion, yet there are no boundaries; the field opens up a plethora of crossroads. The individual loses sense of direction and amidst confusion there is the future, as distant as it seems, ever present, irreversible.

Dambis

2008 • 28 min • Latvia

The Latvian underground icons Dambis' portrait - reflections on the past and today. The film includes video material from the musician's personal archive.

Sugiharti Halim

2008 • 10 min • Indonesia

What's in a name? For Sugiharti Halim, though, a name can lead to a never-ending question. At times funny, annoying, and contradictory: Does one really need a "real" name? Can you sell your name? Is it true that you can hide your identity behind a name? "Sugiharti Halim" offers a perspective that is comical, provocative, contextual, and deserving to be re-examined today.

Tainah

2008 • 1 min

Experimental film shot on a cellphone.

Victims of Love

2008 • 5 min • Russia

A story about two friends hopelessly in love with one great actress.

Can't Complain

2008 • 29 min • Sweden

Tuva's father is a psychologist and her mother is mentally ill. Tuva flies to the imaginary friends from one of her dad's porn videos.

Twinkl

2008 • 52 min • France

Martinique Island, 1974. Inspired by the writings of the Martiniquais poet and politician Aimé Césaire (1913-2008), the dreamer Robert Saint-Rose, known as Zétwall (Star in Creole), aspires to be the first Frenchman to step on the lunar surface.

Arton

2008 • 11 min • Sweden

A young couple is arguing about a pregnancy, getting a job and about an uncertain future.

510 Meters Above Sea Level

2008 • 16 min • Switzerland

A small airport in Switzerland. Simone has to attend her father's funeral. But she misses her connecting flight. Natalie is waiting. For whom, she doesn't know yet. Two strangers, caught in a night with no morning.

Playing the Taar

2008 • 36 min • Afghanistan

Ay Nabaat is a 17-year-old girl from the Turkmen ethnic minority in Afghanistan

Pablo Dacal y el misterio del Lago Rosario

2008 • 60 min • Argentina

A monolith is the excuse for a journey to an obsession full of charms and, like every dream, also some disappointment.

Bolinao 52

2008 • 57 min

Following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, hundreds of thousands refugees took the perilous escape route across South China Sea to find freedom. Many died of drowning or starvation and thirst. Others were lost at sea, or robbed and killed by pirates. More than 30 years later, no major film or television program has told their stories. Bolinao 52 presents this long-silenced voice, an unspoken legacy of the Vietnam War. Filmmaker Duc Nguyen, also a boat refugee, retraces the odyssey of Bolinao 52 – a vessel adrift on the sea for 37 days—and a survivor Tung Trinh as she returns to her past to tell her story.

Simone de Beauvoir: A Contemporary Woman

2008 • 52 min • France

An insight into the novelist and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, who was also a political activist and feminist.

The Songbird

2008 • 52 min • Iran

A documentary following four women from northern Khorasan, as they tell the story of their lives through their relationship with music, and their tar, a small guitar-like stringed instrument. One of them, who was put in jail to protect her husband, only returned to find that he's remarried, the woman describes what her music meant to her at different points in her life and what playing her tar means to her now. Even though they suffer many social prejudice and segregation on a daily basis the film depicts how music soothes them and they manage to release their pain through music.

Work

2008 • 5 min • Slovenia, Germany

Simple truth of modern world in a funny way.

Memory of the Cactus

2008 • 42 min

A 42 minute documentary film that combines the cactus and the memories it stands for. The film addresses the story of the destruction of the Palestinian villages of Latroun in the Occupied West Bank and the forcible transfer of their civilian population in 1967. Over 40 years later, the Israeli occupation continues, and villagers remain displaced. The film follows two separate but parallel journeys. Aisha Um Najeh takes us down the painful road that Palestinians have been forcefully pushed down, separating them in time and place from the land they nurtured; while Israelis walk freely through that land, enjoying its fruits. The stems of the cactus, however, take a few of them to discover the reality of the crime committed.

Flap Your Wings!

2008 • 10 min • Latvia

Even if you’re born to fly, it's not an easy thing to learn. And not everyone succeeds.

Bhatir Purush

2008 • 50 min • Bangladesh

This documentary unfolds the life and works of legendary 'baul' artiste Shah Abdul Karim. Abdul Karim was born in a low land area in Sunamganj district nearly hundred years ago. The place remains submerged almost eight months of the year. Karim never had a chance to attend school. But the gifted rhymester learnt from his surroundings, the people and nature and in time, he turned into a living legend. Karim has earned hundreds of awards including 'Ekushey Padak,' the highest national award in Bangladesh. The documentary narrates many untold aspects of Karim's life. Throughout the documentary, the 'baul samrat' (King of bauls) speaks on various facets of his music and life, including the approximate number of his songs, his 'murshid' (mentor), his second wife Sarala (whose inspiration was remarkable on his music) and many other aspects.

Don't Worry!

2008 • 21 min • Russia

Debut short film by Roman Karimov.