2017 QUINZAINE THEME PROGRAM Special Acknowledgments to all the filmmakers, producers and distributors whose films are screened in BIEFF 2019 and to the following persons and institutions: 2 Concept 62 CAUGHT IN THE FRAME 6 Festival Board Alessandro Raja – Festival Scope Cristian Ignat – Canopy Festival Oberhausen Alexander Nanau – Film Monitor Association Cristiana Tăutu – British Council Laura Abrihan – Peggy Production Roxana Călinescu – Romanian Cultural Institute Alexandru Berceanu – CINETic Cristina Nițu – Fala Português Laurențiu Damian – Romanian Filmmakers’ Union Roxana Garet – Union Cinematheque 8 Festival Team 76GOLDEN SHORTS: BEST FILMS Alina Cantacuzino – Cervantes Institute Cristina Petrea – Manekino Film Liliana Costa – Agência da Curta Metragem Roxana Lăpădat – Austrian Cultural Forum IN MAJOR FESTIVALS Bucharest Daniel Ebner – VIS Vienna Shorts Liliana Ciurea – Embassy of in Roxana Trestioreanu – UNARTE National 9 UNATC / UNARTE Presentation 70 GOLDEN SHORTS I Adina-Ioana Șuteu – French Institute Bucharest Daniel Mareș – Lente Romania University of Arts Bucharest Alina Raicu – Embassy of Canada in Romania Daniela Mirodone – Fala Português Virgil Nițulescu – National Museum of the Rozana Mihalache – Green Hours Ana Agopian – CINEPUB Dietmar Schwärzler – Sixpackfilm 10 Partner Festivals 77 GOLDEN SHORTS II Romanian Peasant Salette Ramalho – Agência da Curta Metragem Ana Androne – Embassy of the Kingdom of the Edith van der Heijde – EYE Film Institute Lisa Linde Nieveld – EYE Film Institute Simona Necula – CEREFREA Villa Noël Netherlands Netherlands Stefanie Schulte Strathaus – Berlinale Forum 17 International Competition Jury Ana Mișu – TH Hotels Elena Belciu – CINETic Loredana Stroe – Embassy of the Republic of Expanded SIDE EVENTS Ana Serafim – Embassy of Canada in Romania Ezio Peraro – Italian Cultural Institute Argentina Ștefana Mărmureanu – Romanian Cultural 18 Opening Gala 82 FOCUS SPAIN: Essayistic Variations in Ana Ungar – TNT Felipe Guillermo Alvarez de Toledo – Embassy of Lucian Pricop – Romanian Filmmakers’ Union Institute Anamaria Antoci – Bucharest International Dance the Republic of Argentina Marian Bârcău – Canopy Tamina Bojoancă – Goethe-Institut Bucharest Contemporary Spanish Filmmaking Film Festival Filipa Henriques – Portugal Film Marina Neacșu – Goethe-Institut Bucharest Theus Zwakhals – LIMA Amsterdam 20 Closing Gala Anamaria Diaconescu – Hellenic-Romanian Florian Vimer – Lokal Markéta Šantrochová – Czech Film Center Thomas Kloiber – Austrian Cultural Forum Bilateral Chamber of Commerce François Bonenfant – Le Fresnoy Studio National Martijn te Pas – IDFA International Documentary Toril Simonsen – Norwegian Film Institute Anca Brezeanu – Sky Tour des Arts Contemporains Film Festival Amsterdam Tudor Ciortea – NouMax INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION Anca Mitran – Romanian National Film Center Gabriela Petre – Italian Cultural Institute Martine Dekker – Cinedans Dance On Screen Tytti Rantanen – AV-arkki Anca Pandrea – Lente Gabriela Trandafir – Embassy of Liban in Romania Festival Amsterdam Ulrich Ziemons – Berlinale Forum Expanded 22 LABOR OF LOVE/LABOR OR LOVE Andreea Chindriș - Ministerul Culturii Gabriela Suciu – Asociația Follow Art Matt Carter – LUX Artists’ Moving Image Urs Herren – Embassy of Switzerland in Romania International Competition I Andreea Dumitriu – Eastwards Gala Hernández – LUXBOX Miguel Dias – Curtas Vila do Conde International Valentina Neagu – Administration of the National Andrei Lixandru – Eventbook George Pascaru – Canopy Film Festival Cultural Fund 30 LONGING AND BELONGING Andrei Rus – One World Romania Hajnalka Kerekes – Romanian Ministry of Culture Miguel Valverde – Portugal Film & IndieLisboa Vesa Puhakka – AV-arkki Angelika Ramlow – Arsenal Institute for Film and and National Identity International Film Festival Voicu Rădescu – Green Hours International Competition II Video Art Berlin Hilke Doering – International Short Film Festival Mihaela Drăghici – Fala Português Wouter Jansen – Some Shorts Anna Abrahams – EYE Film Institute Netherlands Oberhausen Mihai Chirilov – Transilvania International Film Yvonne Irimescu – NexT Cultural Society 38 PUBLIC SPACE AND URBAN ANXIETIES Arthur den Hartog – Embassy of the Kingdom of Ioana Biriș – Eastwards Festival and to all BIEFF 2019 media partners, International Competition III the Netherlands Ioana Diaconu – Bucharest Fashion Film Festival Mihai Crăiță – Eventbook Bianca Lucas – Sarajevo Film Festival Ioana Dragomirescu – French Institute Bucharest Mihai Olaru – Nikon volunteers and other festival friends. Bianca Oana – Manekino Film Ioana Turcu – Eventbook Mihai Orășanu – MDV Film 46 THE HUMAN FLOW: HOME Brigitta Burger-Utzer – Sixpackfilm Austria Ionuț Drăghicean – BDG Mirona Radu – Peasant Museum Cinema IN THE AGE OF DISPLACEMENT Camelia Ciucă – Romanian National Film Center Irina Cios – Administration of the National Mirsad Purivatra – Sarajevo Film Festival International Competition IV Carmen Constantin – Administration of the Cultural Fund Monica Anita – TNT National Cultural Fund Irina Petrescu – French Institute Bucharest Natalia Andronachi – Austrian Cultural Forum Carmen Grigoraș – Embassy of in Isabella Alexandrescu – US Embassy Romania Natalia Trebik – Le Fresnoy Studio National des 54 HEALING VOICES: Romania Jenniffer Corrales – Romanian Ministry of Culture Arts Contemporains REMEMBRANCE AND REENACTMENT Carmen Stejeroiu – Romanian National Film and National Identity Noni Surugiu-Cândea – Point HUB International Competition V Center Jing Haase – Swedish Film Institute Nicolae Mandea – UNATC National University of Carsten Spicher – International Short Film Johannes Klein – The Festival Agency Theatre and Film Bucharest Festival Oberhausen Jonathan Pouthier – Centre Pompidou Paolo Moretti – Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, Călin Dan – National Museum of Contemporary Joost Daamen – IDFA International Documentary Cannes Film Festival Art MNAC Bucharest Film Festival Amsterdam Pavla Kallistova – ATHANOR Cătălin Bălescu – UNARTE National University of Juan José Felix – Embassy of the Republic of Peter Greenaway Arts Bucharest Argentina Peter van Hoof – International Film Festival Christophe Leparc – Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, Juhani Alanen – Tampere International Short Film Rotterdam Cannes Film Festival Festival Raluca Ganea – ARCUB Claudiu Sfirschi-Lăudat – Greek Cultural Jukka-Pekka Laakso – Tampere International Rana Mokaddem – Embassy of in Foundation Short Film Festival Romania Corina Burlacu – Eastwards Kevin Hamilton - Embassy of Canada in Romania Răzvan Bucur – ZeList Monitor Cornelia Popa – Cinelab Romania Lars Henrik Gass – International Short Film Rémi Bonhomme – Semaine de la Critique, Bucharest International Experimental Film

Festival BIEFF - Concept Starting with 2012, PETER GREENAWAY has become the HONORARY PRESIDENT of the Bucharest International Copel Moscu, Festival Director Experimental Film Festival BIEFF, Adina Pintilie, Artistic Director generously joining us in our educational initiative. PETER GREENAWAY is one Created under the patronage of the being to broaden perception, to open a BIEFF presents on one side an As for each of our editions, we are of the key voices of contemporary work of Alexander Sokurov, his impressive National University of Theatre and Film whole new artistic territory, both for the INTERNATIONAL EXPERIMENTAL SHORT honored to welcome in our International avant-garde cinema, one of the most FAUST, winner of the Golden Lion in “I.L. Caragiale” and the National University general and the specialized audience, FILM COMPETITION, consisting of some of Competition Jury prestigious films ambitious and controversial experimental Venice 2011. In 2012, BIEFF presented the of Arts Bucharest, with the support of the particularly for film and visual art students the most intriguing and innovative visual professionals: MORGAN POKÉE filmmakers of our time. Trained as a Romanian premiere of Peter Greenaway’s Administration of the National Cultural and professionals. experiments from the last few years, painter and heavily influenced by theories impressive latest feature, GOLTZIUS AND Fund and the Romanian National Film titles awarded and screened in prestigious Programmer, Quinzaine des Réalisateurs - of structural linguistics, ethnography, and THE PELICAN COMPANY, while in 2013 Center, BUCHAREST INTERNATIONAL Therefore we present films which festivals, museums and galleries all over Cannes Film Festival; FLORIAN WEGHORN philosophy, PETER GREENAWAY’s films the film to open the festival was Terry EXPERIMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL BIEFF are lessons in cinema, emblematic the world, such as Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Program manager, Berlinale Talents - often traverse unexplored territories, Gilliam’s most recent feature, THE ZERO has as its main focus the courage to pieces, eye-openers with regard to Rotterdam, Oberhausen, Toronto, Centre Berlin International Film Festival; IOANA rejecting conventional narrative THEOREM. In 2014, BIEFF opened with experiment in cinematic language. the unlimited possibilities offered by Pompidou etc. DRAGOMIRESCU, Head of Programming structures in favor of awe-striking the Golden Lion winner from that year, the cinematic medium, the ways to for Elvire Popesco Cinema in Bucharest, co- imagery, constantly testing the limits ’s A PIGEON SAT ON A BIEFF is the first showcase of avant-garde transcend any possible borders between programmer for the French Film Festival. of the cinematic medium. Regularly BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE cinema and visual art in Romania, a non- fiction, documentary and visual art, the BIEFF is also honored to collaborate nominated in prestigious film festivals and closed with Ulrich Seidl’s fascinating commercial event with an educational transgression of boundaries on every level with some of the major international In 2010, BIEFF has started in 2010 a such as Cannes, Venice and Berlin, he has hybrid documentary, IN THE BASEMENT. purpose, aimed at bringing to the ranging from concept, structure, rhythm, film festivals and institutions in the area wonderful collaboration with one of an impressive body of work, consisting of The 2016 festival opened with Aleksandr audience highly innovative films and to the construction of the shot. of avant-garde cinema and visual art, the leading experimental filmmakers of 13 feature films and 50 short films and Sokurov’s sophisticated and absorbing filmmakers with strong personal views on recognized worldwide for their consistent our time, PETER GREENAWAY. He made documentaries, plus exhibitions, visual FRANCOFONIA, and it closed with contemporary reality, which also daringly BIEFF is also the first event in Romania creative support of innovative, radical an unforgetable official opening at installations, VJ performances, paintings, Peter Greenaway again, who brought to explore the boundaries of cinematic dedicated to promoting artistic filmmaking and visual art: QUINZAINE our festival in 2010 with an impressive books, opera librettos. Bucharest his amazing and provocative language. A cinema of total creative productions at the border area between DES RÉALISATEURS – Cannes Film Masterclass, addressed especially to our EISENSTEIN IN GUANAJUATO. In 2017, freedom and lack of compromise. cinema and visual art, offering increased Festival, BERLINALE Forum Expanded core audience, Romanian film and visual art Following its previous years’ success, BIEFF BIEFF opened with ENDLESS POETRY by visibility to cutting edge visual artists, – Berlin International Film Festival, students and professionals; and in 2011 he will dedicate again its 2019 Opening and cult filmmaker and psychomagic guru We believe BIEFF is a highly necessary whose work is mainly accessible in ARSENAL Institute for Film and Video Art, brought his groundbreaking LIVE CINEMA Closing Galas to the most recent works of Alejandro Jodorowsky and closed with event, particularly for Romania, whose museums and in the art gallery circuit International Film Festival ROTTERDAM, VJ PERFORMANCE LUPERCYCLOPEDIA, a some major names of the contemporary the extraordinary performance offered cinema has proved its impressive power and rarely on cinema screen. We do this SARAJEVO Film Festival, Le FRESNOY – highly innovative audio-visual experiment, cinema. In 2010, BIEFF presented, for by Cate Blanchett in Julian Rosefeldt’s in recent years, through the outstanding because we believe this border area is Studio National des Arts Contemporains, intended to challenge the borders of filmic the first time in Romania, the latest film MANIFESTO. In 2018, BIEFF opened voices of Cristi Puiu, Corneliu Porumboiu, an extremely rich, creatively nourishing SIXPACKFILM Austria and EYE Film language and offer the audience a totally of the master of experimental cinema with Bruno Dumont’s JEANNETTE, THE BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ Cristian Mungiu, Radu Jude and others, territory, from where unique artistic Institute Netherlands, who bring to new cinematic experience, performance Jan Švankmajer, right after its premiere CHILDHOOD OF JOAN OF ARC and closed \\ yet mainly in the area of realistic narrative voices have constantly emerged over the Bucharest a selection of highly innovative which was immensely successful all over in Venice. In 2011, BIEFF screened the with INSECT by one of the masters of fiction. On this flourishing creative years, such as Peter Greenaway, David multi-awarded films from their last year’s the world. Romanian premiere of the most recent surrealist cinema, Jan Švankmajer. background, BIEFF comes as a natural Lynch, Derek Jarman, Andy Warhol, Stan selections. complementary reaction, its main goal Brakhage and others.

4 5 FESTIVAL BOARD

PETER GREENAWAY COPEL MOSCU ADINA PINTILIE DAN ANGELESCU

HONORARY PRESIDENT FESTIVAL DIRECTOR ARTISTIC DIRECTOR CURATOR - INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION & SPECIAL PROGRAMS

Since 2012, Peter Greenaway has been the Copel Moscu is the director and main founder Adina Pintilie is the co-founder and Her medium length OXYGEN premiered in Dan Angelescu works as cultural manager Honorary President of Bucharest International of Bucharest International Experimental Film artistic director of Bucharest International Rotterdam Tiger Awards Shorts Competition and curator with a primary interest in moving Experimental Film Festival Bucharest BIEFF. Festival BIEFF. One of the key authors of the Experimental Film Festival BIEFF. A graduate 2010, screened in BAFICI, Montpellier, image. Currently he curates the International One of the key voices of contemporary Romanian Documentary New Wave from of the National University of Theatre and Film Thessaloniki, Tampere etc. Her short DIARY#2 Competition of BIEFF – Bucharest International avant- garde cinema, Peter Greenaway is the ‘80s (together with Ovidiu Bose Paștină, Bucharest, filmmaker and curator Pintilie won the ZONTA Award at Oberhausen Experimental Film Festival, which he has also one of the most ambitious and controversial Tereza Barta, Laurențiu Damian, Sabina Pop), works on the boundary between fiction, International Short Film Festival 2013, while coordinated between 2016-2018, and is the experimental filmmakers of our time. Trained he was a pioneer in challenging the borders reality and visual art. In the new Romanian her previous short SANDPIT#186 (co-directed Project Manager of Pustnik Screenwriters as a painter and heavily influenced by theories of cinematic language in controversial, cinema landscape, her body of work stands with George Chiper) premiered in Locarno Residency. He holds a Master’s degree in of structural linguistics, ethnography, and subversive films, which concealed under daring out through a highly personal visual style, 2008 and won the Runner Up Award at Miami Comparative Arts and Media Studies from Vrije philosophy, Peter Greenaway’s films often conceptual and formal experimentation a daring cinematic experimentation and an Film Festival 2009. University Amsterdam, with a study on the self- traverse unexplored territories, rejecting fierce criticism of the communist regime, many uncompromising exploration of human representation of film festivals across different conventional narrative structures in favor of of which were banned by the establishment’s psychology. Her first feature TOUCH ME NOT media. He was project coordinator at the an awe-striking imagery, constantly testing censorship. Copel Moscu created over 50 short won the Golden Bear and the GFWW First Centre for Visual Introspection Bucharest and the limits and canons of the cinematic medium. and feature films (The Evening School, On the Feature Award at Berlinale 2018, followed contributing editor for Film Menu between 2010 Regularly nominated in prestigious film Ozana Shore, My Beloved School, The Bronze by an extensive festival circuit and cinema and 2012. Since 2010, Dan also collaborates with festivals such as Cannes, Venice and Berlin, Age, A Day Will Come, I Chose Freedom), as distribution in more than 35 countries. The other film festivals in Romania – Transilvania he has an impressive body of work, consisting director and scriptwriter, for which he was film was also nominated for the European International Film Festival, One World, Les of 13 feature films and over 50 shorts and awarded over 25 international and national Discovery 2018 – Prix FIPRESCI at the European Films de Cannes à Bucarest. He has collaborated documentaries, plus exhibitions, visual prizes. He presently teaches film directing Film Awards, selected in major international with Kunstverein Amsterdam, the Czech Centre installations, VJ performances, paintings, at the National University of Theatre and festivals: Toronto, Karlovy Vary, BFI London, in Bucharest, White Night of the Art Galleries books, opera librettos. His first narrative Film “I.L. Caragiale” ( U N ATC ) and video art Viennale, Sarajevo, Sydney, Seville, Jerusalem, Romania, Sâmbăta Sonoră (Sound Saturdays) feature film, The Draughtsman’s Contract, at the National University of Arts Bucharest Moscow, Thessaloniki etc. and screened in and Outernational Days on several projects. completed in 1982, received great critical (UNARTE) and is referred to as an artistic cultural venues such as MOMA Museum of He was a member of the International Short

acclaim and established him internationally consultant for television and cinema. In 2010, Modern Art New York and ICA Institute of Film Competition juries at the 29th edition of BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL as an original filmmaker, a reputation consistent with his free innovative vision Contemporary Arts London. Adina Pintilie’s Stuttgarter Filmwinter – Festival for Expanded \\ consolidated by his following films, such as and educational commitment, he took the medium length DON’T GET ME WRONG Media in 2016 and at the 4th edition of Riga \\ The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, And Her Lover, challenge to offer Romanian audiences, and premiered in Locarno 2007 - Filmmakers of International Film Festival in 2017. In 2019 he The Pillow Book and The Tulse Luper Suitcases. particularly cinema and visual arts students, the Present Competition, won the Golden co-founded the Infinite Conversation curatorial the first International Experimental Film Dove Award at Dok Leipzig and screened in 50 collective (with Cristina Vasilescu and Irina Radu) Festival in Romania: BIEFF. international festivals such as: Thessaloniki, and the international artist residency Off Season, Montpellier, Trieste, Namur, Munchen, a Romanian-Albanian collaboration (with Donika Moscow, Sarajevo, Warsaw, Krakow etc. Çina, Bianca Oana and Flaviu Rogojan). 6 7 FESTIVAL TEAM THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF THEATER AND FILM “I.L. CARAGIALE” BUCHAREST ARTISTIC DIRECTOR GUEST DEPARTMENT LOCATION MANAGERS Adina Pintilie Anca Caramelea – coordinator Victoria Bălășoiu, Rareș Hanțiu, Andrew Davidson – jury assistant Andrei Jakab CURATOR – INTERNATIONAL The NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF THEATER AND FILM “I.L. CARAGIALE” BUCHAREST (UNATC) counts among the most prestigious COMPETITION & SPECIAL PROGRAMS FINANCIAL COORDINATOR FESTIVAL POSTER European film schools, together with the Film And TV School Of Academy Of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU), and the National Film Dan Angelescu Gabriela Mitrofan Carmen Gociu School in Lodz. The history of UNATC begins as early as 1864, the year when the first Theatre School was founded in Bucharest. In 1954, the old school merged with the Institute of Film Art, to become UNATC, the National School of Theatre and Cinema. FESTIVAL MANAGER & PRODUCTION VIDEO DEPARTMENT GRAPHIC PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Alice Gheorghiu – coordinator Mihaela Vas Great names of Romanian cinema are UNATC alumni; among them: Cristian Mungiu, Corneliu Porumboiu, Cătălin Mitulescu, Radu Oana Furdea Alberto Niculae – assistant Muntean, Tudor Giurgiu, Adina Pintilie. Ana-Gabriela Cozma, Alice Furdui, CATALOGUE DTP PROGRAMMING AND CURATORIAL Alexis Gogoașă, Ioana-Luiza Ghiță DEPARTMENT Valentin Goran, Iulia Necșulescu, Adina Marin – coordinator, catalogue editor, Alex Pintică – interns WEB DEVELOPER THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY curatorial texts Tiberiu Andrișan Ioana Florescu – programming assistant, PHOTO DEPARTMENT OF ARTS BUCHAREST curatorial texts Adi Tudose – coordinator ACCOUNTANCY Călin Boto, Emil Vasilache – curatorial texts Anda Stăncescu – assistant Cristina Serafim

PR & PRESS DEPARTMENT SUBTITLING DEPARTMENT Founded in 1864, the NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF ARTS BUCHAREST (UNARTE) proposes, through the creative work of its students, a Alexandra Scînteianu – PR & press Roxana Marin – subtitling & translations cultural model that links universal art forms to the contemporary cultural space. The specificity of the curriculum offered by UNARTE, coordinator coordinator and by the Photography and Video Department in particular, relies in the fostering of a flexible thinking, and in promoting themes Alina Dima – social media manager Maria Vlad - electronic subtitling assistant related to contemporary issues, and a variety of approaches that avoid conservatism and dogma.

PRINT TRAFFIC & TECHNICAL VOLUNTEERS COORDINATOR UNARTE promotes the works and ideas of its students in symposia, exhibitions, and press conferences, and offers them opportunities DEPARTMENT Simona Alecu of exchanges and collaborations with art universities all over . Among its most celebrated professors and alumni, UNARTE Elena Găgeanu – coordinator counts Constantin Brâncuşi, Theodor Aman, Gheorghe Tattarescu, Ştefan Luchian, Alexandru Ciucurencu, Corneliu Baba. Rareș Hanțiu – assistant BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL \\ \\

8 9 QUINZAINE DES RÉALISATEURS CANNES PARTNER FESTIVAL PARTNER FESTIVALS / INSTITUTIONS PRESENTATION

QUINZAINE DES RÉALISATEURS CANNES

BERLINALE FORUM EXPANDED Parallel section of Cannes Film Festival, created by the French Directors Guild in the wake of the events of May ’68, QUINZAINE DES RÉALISATEURS (The DIRECTORS’ FORTHNIGHT) seeks to aid filmmakers and contribute to their discovery by the critics and SARAJEVO FILM FESTIVAL audiences alike. From its initial program in 1969, it cast its lot with the avant-garde (the glorious seventies), as well as it created a breeding ground where the Cannes Festival would regularly find its prestigious auteurs. INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM Since its inception, QUINZAINE DES RÉALISATEURS has showcased the first films of Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Nagisa Oshima, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Ken Loach, , Michael Haneke, Chantal Akerman, Spike Lee, Luc et INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM FESTIVAL OBERHAUSEN Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Sofia Coppola, Robert Bresson, Manoel de Oliveira, Stephen Frears, Jerzy Skolimowski, William Friedkin, Francis Ford Coppola among others. Among the various sections at the Cannes Film Festival, QUINZAINE DES RÉALISATEURS is distinguished by its independentmindedness, its non-competitive nature and its concern to cater to non-professional Cannes audiences, which can buy a subscription for the entire Fortnight program or purchase tickets for individual screenings.

Striving to be eclectic and receptive to all forms of cinematic expression, QUINZAINE DES RÉALISATEURS pays particular attention to the annual production of fiction features, short films and documentaries, to the emergence of independent fringe filmmaking, and even to contemporary popular genres, provided these films are the expression of an individual talent and an original directorial style.

PAOLO MORETTI Artistic Director of Quinzaine des réalisateurs Cannes BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Paolo Moretti’s previous posts include stints consultant at the Venice Film Festival, in Nyon, Switzerland.Since 2014, Moretti has \\ at Paris’ Centre Pompidou, la Filmoteca notably working with the Horizons section. been the artistic director of La Roche-sur-Yon \\ Española in Madrid, the Leeds International In 2012 and 2013, Moretti consulted for International Film Festival in western , Film Festival, the Portuguese Cinematheque the Rome Film Festival and has been since while also running Le Concorde art house in Lisbon, One World in Prague and the 2012 on the selection committee for cinema, which is located in the same town. Cinéma du Réel festival. From 2008 to 2011, the FIDMarseille international fest and a he was deputy director and programming programmer of the Visions du Réel festival

10 11 BERLINALE SARAJEVO FORUM EXPANDED FILM FESTIVAL PARTNER FESTIVAL PARTNER FESTIVAL PRESENTATION PRESENTATION

The Berlinale Forum stands for new trends in world cinema and fresh narrative forms. Unconventional, essayistic works of The Sarajevo Film Festival is an international film festival with a special focus on the region of South-East Europe (, Armenia, cinema, long-term observations, documentaries, cinema from countries off the beaten track - everything which goes beyond the Austria, Azerbaijan, , , , Cyprus, Greece, , , , Macedonia, Malta, mainstream is brought together in this section of the Berlinale. Moldova, , Romania, , , ), shining an international spotlight on films, talent and future projects from the region.

There are few formal limitations when it comes to the selection of films, resulting in even greater freedom. The films in the Forum straddle the line between art and cinema. In 2006 BERLINALE FORUM EXPANDED was launched. Presenting film, video, installation High quality programming, a strong Over the past years, this Program has and performative works on varying themes and in multiple venues across Berlin, works in FORUM EXPANDED provide a critical industry segment, and educational become the most important meeting point perspective and an expanded sense of cinematography. and networking platform for young of the Eastern European cinema. A most filmmakers and thus generated presence noteworthy section of the Competition Within the educational partnership with Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival BIEFF, ARSENAL Institute for Film and of the international film industry, film Program is Short Films, which presents Video Art have presented selections of thought provoking works from BERLINALE FORUM EXPANDED program. authors and media representatives films by young and courageous authors alongside a paying audience of over who examine the borders film language 100,000, confirm its status as the leading and create powerful interpretations of the ARSENAL INSTITUTE FOR FILM AND VIDEO ART film festival in the region, recognised world around us. In an emerging territory by both professionals and the wider of more than 140 million inhabitants, audiences. The Competition Program Sarajevo Film Festival serves as a common Communicating international film culture and a communication platform for communicating works of independent gives priority to the films which have either platform for film businesses from all over in a lively manner is both the aim and promoting dynamic exchange between and experimental cinema as well as avant- their world or the international premiere the region, setting the future standards in mission of ARSENAL Institute for Film and film, academia and art linked to a whole garde film history. Presenting video art at the Sarajevo Film Festival. As the main festival organisation, film promotion and Video Art. Working at the point where network of different organizations. Its and experimental films at the Filmhaus, at program of the Sarajevo Film Festival, the presentation in South Eastern Europe.

practice and theory come together, the work encompasses the running of the festivals, and in art and gallery spaces all BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Competition Program attracts over 150 institute comprises a space for thinking two-screen Arsenal cinema, putting on plays a part in the ongoing investigation

\\ guest directors, screenwriters, producers, \\ outside the box in (film) cultural terms, the BERLINALE FORUM and FORUM of what the conditions that constitute actors, actresses and other people from a cinema whose attention is focused EXPANDED, distributing films as cinema actually are. the film industry. on independent and experimental film Arsenal Distribution and collecting and

12 13 INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM ROTTERDAM FESTIVAL OBERHAUSEN PARTNER FESTIVAL PARTNER FESTIVAL PRESENTATION PRESENTATION

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) offers a high quality line-up of carefully selected fiction and documentary feature At its 65th edition in 2019, the International Short Film Festival OBERHAUSEN is one of the major international crossroads for films, short films and media art. IFFR is one of the largest audience and industry-driven film festivals in the world. Famously, only the short form, unique in the range of forms and genres it presents to the public, and particularly well known for its spotlight on seventeen people attended the opening night of the first Film International Rotterdam on 28 June 1972. experimentation. In the course of more than five decades, filmmakers and artists ranging from Roman Polanski to Cate Shortland, from George Lucas to Pipilotti Rist, have presented their first works in OBERHAUSEN.

Presently, during twelve festival days, hundreds of filmmakers and other artists present The Festival organizes an International Competition, a Children’s and Youth Films and “Short film is a great first step for a their work to a large audience (over 300,000 admissions and 2,500 film professionals). The a German Competition and the MuVi Award for the best German music video as well budding filmmaker. That’s how I made festival’s Official Selection includes more than 500 feature, mid-length, and short films as the NRW Competition for productions from North Rhine- Westphalia. In addition, my beginnings and OBERHAUSEN was out of over 50 countries. The Shorts section of International Film Festival Rotterdam has OBERHAUSEN is known for its strong line of thematic programs such as “Provoking an important step on my path to become no fixed agenda, boundaries or statement, but aims to show films that are experimental, Reality” in 2012, dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the OBERHAUSEN Manifesto a Director.” Roman Polanski “I smoked innovative and contemporary, with a maximum length of 60 minutes. It contains, besides from 1962, or “Flatness: Cinema after the Internet” in 2013, a program that looks at my first cigarette here. For years, I saw the regular competition and spectrum programs, special thematic and solo programs, and the future of cinematographic production. The 2014 thematic program (“Memories every single film at the Westdeutsche also holds a series of MindThe Gap-nights with live audio-visual events. can’t wait: Film without Film”) focused on the current shift of moving image and sound Kurzfilmtage, looking forward to those from cinemas to galleries and museums world-wide. days in OBERHAUSEN every year. These The selection committee of the IFFR Shorts doesn’t thoroughly reflect in advance on events were important for me, for what experimental or innovative means. We’re interested in work that challenges generic OBERHAUSEN’s series of investigations into the cinema continued in 2015 with the my decision to become a filmmaker.” designations (including the traditional “avant-garde”, “underground” or “video art” ones). theme “The Third Image – 3D Cinema as Experiment”, while in 2017 the program Wim Wenders “There can be no doubt Work may also draw on documentary, narrative, animation or any other tradition – or no ‘’Social media before the Internet’’ exhibited forms of alternative media work prior that the OBERHAUSEN Short Film tradition at all. So, what is experimental, what is contemporary in the eyes of IFFR Shorts? to the advent of the worldwide digital web. The festival also operates a well-stocked Festival has written film history... The This program (partly) gives the answer. Video Library, a non-commercial short film distribution branch and a unique archive of short film has kept itself young, and so short films from more than 50 years of festival history. has OBERHAUSEN. This atmosphere, BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ this creative power are what still \\ distinguishes short films today.” Gerhard Schröder, German Chancellor 1998-2005.

14 15 INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION JURY

MORGAN FLORIAN IOANA POKÉE WEGHORN DRAGOMIRESCU

PROGRAMMER, QUINZAINE DES PROGRAM MANAGER, BERLINALE TALENTS - HEAD OF PROGRAMMING FOR ELVIRE RÉALISATEURS - CANNES FILM FESTIVAL BERLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL POPESCO CINEMA IN BUCHAREST, CO-PROGRAMMER FOR THE FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL

Morgan Pokée studied economics in Nantes Florian Weghorn is the Programme Manager Ioana Dragomirescu has a years’ long and worked in various cinema-related of Berlinale Talents, the annual summit and experience in programming and cinema institutions before beginning a career talent development initiative of the Berlin curatorship. She is the manager and as a film writer, notably for the online International Film Festival. He also advises programmer of Elvire Popesco, the cinema publication Critikat and the bimonthly the seven Berlinale Talents offshoots around venue of the French Institute in Bucharest. magazine La Septième Obsession. In 2012, the world, ranging from Beirut to Tokyo. Born She is in charge of programming and running he co-founded Répliques, a magazine of in 1976 in Oldenburg, Florian holds an M.A. the venue and she is also one of the main cinema-related interviews. Between 2015 in Theatre, Film and Television Studies from organizers of the French Film Festival in and 2016, he was the deputy coordinator the University of Cologne with a thesis on Romania, which took place in 13 cities in of the arthouse cinema association ACOR. ‘The Visual Language of Melancholy in Film.’ 2019. Before returning to Romania in 2018 Lecturer at the Rennes University in 2016, Florian joined the Berlinale team in 2002, Ioana studied and worked in Paris for over 10 he leads film criticism workshops and initially working for the Generation section. years, first for Europa Cinemas, the arthouse introduces and moderates screenings on From 2008 to 2014, he was the section’s co- cinema network, and then for Le Pacte, an a regular basis. Since June 2016, he has director and a curator of its annually around independent film distributor, as part of the been the film programmer of Le Concorde 60 short and feature films. Between 2012 international sales team. arthouse cinema in La Roche-sur-Yon, and and 2019, Florian was also a member of the program advisor for the La Roche-sur-Yon Berlinale Competition selection committee. International Film Festival. In addition, Florian has worked for various other international film festivals, film funds and cultural institutions and is a member of the European Film Academy. He is the author

and editor of several publications covering BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL film and youth culture. \\ \\

16 17 OPENING GALA / SPECIAL SCREENING 76’, 2019, , , Norway DIRECTOR: ROY ANDERSSON

CAST: Jan-Eje Ferling, Martin Serner, Bengt Bergius, Tatiana Delaunay, Anders Hellström, Thore Flygel OPENING GALA SCRIPTWRITER: Roy Andersson CINEMATOGRAPHY: Gergely Pelos EDITING: Johan Carlsson, , Roy Andersson SOUND: Robert Hefter PRODUCER: Pernilla Sandström, Johan Carlsson PRODUCTION COMPANY: Roy Andersson Film Produktion, Essential Films, 4 1⁄2 Fiksjon

ROY ANDERSSON WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

A reflection on human life in all its beauty and cruelty, its splendour and Only Roy Andersson would call a 76-minute film ABOUT ENDLESSNESS. DIRECTOR’S BIO-FILMOGRAPHY: ROY ANDERSSON was born in banality. We wander, dreamlike, gently guided by our Scheherazade- It is of a piece with his droll Swedish wit, a universe drawn with fastidious Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1943. His first feature esque narrator. Inconsequential moments take on the same significance precision and painted in a palette of greys, drab greens, beiges and (1970) won the main prize at the Berlinale IFF 1970. (1975), his as historical events: a couple floats over a war-torn Cologne; on the way browns. [...] second film, was presented at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes 1976. to a birthday party, a father stops to tie his daughter’s shoelaces in the In 1975 he started making unusual and very successful commercials, In a very real sense, ABOUT ENDLESSNESS isn’t so much a film as DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: The horn of plenty is a mythological goat’s pouring rain; teenage girls dance outside a café; a defeated army marches which won a total of eight Golden Lions at Cannes. In 1981 he founded another chapter in one larger ongoing piece that makes up the body of horn filled with items that signify wealth and abundance. It is usually to a prisoner of war camp. Simultaneously an ode and a lament, ABOUT Studio 24 in order to produce and make his films in total freedom. After Andersson’s work. It feels like another compendium of the absurd, the depicted as overflowing with a profusion of produce and fruits of all ENDLESSNESS presents a kaleidoscope of all that is eternally human, an SOMETHING HAPPENED (1987) and (1991), two melancholy and the bizarre. kinds, a bounty that, as myth would have it, never dwindles, that is the infinite story of the vulnerability of existence. shorts that returned with the most prestigious awards (a.o. Clermont- very embodiment of infinite inexhaustibility. The Greek myth inspired [...] In a world of fantastic cinematic universes of superheroes and Jedi Ferrand), he shot SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR in his studio me to gather all these scenes, all these themes in the same film. I want knights, it’s bracing to enter the nordic chill of Andersson’s vision. (March 1996-May 2000) and won the Special Jury Prize in Cannes 2000. to emphasize the beauty of being a human, of being alive; and in order to Violence and grotesquerie abound, but there’s also tenderness. “Things YOU, THE LIVING (2007) won several international awards as well as the show that, you need to have a contrast, to also show the ugly side. This film are fantastic, don’t you think,” a man exclaims to an uncomprehending Guldbagge Award for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Picture. A FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Silver Lion - Venice Film Festival 2019 / Toronto is about the endlessness of the signs of existence. bar of drinkers as the snow falls outside in huge flakes. As far as ABOUT PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE (2014), his fifth Film Festival 2019 / Festival du nouveau cinéma Montréal, Canada 2019 / !f ENDLESSNESS is concerned, yes they are. feature film, was awarded the Golden Lion in Venice. Most recently, his Istanbul International Independent Film Festival 2019 / Festival de Sevilla, film ABOUT ENDLESSNESS has been awarded the Silver Lion för Best Spain 2019 (John Bleasdale, Cinevue) Director at the 76th Venice International Film Festival (2019). Anyone who has seen any of the films from ANDERSSON’s ‘Living FILMMAKER’S WEBSITES:

https://www.royandersson.com/eng/endlessness/ BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Trilogy’ – SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR (2000), YOU, THE LIVING

\\ (2007) and A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH CONTEMPLATING EXISTENCE \\ WORLD SALES: Philippe Bober – (2014) – will recognise the initial elements here. Yet, in intriguing and 24 rue Lamartine DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: 75009 – Paris, France poignant ways, ABOUT ENDLESSNESS is deliberately different from the E: [email protected] T: + 33 156026000 trilogy films. It’s as if the director has extended the meaning of his title E: [email protected] W: http://www.coproductionoffice.eu by deleting the punchlines of his visual jokes, so we’re left hanging in these brief shaggy-dog situations.

(Nick James, Sight&Sound) 18 19 AQUARELA CLOSING GALA / SPECIAL SCREENING 90’, 2018, , Germany, DIRECTOR: VICTOR KOSSAKOVSKY

SCRIPTWRITER: Victor Kossakovsky, Aimara Reques

CLOSING GALA CLOSING CINEMATOGRAPHY: Victor Kossakovsky, Ben Bernhard EDITING: Victor Kossakovsky, Molly Malene Stensgaard, Ainara Vera SOUND: Alexander Dudarev COMPOSER: Eicca Toppinen PRODUCER: Aimara Reques, Heino Deckert, Sigrid Dyekjær PRODUCTION COMPANY: Aimara Reques / Aconite Productions, Heino Deckert / Ma.ja.de Filmproduktions GmbH, Sigrid Jonsson Dyekjær / Danish Documentary

VICTOR KOSSAKOVSKY

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: Looking back, it seems that for my whole life Cinema is a tremendous tool, but we use it wrong. We are still telling FILM PRESENTATION: AQUARELA takes audiences on a deeply AQUARELA is dedicated to fellow Russian filmmaker Alexander I have been preparing to make AQUARELA. Almost fifty years ago, when I stories. I am beginning to hate this. We shouldn’t tell stories, writers cinematic journey through the transformative beauty and raw power Sokurov. In attempting to experiment with new forms of was just 4 years old, I spent one summer in a small village between Moscow are for that – we have to show something. When we listen to stories, we of water. Captured at a rare 96 frames-per-second, the film is a representation, KOSSAKOVSKY, too, sets his camera free. If RUSSIAN and St. Petersburg. In that village was the source of a river. A man who don’t know what is real life anymore. We believe in stories instead, and visceral wake-up call that humans are no match for the sheer force and ARK brought Sokurov to global attention with one gliding, unbroken lived there said to me, “Imagine Victor, if you made a little boat from wood if they are good, they can maintain our belief for two thousand years, capricious will of Earth’s most precious element. From the precarious long take, AQUARELA flies as well, across the globe. The camera’s chip and leaves, then put it in this river, it would float on the water to the keeping us from seeing what is real. The storymaker is blind. frozen waters of ’s Lake Baikal to Miami in the throes of Hurricane mobility allows KOSSAKOVSKY to abstract from the water, creating North Sea and then around the world.” [...] In 2000, I stayed in a house with (VICTOR KOSSAKOVSKY) Irma to Venezuela’s mighty Angel Falls, water is AQUARELA’s main suggestive patterns from both afar and close up. a window looking out on the Baltic Sea. I noticed that the sea was different character, with director VICTOR KOSSAKOVSKY capturing her many every day, every hour, even every minute. I was never bored because the (Fatima Naqvi, Film Comment) personalities in startling cinematic clarity. water was never the same. I thought that if I could just film the waves from my window during a whole year, I could easily make a great film, DIRECTOR’S BIO-FILMOGRAPHY: VICTOR KOSSAKOVSKY (b. 1961, without saying a word and without moving the camera, just watching the “How the hell did they film that?” It is a question that pops up regularly Leningrad) is an innovative documentary filmmaker whose films have water changing! Different colors, different movements, different energies when looking at the impressive images of AQUARELA. Russian been honored with more than one hundred awards in national and … through the natural lens of water you would be able to experience FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Golden Star Best Feature Documentary - El Gouna director KOSSAKOVSKY used the latest high-tech stabilization international festivals. In 1988 he finished the College for Film Writers and feel the ebb and flow of all known human emotions — anger, Film Festival, Egypt 2018 / Sundance Film Festival 2019 / ZagrebDox, Croatia equipment and filmed with waterproof HD cameras at 96 frames per and Directors in Moscow. In many of his films, KOSSAKOVSKY plays aggression, peacefulness, nobility, loneliness, jealousy … everything! 2019 / CPH:DOX 2019 / IDFA 2018 / Venice International Film Festival 2018 second, resulting in an overwhelming cinematography. Water is the the role of editor, cinematographer, writer and director. He started [...] With AQUARELA, I wanted to film every possible emotion that can be / DOK Leipzig 2018 / BFI London Film Festival 2018 / Viennale 2018 / Zurich protagonist in AQUARELA, but not so much in its gentle, life-giving his own film production company in St. Petersburg, Kossakovsky Film experienced while interacting with water — beautiful emotions, along

Film Festival 2018 form. KOSSAKOVSKY shows the raw energy of this force of nature, in Production, with the objective of creating a cinema of poetry and BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL with unsettling emotions of ecstasy and inspiration, as well as destruction all its glory and immeasurable power making people seem very fragile reality. His distinctive filmography spans many different subjects but

\\ and human devastation. \\ in comparison. always explores the interplay of reality and poetic moments: ¡VIVAN LAS ANTIPODAS! (2011), SVYATO (2005), HUSH! (2003), RUSSIA FROM (DOCVILLE) MY WINDOW (2003), I LOVED YOU… (THREE ROMANCES) (2000), WORLD SALES: LIONSGATE ENTERTAINMENT FILMMAKER’S WEBSITES: E: [email protected] http://en.majade.de/films/aquarela/ PAVEL AND LYALYA (1999), WEDNESDAY 19.07.1961 (1997), BELOVY W: https://www.lionsgate.com/ (1994), THE OTHER DAY (1991).

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: 20 E: [email protected] 21 DANGERLABOR OF IS LOVE MY BUSINESS / LABOR OR LOVE PRESENTATION INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION IVI

Curatorial presentation by: BIANCAIOANA FLORESCU BĂNICĂ

How do we relate to our own work and to that of others? At the end of the day, do we feel that what we do is meaningful and rewarding or is it merely a part we play in order to achieve financial comfort and social acceptance? The competition program LABOR OF LOVE / LABOR OR LOVE brings together five films which, from entirely different angles, look at various aspects of work and at the many ways in which we relate to it.

Whether by investigating the unwritten They also remind us that our understanding rules of appropriate office behaviour (THE of history is, to some extent, shaped by STROKER), by looking at the lengths some works of fiction, be they war films or people have to go to avoid unemployment writings that imagine or glorify historical (EIGHT IMAGES FROM THE LIFE OF NASTYA figures (THE REMEMBERED FILM, THE SOKOLOVA), or by discovering how the GLORIOUS ACCEPTANCE OF NICOLAS promotion of the values of a trending CHAUVIN). After all, the work of writers, religion through music can sometimes turn filmmakers, and other kinds of storytellers into a career (HOLY TREMOR), the films is also labor. in this program ultimately ask the same question about the extent people are willing to mould their own selves in order to get or to keep a job. BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL \\ \\

22 23 THE REMEMBERED FILM THE STROKER 18’, 2018, 15’, 2019, Finland, UK DIRECTOR: ISABELLE TOLLENAERE DIRECTOR: PILVI TAKALA

SCRIPTWRITER: Isabelle Tollenaere PERFORMERS: Donna Celay, Hais Hassan, Laura Hemming- CINEMATOGRAPHY: Isabelle Tollenaere Lowe, Manos Koutsis, Matthew Moorhouse, Patricia Mories, EDITING: Isabelle Tollenaere Iona Roisin, Emma Waltraud Howes SOUND: Kwinten Van Laethem SCRIPTWRITER: Pilvi Takala, Iona Roisin PRODUCER: Isabelle Tollenaere, supported CINEMATOGRAPHY: Katharina Dießner by Beursschouwburg PRODUCTION ASSISTANT: Iona Roisin CHOREOGRAPHER: Emma Waltraud Howes EDITING: Elisa Purfürst

LABOR OF / LABOR LOVE OR LOVE SOUND RECORDING: Karl Laeufer, Luke David Harris SOUND DESIGN: Christian Obermaier WITH THE SUPPORT OF: CURATOR: Teresa Calonje Trenor ISABELLE TOLLENAERE PRODUCTION: Pilvi Takala, supported by AVEK / The Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture, Finnish Institute in London, Koneen Säätiö, Second Home, Taike / Arts FILM PRESENTATION: For a moment, it seems we are dealing with a DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: I asked young British re-enactors if they could Promotion Centre Finland DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: The responses of the ‘touchees’ varied widely, historical film about war. But we notice something unusual very soon: tell me a memory of their favourite war film, from the point-of- view of most were polite, but there were those whose body language registered a the uniforms of the young soldiers roaming the woods belong to the character, as if they’d lived the scene themselves. They stand in front visible discomfort. […] Perhaps simply due to the cultural context of this different armies; they speak of different wars, from different times. of the camera and reminisce about Saving Private Ryan, Apocalypse Now, invasion of personal space, or perhaps as a result of the inner conflict that What follows are interviews during which the young men talk directly Black Hawk Down and other American war films. […] They testify with PILVI TAKALA arises when one does not feel able to truthfully or openly react. When to the camera. They speak with a British accent, which is an obvious certainty about revenge, the coldblooded killing of the enemy and the loss unable to assert oneself, this kind of embodied negotiation may take mismatch to their Soviet/Nazi/Americal uniform. They share so-called of brothers in arms. Their young faces are in stark contrast to the stories, the place of words.The nuances of movement demonstrate how people memories of most violent events. It is not clear whether the memories the uniforms and the weapons they carry. A friction between imagination FILM PRESENTATION: Expensive pot-plants, stylish office outfits, negotiate the dilemma of being mediated bodies under social pressure, and are their own. Oddly enough, their stories sound weirdly familiar. In only and reality arises, from the fiction to which the boys testify but haven’t glass-walled rooms - everything it takes to make employees feel how such responses are controlled by the tacit conventions governing what 18 minutes, THE REMEMBERED FILM examines the difficulty of telling experienced, but which genuinely has imprinted a memory in their minds, in comfortable. The life of an immaculate coworking space in east London is deemed to be ‘acceptable behavior’. In the clear walled, open-thinking apart how much memory - individual and collective - is real fact, and how the midst of other real-life memories. is disturbed by a woman nobody knows. She turns out to be the artist space of THE STROKER, we witness a physical negotiation of boundaries much of it is fiction that has been fed to us. Implicitly, it deals with its herself, posing as a wellness consultant, walking along the corridors, where there seemingly are none. own medium, its contribution to creating memories, the way it forms our (ISABELLE TOLLENAERE) greeting people and, much to their horror, even touching them. Showing understanding of historical events. the repeated encounters with the same few people, THE STROKER lets (PILVI TAKALA) us closely observe the reactions to being touched. The artist’s friendly (Ioana Florescu, BIEFF 2019) WORLD SALES: Isabelle Tollenaere gestures are the beginning of the film’s exploration of the rigorous code T: +32 485 62 16 48 of conduct that governs the workspace. They ultimately find a shimmer INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL I E: [email protected] of acceptance when regarded as tasks linked to someone else’s work. FESTIVALS/AWARDS: International Film Festival Rotterdam 2019 BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Grand Jury Prize - 25 FPS 2018 / / Oberhausen ISFF 2019 / BFI London Film Festival 2019 / HotDocs \\ (Ioana Florescu, BIEFF 2019) International Film Festival Rotterdam 2018 / Ji.hlava 2018 / Vilnius 2018 Toronto Canada 2019 / Go Short IFF Nijmegen Netherlands 2019 / Seoul / Beursschouwburg, Brussels 2018 / Courtisane Festival Ghent Belgium International NewMedia Festival 2019 / Nordisk Panorama Malmö 2018 / Hamburg 2018 / DokuFest Kosovo 2018 / Kasseler Dokfest Sweden 2019 / Minimalen SFF Trondheim Norway 2019 / Videoex Zurich WORLD SALES: AV-ARKKI– THE CENTRE FOR FINNISH MEDIA ART 2018 / Image Forum Festival Tokyo - Kyoto - Yokohama - Nagoya 2018 Tytti Rantanen - Programme coordinator Switzerland 2019 / Aesthetica SFF York UK 2019 / exhibitions in Helsinki, / Sao Paolo International Short Film Festival 2018 / Visite Film Festival T: +358 44 744 2060 Dublin, Oldenburg 2019. E: [email protected] Antwerp 2018 / Chicago Film Festival 2018 W: www.av-arkki.fi/en/works/the-stroker_en/ 24 25

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] EIGHT IMAGES FROM THE LIFE THE GLORIOUS ACCEPTANCE OF NASTYA SOKOLOVA OF NICOLAS CHAUVIN 30’, 2018, Russia 26’, 2018, France DIRECTOR: ALINA KOTOVA, VLADLENA SANDU DIRECTOR: BENJAMIN CROTTY

IDEA: Vladlena Sandu CAST: Alexis Manenti, Antoine Cholet, Pauline Jacquard, SCRIPTWRITER: Vladlena Sandu, Alina Kotova Caroline Deruas CINEMATOGRAPHY: Anna Rozhetskaya SCRIPTWRITER: Benjamin Crotty, adapted from the short ART DIRECTION: Maria Zaikina story by Joshua Cohen EDITING: Vladlena Sandu, Alina Kotova CINEMATOGRAPHY: Sean Price Williams SOUND: Anton Kuryshev COLOR GRADING: Jessie Jeffrey Dunn Rovinelli

LABOR OF / LABOR LOVE OR LOVE PRODUCER: Alexander Starikov EDITING: Ael Dallier Vega PRODUCTION COMPANY: Elixir, Cosmosfilm SOUND: Florent Castellani, Charlotte Butrak, Bruno WITH THE SUPPORT OF: Ehlinger MUSIC: Ragnar Arni Agùstsson Bucarest ALINA KOTOVA VLADLENA SANDU COSTUMES: Pauline Jacquard PRODUCER: Judith Lou Levy, Ève Robin CURATOR’S COMMENT: A strong reflection on current socio-economic PRODUCTION COMPANY: Les Films du Bal CURATOR’S COMMENT: As a jury, we could not help but mention a film FILM PRESENTATION: In eight tableaux, we see stages and situations issues that derive from failed societies, this film falls on the border of about a stereotyped historical character trying to claim its complexity, as from the working life of a 1993-born Russian woman. Her jobs and contemporary art and cinema, giving us eight contrasting tableaux to tell the BENJAMIN CROTTY it defies the boundaries of time and space. By looking the audience directly tasks span from doing rounds to check who is present at work to story of a generation. in the eye, this film experiments with storytelling, leading us on a journey being a brothel manager. In each workspace and situation, she and the through castles and Daft Punk, archetypes and Oedipus complex. It struck us workmates around her stare at the camera while a bleak commentary (Jury motivation, Award for Best Short FILM PRESENTATION: “I was born here! On the best day of the best year for its freedom, inventiveness, and sense of humor. provides us with details regarding the context, delivering them as a Documentary Ji.hlava 2018) of the best country of the best planet of the best solar system in the string of keywords. “Graduated - now a journalist. Suicidal depression, world.” So says Nicolas Chauvin, the more likely made up than historical (JURY’S MOTIVATION, GO SHORT FILM FESTIVAL) paranoid delirium.” A livid portrait of a young woman who constantly on figure, whose acceptance speech for an award infused with machismo the verge of unemployment, EIGHT IMAGES… evokes the country’s 780 WORLD SALES: and patriotic-chauvinistic peroriation soon take him to different times thousand university graduates who end up accepting jobs for which they COSMOSFILM and places. Speaking to the camera, the soldier limps his way through E: [email protected] are overqualified. bucolic France, medieval castles, and a shabby pub, places where he FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Mantarraya Prize of the Casa Wabi Foundation ELIXIR encounters not only women and herds of sheep, but also a ghoulish - Locarno Film Festival 2018 / Nouvelles Vagues Prize - Roche sur Yon (Ioana Florescu, BIEFF 2019) E: [email protected] figure determined to make him question his own existence. Film Festival 2018 / Special Jury Mention - Go Short, Nijmegen, The Shot on 16mm, this poignant and humorous reflection on French history, Netherlads 2019 / Prize for Best Male Lead - Coté Court, Pantin 2019 / present-day nationalism and sexism blatantly amalgamates facts and Viennale 2018 / BFI London Film Festival 2018 / New York 2018 / Berwick FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Best Documentary Short - Jih.lava 2018 / Best legends, showing remarkable wit. Film & Media Arts Festival 2018 / Gijon 2018 / Curtas Vila do Conde 2019

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL I Short Debut - Spirit of Fire International Debut Film Festival, Khanty- BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL / Documenta Madrid 2019 / Morelia 2019 / Portland 2019 / La Plata 2019 Mansiysk, Russia, 2017 / International Film Festival Rotterdam 2018 / (Ioana Florescu, BIEFF 2019)

\\ / Palic 2019 / Rome 2019 etc. \\ IndieLisboa 2018 / VIS Vienna Shorts 2018/ Apricot Tree International Documentary FF, Armenia 2018/ Sehnsüchte International Student’s FF, Germany 2018 WORLD SALES: LES FILMS DU BAL 77 rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis 75010 Paris T: +33 6 63 87 17 11 - 10 E: [email protected] 26 27

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: Vladlena Sandu DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] HOLY TREMOR 19’, 2017, DIRECTOR: BARBARA WAGNER, BENJAMIN DE BURCA

CAST: Ana Cléa Gomes, Luiz Fernando Gomes, Ayne Azevedo, Tanta Marques, Ozeias Souza, Caique Alvez, Jeiziane Maria, Felipe Moura, Joalysson Anderson, Tacy Silva, Berg Simplicío CINEMATOGRAPHY: Pedro Sotero ART DIRECTION: Benjamin de Burca, Dani Vilela EDITING: Eduardo Serrano

LABOR OF / LABOR LOVE OR LOVE SOUND DESIGN: Nicolau Domingues MUSIC: Carlos Sá PRODUCER: Cecília da Fonte PRODUCTION COMPANY: sponsored by Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Instituto Moreira Salles

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: We are interested in cinema as a form of BÁRBARA WAGNER BENJAMIN DE BURCA conversation, which means we don’t think of our films as being ‘about‘ a subject, but ‘in a negotiation with’ the players of the music genre we are looking at. In HOLY TREMOR we come closer to artists of a young generation FILM PRESENTATION: “ When the Glor y of God descends, then ever ything who are transforming popular traditions into a contemporary social-media shall tremble,” a woman sings from the top of a rock near a lake. And, by oriented phenomenon. It’s a musical informed by the aesthetics of Gospel means of the camera’s strong shake, the earth appears indeed to quake. songs in a moment when we see the rise of the evangelical church reflected A musical documentary that examines the social and aesthetic aspects of in a massive shift of values in Brazilian society. Brazil’s rapidly growing evangelical community, HOLY TREMOR focuses on a young generation of singers and producers of Gospel, who are shown (BÁRBARA WAGNER and BENJAMIN DE BURCA in an performing in fanciful settings. With their singing, they seek not only interview for the Berlinale Shorts blog) redemption, but also wealth.

(Ioana Florescu, BIEFF 2019) WORLD SALES: BÁRBARA WAGNER T : +55 81 31326714 E : [email protected] FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Berlinale 2018 / Curtas Vila do Conde Portugal 2018 W : www.barbarawagner.com.br

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL I BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL / Hamburg International Short Film Festival 2018 / Kyiv International Short BENJAMIN DE BURCA

\\ Film Festival 2018 / Janela Internacional de Cinema do Recife Brazil 2017 T : +55 81 995233222 \\ \\ / Las Palmas de Gran Canaria FF 2018 / Valencia IFF – Cinema Jove 2018 / Semana de Cinema Brasileiro de Santiago,

28 29

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: BENJAMIN DE BURCA DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: BÁRBARA WAGNER T : +55 81 995233222 T : +55 81 31326714 | E : [email protected] | W : www.barbarawagner.com.br LONGING AND BELONGING PRESENTATION INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION II

Curatorial presentation by: ADINA MARIN

There is a universal human need to belong, to feel part of either a community, a religion, a gender, a culture or sub-culture etc. In a way, belonging means to be longing for acceptance and inclusion. Because at the other end of the spectrum lurks non-belongingness, the traumatic experience of exclusion and rejection.

The sense of belonging is becoming rather PARSI (Eduardo Williams, Mariano Blatt) I GOT MY THINGS AND LEFT (Philbert fragile in our modern world. So many attempts to capture the elusive meaning Mbabazi Sharangabo) looks at life, death questions about identity, memory and the of places, thoughts and life itself in a and afterlife from the perspective of need to re-interpret history are waiting breathlessly delivered and ingeniously those who have refused to conform for answers. Meanwhile, it is in our nature constructed essay. Belonging in the to the so-called socially acceptable as human beings to long to relate to wrong body and longing for acceptance is conventions. And last but not least, something purposeful and thus add some the story of I AM A MONSTER (Tanguy De AMERICA (Garrett Bradley) is a splendid significance to our existence of persons of Donder), a metaphor about what is really cinematic restitution of the lost history little consequence. monstruous in today’s world. THE CRAFT of African American Cinema. (Monira Al Qadiri) throws suspicion on the reality of what we perceive as our place of belonging. NTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONNTERNATIONAL II I BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL \\ \\

30 31 PARSI I AM A MONSTER 23’, 2018, Argentina, Switzerland 17’, 2017, Belgium DIRECTOR: EDUARDO WILLIAMS, MARIANO BLATT DIRECTOR: TANGUY DE DONDER

SCRIPTWRITER: Tanguy De Donder CAST: Ivandro Cá, Cris Gomes, Dijibril Baldé, Leandro CINEMATOGRAPHY: Pierre Hosselet Pereira, Edmilson Djú, Alfa Kalido Baldé, Richar Dias, EDITING: Marie Binet Diomedes S Djú, Janaina Casimiro Ié, Vadinho da Costa, SOUND: Nicolas Dechamps Brigila Chico Cá, Nadi Ouadé PRODUCER: Sébastien Andres SCRIPTWRITERS: Eduardo Williams, Mariano Blatt PRODUCTION COMPANY: Les A.P.A.C.H. CINEMATOGRAPHY: Ivandro Cá, Vadinho da Costa, LONGING AND BELONGING AND LONGING Edmilson Djú, Alfa Kalido Baldé, Richar Dias, Diomedes S Djú, Janaina Casimiro Ié, Nadi Ouadé, Brigila Chico Cá EDITING: Eduardo Williams WITH THE SUPPORT OF: SOUND: Simón Apostolou

PRODUCTION DESIGN: Nahuel Pérez Biscayart TANGUY DE DONDER PRODUCERS: Nahuel Pérez Bizcayart, María Victoria Marotta, Jerónimo Quevedo PRODUCTION COMPANY: Un puma CURATOR’S COMMENT: Distance and intensification find a new intriguing FILM PRESENTATION: Mystery builds up as the camera stares into CURATOR’S COMMENT: TANGUY DE DONDER’s I AM A MONSTER begins synthesis in the particular kind of image of PARSI. The urban landscape the film noir décor and a man’s voice tells the life story of a woman. DE with images of a BDSM chamber. The film appears to be a parody of film that we discover is wide open and bodily centered at the same time. This DONDER skillfully creates her presence through absence. “Why is she noir and it is difficult to know whether to feel disturbed or to laugh when EDUARDO WILLIAMS MARIANO BLATT impression is the result of WILLIAMS’ using of a 360-degree GoPro camera, hiding?” - asks the voice, and the answer comes soon enough. She used to the low voice-over repeats “It was here that I was meant to meet her”, and whose image has been successively reframed by WILLIAMS himself working be a he and therefore is perceived as some humanoid creature deviating “she didn’t come”. But our attitude should turn when the voice, now against within a VR apparatus. The deformation of the wide-angle lenses creates a from the natural order. In other words, a monster, something embodying a backdrop of the city of Liège, says, “when she was young, she was a boy”. FILM PRESENTATION: ”Seems like a thing, / Seems like something else”. feeling of acceleration towards the periphery of the image, amplifying the physical or cultural features that we as a society find difficult to accept. The film explores the darkness of being a “creature”, a transgender person, These two lines of a total of one thousand that make up MARIANO BLATT’s sensation of movement, and at the same time making us feel fully present, In an elegant cinematic hide and seek, I AM A MONSTER is a metaphor of outcast from society. poem “No es” (It’s not) might work as a clue for PARSI (which means “It seems in the middle of the image, thereby breaking from the observational point what is monstrous about our world today. to be”). The poem itself has been described as cumulative, with verses added of view. Distance and presence are the magnified coordinates of the feeling (Jamie Osborn) continuously over the course of a lifetime. The visual images follow the same (Adina Marin, BIEFF 2019) itself. The meeting and the feeling conflate. pattern and, like the words, cover virtually everything: people, landscapes, ideas, feelings. No verse or image relates to the next, and neither do they (Giuseppe Di Salvatore, FilmExplorer) connect with each other. Through his inventive juxtaposition WILLIAMS FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Rotterdam International Film Festival 2018 / WORLD SALES: Les A.P.A.C.H. a.s.b.l. creates a roller coaster effect, a movement both fluid and accelerated Kim Vanvolsom - Distribution Millenium Festival Bruxelles 2018 / Beijing International Short Film that leaves the viewer grasping for air. Same as life itself. T: +32 2 346 07 52 Festival 2018 / Eureka ! Festival Universitario de Ciné, Colombia 2018 E: [email protected] FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Best Director Prize - Punto de Vista, Pamplona, (Adina Marin, BIEFF 2019) / Festival Coupe Circuit (Online) 2018 / Festival International du Film W: www.apach-helb.be BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL II Spain 2019 / Berlinale - Forum Expanded 2019 / Tate Modern, London Francophone de Namur, Namur 2017 / Filmer à Tout Prix, Bruxelles 2017 2019 / Cinéma du Réel, Paris, France 2019 / Thessaloniki Documentary \\ Festival, Greece 2019 / Hamburg International Short Film Festival, \\ Germany 2019 / Moscow International Experimental Film Festival, Russia WORLD SALES: EDUARDO WILLIAMS E: [email protected] 2019 / Courtisane Festival, Ghent, Belgium 2019 / Go Short International Short Film Festival, Nijmegen, Netherlands 2019 / Al-Qamar Al-Qamar, Wadi Rum, Jordan 2019 / Jeonju International Film Festival, South Korea 2019 / XPOSED International Queer Film Festival Berlin, Germany 2019 / Shortfilmdays Oberhausen, Germany 2019 32 33

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] [email protected] THE CRAFT I GOT MY THINGS AND LEFT 2018, Kuwait, Lebanon 23’, 2018, Rwanda, Switzerland DIRECTOR: MONIRA AL QADIRI DIRECTOR: PHILBERT AIMÉ MBABAZI SHARANGABO

SCRIPTWRITER: Monira Al Qadiri CAST: Mucyo Rebecca, Mwizerwa Moses, Eric Onekey CINEMATOGRAPHY: Monira Al Qadiri Ngagare, Cécric Mizero, Abdoul Mujyambere EDITING: Vartan Avakian SCRIPTWRITER: Philbert Aimé Mbabazi Sharangabo MUSIC: Fatima Al Qadiri CINEMATOGRAPHY: Samuel Ishimwe PRODUCER: Monira Al Qadiri EDITING: Philbert Aimé Mbabazi Sharangabo PRODUCER: Philbert Aimé Mbabazi Sharangabo,

LONGING AND BELONGING AND LONGING Simone Soleil Späni, Rhea Plangg PRODUCTION COMPANY: Imitana Productions, Cocoon Productions

MONIRA AL QADIRI PHILBERT AIMÉ MBABAZI SHARANGABO

FILM PRESENTATION: Under the guise of a story with spaceships and DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: THE CRAFT is a striking work, equal parts FILM PRESENTATION: I GOT MY THINGS AND LEFT is a reflection on CURATOR’S COMMENT: I GOT MY THINGS AND LEFT is a film of impressive aliens, THE CRAFT is an allegory of distrust, suspicion, international memoire, fantasy and science fiction film, which reimagines the last thirty life, death and afterlife following the death of Eric, a young Rwandese freedom and power, both conceptually and emotionally. Inspired by the diplomacy, war and peace and the declining American pop culture. years of Gulf history as a succession of alien invasions – which, in a way, with high value of people, life and relations. He is mourned by a group free spirit of Dambudzo Marechera - an iconoclast, boundary-crossing Child’s drawings, family photos and visual images shot on VHS make must have been quite a lot like how it felt. Aside from anything else, as AL of friends who spend the night remembering him and his singular ways key figure of African literature - a mourning process becomes a trigger for up an eerie background for the author’s account of her child fantasies QADIRI says, “being a woman from Kuwait is not easy. There is always this within a conformist society. The title is the opening line of Charles self-reflection and transformation. Shifting elegantly between language of the biggest alien conspiracy ever, whereby she actually raises feeling of wanting to escape.” “But also,” she continues, “as a Kuwaiti you Dambudzo Marechera’s ‘The House of Hunger’, published in 1979 and registers - from poetry to performance, from music to personal diary, from dead serious questions about current political and cultural realities. always have to think of a plan B, in case the oil collapses tomorrow, because looked upon 40 years later as a prophetic novel that predicted the reality to its cinematic interpretation - this profound meditation on loss and ‘Everything is not as it seems.’ With her cinematic fantasy, AL QADIRI the country is 90% dependent on oil. I think everyone, in the back of their troubles of modern-day Zimbabwe. Like Dambudzo Marechera, Eric died transience becomes a celebration of inner freedom, both on a human level teaches us to look at the world with the eyes of Saint-Exupéry’s Little minds, has a plan to try to leave this place and build a life for themselves young. And same as the controversial writer, he left people wondering and of cinema as a language. Prince, who was able to discern the elephant inside a boa constrictor somewhere else. about his creative legacy and their own paths in life. (International Short Film Festival Oberhausen - Jury where everyone else saw just an ordinary hat. (Interview by Robert Barry for The Quietus) (Adina Marin, BIEFF 2019) Motivation for the Grand Prize) (Adina Marin, BIEFF 2019)

FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Special Mention - Internationale Kurzfilmtage WORLD SALES: COCOON PRODUCTIONS Simone Soleil Winterthur 2018 / International Film Festival Rotterdam 2019 / FESTIVALS/AWARDS: International Film Festival Rotterdam - Tiger E: [email protected] Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen 2019 / IndieLisboa 2019 / W: www.cocoonproductions.com

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL II Short Competition 2018 (World Premiere) BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Internationales Kurzfilmfestival Hamburg 2019 \\ \\

WORLD SALES: MONIRA AL QADIRI T: +49-15225885278 E: [email protected] W: www.moniraalqadiri.com

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] AMERICA 29’, 2019, USA DIRECTOR: GARRETT BRADLEY

CAST: Donna Crump, Edward Spots CINEMATOGRAPHY: Zac Manuel, Brian Richard EDITING: Garrett Bradley MUSIC: Trevor Mathison SOUND DESIGN: Udit Duseja PRODUCER: Lauren Domino, Catherine Gund

LONGING AND BELONGING AND LONGING PRODUCTION COMPANY: Aubin Pictures

GARRETT BRADLEY

FILM PRESENTATION: AMERICA is a cinematic omnibus rooted in New CURATOR’S COMMENT: The films of New Orleans-based artist GARRETT Orleans with the aim to reveal and re-interpret a lost history in African BRADLEY relish in the most exciting instabilities of documentary. Her work American Cinema. [...] I am interested in creating original visions of a is literal yet impressionistic, theatrical yet intimately observed, mannered radical past through a showcase of silent performance and depictions yet emotionally raw. She is preoccupied with history and the legacies of of joy. I am interested in the simplicity of pleasure that can exist in the racially-charged moving pictures, yet her films are firmly rooted in the now everyday. The heart and soul of the project asks one to evaluate the and more than mildly obsessed with the future of image making. role of pleasure, particularly within communities still in some ways barred from that fundamental experience through excessive labor, (Robert Greene, Lewis Arts Center Princeton) control, and disenfranchisement.

(GARRETT BRADLEY)

WORLD SALES: AUBIN PICTURES E: [email protected] W: www.aubinpictures.com FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Short Doc Award - Sheffield International Documentary Festival 2019 / Sundance Film Festival 2019 / Hot Docs Film festival 2019 / Park City New Directors New Films 2019 / New York

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL II Doku Film Festival 2019 / Vila do Conde International Short Film Festival, BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Portugal 2019 / DokuFest International Documentary and Short Film \\ festival, Kosovo 2019 / Toronto Black Star Film Festival 2019 \\ \\

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] W: www.garrettabradley.com/ PUBLIC SPACE AND URBAN ANXIETIES PRESENTATION INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION III

Curatorial presentation by: ADINA MARIN

Today, the spectacle of the world’s urban habitats is at anyone’s fingertips. It only takes a click on the Google Earth icon to view a magnificent collection of human settlements and marvel at their infinite variety of forms. But what happens when we change the satellite perspective for a more earthly vantage point?

The films in this program look at the urban CONFLUENCE (Benjamin Ramírez Pérez, public spaces from the point of view of Stefan Ramírez Pérez) parallels the the socio-cultural networks governing the life story of a famous Serbian pop star lives of the people who inhabit them while and the ups and downs of the city of being, as we all are these days, citizens of Belgrade (and of Serbia itself). the digital world.

SYNDROMES OF MIMICRY (Anastasija DEPLOYMENTS (Stéphanie Lagarde) Piroženko) probes beneath the surface oscillates from simulation to reality and of today’s Lithuanian society to reveal back in an ingenious cinematic description the double effect of Westernization in of the coreography of movement in the the European post-communist countries. public space. A ROOM WITH A COCONUT OPERATION JANE WALK (Robin Klengel, VIEW (Tulapop Saenjaroen) steps out Leonhard Müllner) conveys a pacifist of the sanitized frame marketed by message under the unlikely form of an the tourism industry in an essayistic online-only shooting game in reverse, investigation beneath the imagery transforming the warzone of the original surface. A multi-layered construction and BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ game into a peaceful digital city tour. unexpected twists and turns eventually \\ lead to the somewhat sci-fi conclusion that the world, including the digital one, might be humanized.

38 39 SYNDROMES OF MIMICRY OPERATION JANE WALK 18’, 2017, 17’, 2018, Austria DIRECTOR: ANASTASIJA PIROŽENKO DIRECTOR: ROBIN KLENGEL, LEONHARD MÜLLNER

CAST: Aleksandras Aniukštis, Dainius Juzva, Toye CAST: Jacob Banigan (Narrator) Samson Abiodun, Laima Užurkaitė, Rimas Morkūnas, SCREENWRITER: Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner Darius Saženis, Denis Senin, Eugenija Stakėnienė CINEMATOGRAPHY: Leonhard Müllner SCRIPTWRITER: Anastasija Piroženko EDITING: Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner CINEMATOGRAPHY: Edgaras Kordiukovas SOUND: Robin Klengel EDITING: Anastasija Piroženko, Stella Van Voorst PRODUCER: Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner Van Beest PRODUCTION COMPANY: aug&ohr medien MUSIC: Matteo Canetta PRODUCER: Anastasija Piroženko PUBLIC SPACE AND URBAN ANXIETIES AND URBAN PUBLIC SPACE

ANASTASIJA PIROŽENKO ROBIN KLENGEL LEONHARD MÜLLNER

FILM PRESENTATION: After 1989, the ultimate goal of the European DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: In my research, I work with the concept of FILM PRESENTATION: OPERATION JANE WALK is based on the DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: ‘Total Refusal – Digital Disarmament Movement’ post-communist countries was to become “normal,” which meant like mimicry in the post-Soviet condition in Eastern Europe. In this region dystopian multiplayer shooter Tom Clancy’s: The Division (Ubisoft is an art collective founded in Graz in 2018, consisting mainly of LEONHARD the West. And the action of imitation presented itself as the shortest the Westernization process took a rather peculiar route, and seemingly Entertainment 2016). In this work, the game’s digital war zone is MÜLLNER, ROBIN KLENGEL and Michael Stumpf. In their practice, they way to liberalism and prosperity. “In cinematographic vignettes that adopted the form of a copy or imitation of Western norms. Although appropriated with the help of an artistic operation. Within the rules critically analyze and appropriate digital game spaces and put them to new draw a fine line between humour and banality, the filmmaker proposes mimicry can be viewed as a negative aspect of development, which does of the game’s software, the militaristic environment is being re-used use. Moving within games but ignoring the intended gameplay, Total Refusal a documentary satire on what she names the SYNDROMES OF MIMICRY. not introduce anything novel into society; in my research I evaluate it as a for a pacifistic city tour. The urban flâneurs avoid combat whenever allocates these resources to new activities and narratives, in order to create Meant to pervade the contemporary ethos of Baltic societies, and day- coping mechanism for Baltic colonialism and tool for post-Soviet identity possible and become peaceful tourists of a digital world, which is a “public” spaces imbued with critical, even subversive potential. to-day Lithuanian life. From syndromes, which act like the ambivalent building. The film SYNDROMES OF MIMICRY is a case study, with a satirical detailed replica of Midtown Manhattan. While walking through the signs of a voluntary self-colonisation (identifying with the values of the approach on a manifestation of mimicry in day-to-day life in Lithuania. post-apocalyptic city, issues such as architecture history, urbanism and (http://www.leonhardmuellner.at/total-refusal) West to be better accepted by it) and from a compensatory reaction of With this film I attempt to illustrate a dissonance between the state’s the game developer’s interventions into the urban fabric are being imitation through which, a new national identity will, perhaps, be built.” politics and its citizens, and I invite the viewer to consider the hollowness discussed. This project is part of “Total Refusal-Digital Disarmament of Lithuanian Eurocentrism. Movement”. (Emmanuel Chicon) WORLD SALES: aug&ohr medien (ROBIN KLENGEL, LEONHARD MÜLLNER) (ANASTASIJA PIROŽENKO) Markus Kaatsch E: [email protected] W: http://augohr.de FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Visions du Réel International Film Festival Nyon, Switzerland 2019, Reykjavík International Film Festival, Iceland 2018 / FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Best Experimental Award - Bolton International BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL III Montreal International Documentary Festival, Canada 2017 Film Festival, Bolton, UK, 2019 / Jena Lichtstadt Award - Cellu L’art

\\ Kurzfilmfestival Jena, Germany 2019 / Best Austrian Film - VIS - Vienna \\ Shorts, Vienna, Austria 2018 / Special Mention - International Short Film Week Regensburg, Germany 2019 / Honorary Mention - Doxs! - Documentaries For Children And Youth, Duisburg, Germany 2018 / WORLD SALES: Anastasija Piroženko Honorary Mention - 30th ASIFA Austria - Best Austrian Animation, Vienna, T: +31617481874 E: [email protected] Austria 2018 Documenta Madrid, Spain 2019 / Diagonale - Festival Of W: http://pirozenko.net Austrian Film, Graz, Austria 2018 / IDFA Amsterdam 2018 40 41

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] W: http://pirozenko.net [email protected] CONFLUENCE DEPLOYMENTS 21’, 2018, Germany, Netherlands 17’, 2018, Netherlands DIRECTOR: BENJAMIN RAMÍREZ PÉREZ & DIRECTOR: STÉPHANIE LAGARDE STEFAN RAMÍREZ PÉREZ SCREENWRITER: Stéphanie Lagarde CAST: Doris Bizetić-Nygrin CINEMATOGRAPHY: Graham Kelly SCREENWRITER: Benjamin Ramírez Pérez & Stefan EDITING: Stéphanie Lagarde Ramírez Pérez MUSIC: Stéphanie Lagarde and Francesco Cimino CINEMATOGRAPHY: Mahmoud Belakhel PRODUCER: Tim Rutten and Stéphanie Lagarde EDITOR: Benjamin Ramírez Pérez & Stefan Ramírez Pérez PRODUCTION COMPANY: Video Power SOUND DESIGN: Tim Gorinski PRODUCER: Ute Dilger PRODUCTION COMPANY: Academy of Media Arts Cologne

PUBLIC SPACE AND URBAN ANXIETIES AND URBAN PUBLIC SPACE WITH THE SUPPORT OF: WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

BENJAMIN RAMÍREZ PÉREZ STEFAN RAMÍREZ PÉREZ STÉPHANIE LAGARDE

Bucarest

FILM PRESENTATION: Doris Bizetić is one of the most famous Serbian DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: Our works are developed in close artistic CURATOR’S COMMENT: What LAGARDE’s work makes clear is the pop stars, and her story is intimately linked to the recent history collaboration and are the result of a longstanding and ongoing artistic FILM PRESENTATION: DEPLOYMENTS is about control and about tension between the rehearsed choreography of authoritarian order and of this country in which the consequences of the war are still felt. dialogue. In our films we intersect staged narratives with documentary power, a game of being seen and being invisible; of being present and emphatic civilian disorder. The movements of the police follow a pattern, CONFLUENCE offers up a shrewd look at Serbian history, articulating material, re-enactments and cinematic references, drawing from shared, being absent at the right moment. “We see picture puzzles of state like a dance performance, while the demonstrators seek to disrupt this the intimate account of a star with the political, social and architectural as well as individual interests and artistic approaches. Our aim is to control, showing simulation software for large-scale police operations order to gain control of the streets. DEPLOYMENTS not only questions the transformations of the past years. Through the portrait of Bizetić, it is create highly cinematic and affective narrative-driven moving image and fighter pilots’ finger exercises, the movement profile of a mass social situation but also practices media critique. “I see you”, whispers the Serbia’s story that is told. works that blur the line between fiction and reality in complex ways while protest and the ornaments made by a flying squadron. Code words drop off-screen voice, alluding to surveillance in public space, but also to the interrogating our political and social landscape as well as reflecting on into the frame from offscreen: orders and instructions with a poetic transparency of our own identity in the social media. LAGARDE’s computer (Elena López Riera - Visions du Réel) processes of image making and their historical, political and technological rhythm. The practices and media of control – what are they based on? animation represents a centuries-old fight between government authority implications. We are interested in questions of authenticity and identity They follow algorithms and purposes, but are also beautifully designed and protesters. Not only in Paris today, demonstrations often lead to riots, as well as individual and collective relationships to history and geography. and musical.” excesses, and injuries. Are we the ones who actually control the game? Or are we just tokens in a surveillance system to which we must defer? (Lukas Stern, DOK Leipzig) FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Main Jury Award – Stuttgarter Filmwinter (BENJAMIN RAMÍREZ PÉREZ & STEFAN RAMÍREZ PÉREZ) 2019 / Main Jury Prize (Non-Fiction) – Flensburger Kurzfilmtage, (Diana Storcks, Videonale) Germany 2018 / Special Jury Mention – International Short Film Festival Hamburg, German Competition 2018 / Special Jury Mention – WORLD SALES: ACADEMY OF MEDIA ARTS COLOGNE FESTIVALS/AWARDS: First Award, International competition - Short Ute Dilger International Competition Videoex, Zürich, Switzerland 2018 /Festival Waves Festival, Poznàn, 2019 / Limited Access 8 Festival for WORLD SALES: VIDEO POWER

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL III E: [email protected] BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Cinematográfico Internacional Montevideo, Uruguay 2019 / Alternative Moving Images, Sound & Performance, Tehran, Iran 2019 / EMAF, Rosa Vrij W: http://www.khm.de T: 0031-621802691

\\ Filme/Video, Belgrade, Serbia 2018 / International Short Film Festival European Media Art Festival, Kunsthalle Osnabruck, Germany 2019 / \\ E: [email protected] Oberhausen, German Competition 2018 / Visions du Réel, Opening Videonale.17, Refracted realities, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany 2019 / W: www.videopower.eu Scenes, Nyon, Switzerland 2018 / International Film Festival Rotterdam, DOKLeipzig, Next Masters competition, Leipzig, Germany 2018 Netherlands 2018

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] W: http://www.benjaminramirezperez.com DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] [email protected] http://www.stefanramirezperez.com W: www.lagardestephanie.com A ROOM WITH A COCONUT VIEW 29’, 2018, Thailand DIRECTOR: TULAPOP SAENJAROEN

SCREENWRITER: Tulapop Saenjaroen CINEMATOGRAPHY: Danaya Chulphuthiphong Parinee Buthrasri EDITING: Tulapop Saenjaroen MUSIC: Apiwat Chayaroon and Apiwat Pongmanee, Yoonkee Kim PRODUCER: Anocha Suwichakornpong Parinee Buthrasri PRODUCTION COMPANY: Electric Eel Films PUBLIC SPACE AND URBAN ANXIETIES AND URBAN PUBLIC SPACE

TULAPOP SAENJAROEN

FILM PRESENTATION: An automatic and computerised voice, Kanya, DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: I’ve been interested in the political relation guides a tourist, Alex, in a Thailand resort. [...] Alex is actually an between what is represented in a frame and what is left out—how they automatic and computerised voice himself, and he starts to explore the associate, create and govern aesthetics or ‘rational’ codes of meaning/ place alone, going beyond Kanya’s limits and algorithm. The discourse feeling, and how they pre-interpret, homogenize, and sanitize our is no longer a linear one: SEANJAROEN’s socio-political criticism understanding of an image and the subject it represents. A ROOM WITH intensifies and the animated images of the film switch from the status of A COCONUT VIEW is an essayistic investigation of the relation through a filmic collage to a more complex form of aesthetic self-reflection. [...] imagery surface and its netlike-technology apparatuses with a capitalistic- ROOM WITH A COCONUT VIEW is a rich, complex, formally interesting dictatorial-touristy regime as a backdrop. essay where the documentary aspect is perfectly combined with a (TULAPOP SAENJAROEN) science-fictional reflection on the destiny of our vision and experience through the moving images, both within and beyond the machine.

(Giuseppe Di Salvatore, Filmexplorer) WORLD SALES: ELECTRIC EEL FILMS E: [email protected] W: http://www.electriceelfilms.com

FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Promotional Award - Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, Switzerland 2018 / Top Prize - Moscow International Experimental Film INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL III Festival 2018 / Jury Award - Arkipel Jakarta International Documentary BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ and Experimental Film Festival 2018 / Grand Prize (Best Short Film) - \\ Thai Short Film and Video Festival / CROSSROADS 2019, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) 2019 / Locarno International Film Festival 2018 / International Film Festival Rotterdam 2018 / Vancouver International Film Festival 2018 / 25FPS Festival Zagreb 2018 / Singapore International Film Festival 2018

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] W: https://tulapop.wordpress.com DANGERTHE HUMAN IS MY FLOW: BUSINESS HOME IN THE AGE OF DISPLACEMENT PRESENTATION INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION IV

Curatorial presentation by: BIANCAIOANA FLORESCU BĂNICĂ

How does one show stories of displacement? In a time when nationalism is on the rise in Europe, mass-media still misuses the images of migrants and (inconsiderately) dealing with the so-called refugee crisis has become an trend in film and video works, the competition programme THE HUMAN FLOW: HOME IN THE AGE OF DISPLACEMENT proposes five films that undermine the common ways of approaching the topic, offering new perspectives on migration through unusual combinations of visual and narrative means.

In March 2019 the European Union THIRD KIND looks at today’s migration declared the ‘crisis’ to be over, yet the stories as understood by humans of a need to tell the stories of displacement distant future, while THE MIGRATING lingers on. IMAGE places under scrutiny the visual material produced during the ‘crisis’.that Whether it’s by examining the damaged the world, including the digital one, might personal items of those who lost their be humanized. lives trying to reach Europe in MUM I’M SORRY, by using voice-over confession and CGI in 15 DAYS, or by juxtaposing a model of a bombed city with a sober commentary that sums up on man’s attempts to reach a safe zone in VIEW FROM ABOVE, most films in this programme deal with the stories of those who had to leave their homes by avoiding to actually show them. Providing a sudden shift of temporal BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ perspective and employing sci-fi elements, \\

46 47 THE MIGRATING IMAGE MUM, I’M SORRY 28’, 2018, Denmark 17’, 2017, DIRECTOR: STEFAN KRUSE DIRECTOR: MARTINA MELILLI

SCRIPTWRITER: Stefan Kruse IDEA: Martina Melilli, Lidia Savioli CINEMATOGRAPHY: Stefan Kruse CINEMATOGRAPHY: Stefania Bona

THE HUMAN FLOW EDITING: Stefan Kruse EDITING: Irene Dionisio SOUND: Stefan Kruse SOUND: Matteo Valeri PRODUCER: Stefan Kruse EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Marta Bianchi (Careof) PRODUCTION COMPANY: Sky and Careof for Artevisione 2017

STEFAN KRUSE MARTINA MELILLI

FILM PRESENTATION: What happens if we examine what we call the CURATOR’S COMMENT: From the moment the first refugees from FILM PRESENTATION: The camera slowly examines family photographs CURATOR’S COMMENT: MARTINA MELILLI’s video is as an analytical so-called refugee crisis from a different angle: Military recordings, and other war zones started arriving in EU countries, the paranoid phantasm and other severely damaged objects. Arranged on a table, passports, and at the same time emotional investigation of fragments, personal drone photographs, a 360° camera or satellite photographs? What if we about migrations, which came to dominate the public discourse, has consisted cell phones, and birth control pills in blister packs are handled with objects, photographs of people who died in the Lampedusa shipwrecks of look for images we have never seen – or revisit those we have seen but not only of words but also and especially of a myriad of images. Images in gloves and pincers. As the film links the images of personal items October 13, 2013 and May 15, 2015. […] The objects are slowly revealed, never noticed – and start wondering how they came about and who they themselves do not convey anything that would be crystal clear. But even damaged beyond repair, with extreme close-ups of skin and a dark shot corroded in their surfaces, emptied of their depth, deprived of the lives are intended for? THE MIGRATING IMAGE follows the pictorial flow of before they mean anything, they are in a way ordered, selected and placed in of a seashore at night, there is no way to avoid thinking of the people that accompanied and loaded with stories that we can only imagine and of refugees on their journey to and up through Europe. The film is based inter-relations. Very rarely, they are images of the journey itself, the images of they belonged to and of the actual damage - the weathering of the which they remain stoic witnesses. Objects chosen to represent themselves on photos of refugees and turns the camera back on us – as we created the situations experienced by the travelers. bodies in the water, the loss of life. and present themselves on arrival in the New (Old) World. What objects them and ultimately consume them. would we choose to present ourselves beyond the sea? Assuming, of course, (Kino Otok - Isola Cinema Film Festival) (Ioana Florescu, BIEFF 2019) that we were among those who managed to stay on the surface. (STEFAN KRUSE)

(Morgan Hoaus) WORLD SALES: STEFAN KRUSE International Film Festival Rotterdam 2019/ T: +45 25341349 FESTIVALS/AWARDS: E: [email protected] Viaemili@DocFest, Modena, Italy 2019/ European Identities. New FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Audience Award - 25FPS Film & Video Festival W : www.norwegianfilms.no Geographies in Artists’ Film and Video, Le Murate, Italy 2018/ Museo Croatia 2018 / Best Documentary - La Guarimba IFF Italy 2019 / Winner del Novecento, Milan 2017/ exhibition Project Room PAC, Milan 2018 / International Competition - Kurzfilmwoche Regensburg Germany 2019 BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL IV Cinema del Terzo Luogo, Cineporto di Lecce, Italy 2017 / Edward Snowden Award - Signes du Nuit IFF Italy 2018 / 2nd place

\\ short film category - Global Migration Film Festival 2018 / Clermont- \\ Ferrand 2019 / Visions Du Réel 2018 / Courtisane Ghent Belgium 2019 / VIS Vienna Shorts 2019 / Kino Otok Ljubljana 2019 / Go Short Nijmegen WORLD SALES: MARTINA MELILLI Netherlands 2019 T: +393405664057 E: [email protected] W : http://www.martinamelilli.com

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] T: +45 25341349 T: +393405664057 15 DAYS VIEW FROM ABOVE 13’, 2018, UK, France 11’, 2017, Germany DIRECTOR: IMRAN PERRETTA DIRECTOR: HIWA K

SCRIPTWRITER: Imran Perretta SCRIPTWRITER: Hiwa K, Lawrence Abu Hamdan CINEMATOGRAPHY: Imran Perretta NARRATOR: Hiwa K

THE HUMAN FLOW PERFORMER: Elham Ehsas CINEMATOGRAPHY: Ben Brix EDITING: Imran Perretta MOTION GRAPHIC DESIGN: Ben Brix SOUNDTRACK: Imran Perretta EDITING: Steffen Martin CG ARTIST: Dan Baiton, Absolute post SOUND DESIGN: Steffen Martin ANIMATION DESIGN AND DIRECTION: Matthew Campbell, PRODUCTION COMPANY: commissioned by documenta 14, Blind Pig Creative supported by Stadtmuseum Kassel PRODUCER: Tracy Bass PRODUCTION: commissioned for the Jerwood/ WITH THE SUPPORT OF: WITH THE SUPPORT OF: FVU Awards 2018 HIWA K IMRAN PERRETTA

FILM PRESENTATION: Distressing glimpses of the ground covered in DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: The film was an attempt to address some of FILM PRESENTATION: While the camera drifts over a model of the city DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: In the last four decades, many people have leaves and litter make the backdrop for a prayer whispered in Arabic. the imagery and discourse around the so-called migrant crisis in Europe of Kassel which was devastated during World War ll, we hear a story come from Iraq as refugees. In 1991, a division was created between In the second part of the film, they give way to a static shot of a set and look at it from a more distilled point of view, one that comes from the of our times. In order to achieve refugee status and stay away from an northern Iraq (Kurdistan) and the rest of Iraq. The UN considers Kurdistan a in a forest: leaves and litter again, a tent, dead trees with partially very particular insight of someone actually living on the border of Northern unsafe zone labeled as safe by the United Nations, M. needs to persuade safe zone. As a refugee you have to come from the unsafe zone, or at least amputated branches, a hoodie hanging from one of them. Unseen forces France after the flattening of the [Calais] Jungle. […] The film, loosely the authorities that he comes from a place that is considered unsafe. To prove that you do, in order to qualify as a refugee. During the interview tear the tent down and the voice is back. It is a poetic and disjointed speaking, is about his observations and his insights into the way in which succeed, he must provide the right answers: those that are right judging for refugee status, an official checks to see whether you really come from confession of a migrant. And there is a second screen, where the forest the nation-state has enclosed and encroached upon his life, his hopes and solely by a map. By linking destroyed Kassel and contemporary Irak, the unsafe zone. He asks about small details of the city you claim to come becomes the background for images from the daily life of the refugees desires, and his dreams. HIWA K delivers a far-reaching meditation on the absurdity of war. from, and compares your answers to a map to confirm that your answers living in the forests of Northern France. And the prayer goes: “first,/ correspond to it. If you cannot prove that you come from the unsafe zone, (Ioana Florescu, BIEFF 2019) there are some / things that you should know about/ me/ i said:/ that (FVU - Film and Video Umbrella video interview) you are sent back to your country. Many people have difficulty proving that /the only nation I have ever known is /my mother/ and that/ i am not/ they come from the unsafe zone, even if they really come from there. flesh/ made to endure/ but something full”. WORLD SALES: (hiwak.net) (Ioana Florescu, BIEFF 2019) FILM AND VIDEO UMBRELLA FESTIVALS/AWARDS: International Film Festival Rotterdam 2018/ Susanna Chisholm - Programme Development Director Twin Cities Arab Film Festival Mizna 2019/ documenta 14 Kassel Germany E: [email protected] 2017/ exhibition New Museum, NYC 2018/ exhibition S.M.A.K., Ghent W : www.fvu.co.uk 2018/ exhibition Kunstverein Hannover 2018/ exhibition Kunsthalle EXHIBITIONS/SCREENINGS: exhibition Jerwood Space, London 2018/

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL IV Mannheim 2019/ exhibition MAXXI Museum Rome 2019 BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL exhibition Art Exchange, Essex, UK/ The Edge, University of Bath, UK

\\ 2018/ screening Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea, UK 2018 \\

WORLD SALES: PROMETEO GALLERY DI IDA PISANI E: [email protected] W: http://www.prometeogallery.com

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] THIRD KIND 32’, 2018, Greece DIRECTOR: YORGOS ZOIS

CAST: Alexandros Vardaxoglou, Effi Rabsilber, Nikos Hanakoulas, Miankhail Waris Awalgul

THE HUMAN FLOW DIRECTOR: Yorgos Zois CINEMATOGRAPHY: Yannis Kanakis ART DIRECTION: Dimitris Katsikis EDITING: Yannis Chalkiadakis SOUND DESIGN: Persefoni Miliou MUSIC: Yannis Veslemes PRODUCER: Antigoni Rota (Squared Square) CO-PRODUCERS: Stelios Kotionis / Sinisa Juricic WITH THE SUPPORT OF: IN CO-PRODUCTION WITH Foss Productions

YORGOS ZOIS

FILM PRESENTATION: It is a brilliant idea to place the Earth at the heart DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: On 2nd of June 2017, 1680 refugees were of a science fiction film, a planet abandoned by those who could afford evacuated from an old abandoned airport in Athens. After one month we to do so. Three extra-terrestrials or rather ancient-terrestrials, alerted were the only ones who got permission to enter this airport and what we by a sign of life on Earth, come back to have a look. The exquisite, ample encountered was something unique. All of the refugees’ belongings were and majestic mise-en-scène, in the middle of an abandoned airport, still left behind; it was like a civilization had disappeared from one moment unfolds the layers of times in concentric circles, unveiling the life and to another. So we decided to make a sci fi that three archeologists come the memories carved into the walls by sounds and physicality. Both back from the future to find out what has happened… Shot with old soviet subtle and terrifying, Yorgos Zois’ film reveals the social dislocation that anamorphic lenses (Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky) and inspired by La Jetée of has now become ubiquitous, both on Earth and other planets. Welcome Chris Marker and Close Encounters from Steven Spielberg, this is a science to the social deconstruct of the 3rd kind. fiction film with the special occasion that all settings and props are real.

(Charles Tesson, artistic director of Cannes’ Critics’ Week) (YORGOS ZOIS)

FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Critic’s Week, Cannes Film Festival 2018 / Best International Film Award - Batroun Mediterranean Film Festival 2018 WORLD SALES: SALAUD MORISSET / Best Short Film - World Of Film International Festival Glasgow 2018 T: + 49 1 52 25 19 23 36

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONINTERNATIONAL IV E: [email protected] BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL / Board of Director’s Award - North Carolina Film Award 2018 / Best W : http://salaudmorisset.com

\\ Cinematography - ÉCU The European Independent Film Festival 2019 / \\ \\ Telluride 201 8/ Curtas Vila do Conde 2018 / Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin 2019 / DokuFest Kosovo 2018 / Helsinki 2019 / Busan International Short Film Festival 2019

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] DANGERHEALING ISVOICES: MY BUSINESS REMEMBRANCE AND REENACTMENT PRESENTATION INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION IVV

Curatorial presentation by: CĂLINBIANCA BOTO BĂNICĂ

One of the ever-fascinating abilities of cinema is that of atomization. Larger-than-life events and experiences can suit any kind of screen, regardless of its size, and with the right means of evoking empathy and sympathy, the spectators are allowed to do much more than seeing, and that’s understanding. BIEFF’s Healing Voices: Remembrance And Reenactment program is a meeting point for five recent short films that found their means of presentation and representation in the very core of the medium, compelling a solid journey through cinematic devices which reflect and challenge themselves under our eyes.

Each of the seven male escorts from looks at collective memory from a in a recorded one-on-one meeting (plus The Grimm fairy tale is what Tischbein There’s something in the woods. Ryan Manuel Abrąmović’s short documentary different perspective. Glimpses of the translator Emin Delić), the director uses finds as SNOW WHITE’S starting point Mckenna’s shots from VOICES OF BLUE BOY is confronted with the camera American day-care sex-abuse hysteria eclectic cinematic means of reproduction for uncovering the common ground of KIDNAPPING, of the dark, foggy, horror- while simultaneously facing another task from the eighties are presenting both the and production to illustrate memories the politics of preserving bodies in both like Colombian jungle, are accompanied by – listening to their own stories, told with McMartin preschool trial and the notorious of the camp. The climax of these means major historical deaths and more regular the chilling radio messages broadcasted their previously recorded own voices. Men story of Pazder-Smith duo’s “Michelle is a 3D animation of what used to be the situations such as the conservation work on Voces del Secuestro. What does one who have sex with men for money seem to Remembers” best-seller. By mixing all sorts concentration camp in Omarska, based on done by museums and hunters. Inevitably, tell to his disappeared endeared one in be living with a sense of otherness. Neither of information and depicting it through vivid tales, photographs, and drawings, cinema’s capacity of conservation (or, such a short time? Something intimate queer nor with a ‘conforming’ sexual life, different cinematic methods, formats, and mixed with recent footage of the then- in the words of the great André Bazin, which would be heard by thousands of their status is marginal and they have been material, the director highlights the means camp-now-factory and its surroundings. ‘mummification’) is indirectly touched. others. MCKENNA found the right subject faceless. Abrąmović offers in his short of representation and conservation that What Sasindran is addressing in this film A dense puzzle of quotes accompany a to tackle the dynamics between intimacy film seven faces and many bits of account, cinema posses, for better or worse. is not only the complexity of cinematic cinematic roller coaster – found footage, and exposure, and the usage of generic- questioning the role of the camera as a reproduction but the moral stances that Internet-generated footage, original but-specific Colombian landscapes are client and vice versa. Director Varun Sasindran dedicated his film the lack of a physical memorial of these material, and tridimensional animation, cleverly depicting generic-but-specific life to the civil victims who lost their lives in victims should make up. all constructed, deconstructed, sorted stories which together become a historical It’s sort of like going back to a haunted Prijedor, a mass of people whose personal and mixed in thought-provoking ways lesson of sorrow and hope. NTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONNTERNATIONAL V I house, you can’t go back alone.’ An eclectic memory is gone forever. And memory is of challenging the concept of screen- BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ mix of found footage, CGI animation, and the main subject tackled in OMARSKA. spatiality in cinema. \\ reenacted scenes, Pia Borg’s DEMONIC After introducing survivor Nusreta Sivac

54 55 SNOW WHITE OMARSKA 20’, 2017, Germany, Czech Republic 19’, 2018, France DIRECTOR: THADEUSZ TISCHBEIN DIRECTOR: VARUN SASINDRAN

SCRIPTWRITER: Thadeusz Tischbein CAST: Nusreta Sivac, Edin Ramulić, Midhat Fazlić, CINEMATOGRAPHY: Thadeusz Tischbein Emin Delić

HEALING VOICES HEALING EDITING: Thadeusz Tischbein CINEMATOGRAPHY: Varun Sasindran SOUND: Thadeusz Tischbein ANIMATION: Oh Eun Lee EDITING: Sajra Subasic SOUND: Yannick Delmaire, Yannick Delmaire PRODUCER: Natalia Trebik PRODUCTION COMPANY: Le Fresnoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

THADEUSZ TISCHBEIN VARUN SASINDRAN

FILM PRESENTATION: What happens to the body, when a dictator DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: Maybe in the end the motives for me and for FILM PRESENTATION: Bosnian War 1992. In the north of Bosnia and CURATOR’S COMMENT: Director VARUN SASIND RAN dedicated his film dies? It seems to be reasonable to keep the dictators body, proving the preserving those bodies are not so different after all. Even though I did Herzegovina lies the concentration camp Omarska, which according to the civil victims who lost their lives in Prijedor, a mass of people whose transition of power to the new leaders. Something similar happens to not search for the one final answer – I merely surrounded the possibilities to Serbian reports was an assembly point and investigation centre. personal memory is gone forever. And memory is the main subject tackled trophies that hunters once gathered to remember their successful hunt. – it is all about the overcoming of death. To live forever – and be that by Between May and August 1992, thousands of people were interned, in OMARSKA. After introducing survivor Nusreta Sivac in a recorded one- However this linkage is hidden away when the same trophies became becoming culture in a way. tortured, raped and murdered there. Now it is a factory site of the on-one meeting (plus translator Emin Delić), the director uses eclectic exhibits of a museum and subjects of an educational presentation. ArcelorMittal Company. So far, those murdered there have yet to be cinematic means of reproduction and production to illustrate memories SNOW WHITE examines the role of culture when dead bodies are not (Szczecin European Film Festival’s blog) commemorated. The film is based on the agonizing memories of Nusreta of the camp. The climax of these means is a three-dimensional animation buried, but kept to achieve a specific purpose after death. Sivac, who served as a judge until the outbreak of the war. OMARSKA of what used to be the concentration camp in Omarska, based on vivid tries to construct a virtual memorial using archive material, videos and tales, photographs, and drawings, mixed with recent footage of the then- (THADEUSZ TISCHBEIN) statements by survivors in a 3D animation. camp-now-factory and its surroundings. What SASINDRAN is addressing CURATOR’S COMMENT: The Grimm fairy tale is what TISCHBEIN finds in this film is not only the complexity of cinematic reproduction but the as a starting point for uncovering the common ground of the politics (Berlinale) moral stances that the lack of a physical memorial of these victims should of preserving bodies in both major historical deaths and more regular FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Best Experimental Film & Audience Award - make up. situations such as the conservation work done by museums and hunters. Kurzsuechtig Leipzig, Germany 2018 / Internacional Festival Signos De Inevitably, cinema’s capacity of conservation (or, in the words of the great La Noite (Signs Of The Night) Lisboa, Portugal, 2019 / Indielisboa Lisbon, (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2019) André Bazin, ‘mummification’) is indirectly touched. A dense puzzle of FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Special Mention - Berlinale, 2019/ Sarajevo Portugal 2018 / Riga International Film Festival, Latvia 2018 / Szczecin quotes accompany a cinematic roller coaster – found footage, Internet- International Film Festival, 2019/ Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, Germany, European Film Festival, Poland 2018 / Ultracinema Xalapa, Mexico 2018 NTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONNTERNATIONAL V

I generated footage, original material, and tridimensional animation, all 2019/ Melbourne International Film Festival, Australia, 2019 BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL constructed, deconstructed, sorted and mixed in thought-provoking ways \\ of challenging the concept of screen-spatiality in cinema. \\ WORLD SALES: Thadeusz Tischbein E: [email protected] (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2019) WORLD SALES: Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains T: +33(0)3 20 28 38 00 E: [email protected] W : www.lefresnoy.net 56 57

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] VOICES OF KIDNAPPING DEMONIC 16’, 2017, Canada, Colombia 28’, 2018, Australia DIRECTOR: RYAN MCKENNA DIRECTOR: PIA BORG

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Ryan McKenna CAST: Angie Christophel, Hanna Gabriella Galbraith, EDITING: Ryan McKenna Robert Blake

HEALING VOICES HEALING SOUND: Tyler Fitzmaurice CINEMATOGRAPHY: Maxx Corkindale PRODUCER: Ryan McKenna, Rebecca Blackwood SCRIPTWRITER: Pia Borg ANIMATION: Adam James Sinclair EDITING: David Scarborough SOUND: Mike Darren MUSIC: Áine O’Dwyer, Księżyc PRODUCER: Anna Vincent, Bonnie McBride, Pia Borg WITH THE SUPPORT OF: PRODUCTION COMPANY: Ritual Pictures, SLA Films

RYAN MCKENNA PIA BORG

FILM PRESENTATION: For twenty years, the program Voces del CURATOR’S COMMENT: There’s something in the woods. MCKENNA’s FILM PRESENTATION: ‘It’s sort of like going back to a haunted house, DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: When I first encountered the subject of Secuestro has allowed family members to send radio messages that they shots of the dark, foggy, horror-like Colombian jungle are accompanied by you can’t go back alone.’ An eclectic mix of found footage, CGI animation, DEMONIC, I was immediately fascinated by the multiple layers of truth hope will reach their loved ones kidnapped in the Amazon jungle. This the chilling radio messages broadcasted on Voces del Secuestro. What does and reenacted scenes, LIA BORG’s latest short film looks at collective and fiction, and by the discrepancies in the way that the story had been is an experimental documentary that pairs these radio messages with one tell to his disappeared endeared one in such a short time? Something memory from a different perspective. Glimpses of the American day- reported historically. The film uses both fictional and non-fiction archival abstract portraits of the Colombian landscape. intimate which would be heard by thousands of others. MCKENNA found care sex-abuse hysteria from the eighties are presenting both the elements to probe the representation of the truth alongside reconstruction the right subject to tackle the dynamics between intimacy and exposure, McMartin preschool trial and the notorious story of Pazder-Smith duo’s and hyperreal CGI animation. It asks how a mass hysteria manifests in (RYAN MCKENNA) and the usage of generic-but-specific Colombian landscapes are cleverly Michelle Remembers best-seller. By mixing all sorts of information and society. The answer is both historically fascinating and especially resonant depicting generic-but-specific life stories which together become a depicting it through different cinematic methods, formats, and material, to our present moment. historical lesson of sorrow and hope. the director highlights the means of representation and conservation FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Doc Jury Award - Vienna Shorts, 2018/ Edinburgh that cinema posses, for better or worse. (PIA BORG) International Film Festival, UK, 2018/ Best Experimental Short - Rendez- (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2019) (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2019) Vous Québec Cinéma, 2018

FESTIVALS/AWARDS: 58th Semaine de la Critique - Cannes 2019/ WORLD SALES: LA DISTRIBUTRICE DE FILMS Adelaide Film Festival, South Australia 2018 E: [email protected] NTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONNTERNATIONAL V I BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL \\ \\

WORLD SALES: RITUAL PICTURES T: +1 323 861 2733 E: [email protected]

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] BLUE BOY 19’, 2019, Argentina, Germany DIRECTOR: MANUEL ABRAMOVICH

CAST: Florin, Michel, Răzvan, Ștefan, Mihail, Marius, Rafael, Roberto

HEALING VOICES HEALING CINEMATOGRAPHY: Manuel Abrąmović EDITING: Cătălin Cristuțiu SOUND: Francisco Pedemonte PRODUCER: Manuel Abrąmović ARTISTIC PRODUCER: Bogdan Georgescu

MANUEL ABRAMOVICH

FILM PRESENTATION: Each of the seven male escorts from MANUEL DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: I wanted to make a series of portraits of sex ABRAMOVICH short documentary is confronted with the camera while workers applying the same rules of the sex trade. To place emphasis simultaneously facing another task – listening to their own stories, on the performativity of such dynamics and to create an experiment in told with their previously recorded own voices. This leads to often which the roles of everyone involved (protagonists, audience, myself) contradictory reactions. Be it amused, unimpressed or touched by his were interchangeable. What would it be like for these young men to take own story, each and every one of them is obviously intimidated by the distance from the character they play? How would they react to their camera. Men who have sex with men for money seem to be living with own stories? a sense of otherness. Neither queer nor with a ‘conforming’ sexual life, their status is marginal and they have been faceless. ABRAMOVICH (MANUEL ABRAMOVICH) offers in his short film seven faces and many bits of account, questioning the role of the camera as a client and vice versa.

(Călin Boto, BIEFF 2019) WORLD SALES: MANUEL ABRAMOVICH E: [email protected]

FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Silver Bear Prize - Berlinale Shorts Competition, NTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONNTERNATIONAL V

I Berlin International Film Festival 2019 / Best Short Film - BAFCI Buenos BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Aires, Argentina 2019 / Cinéma du Réel Paris, 2019 / XPOSED Film \\ Festival. Berlin, Germany 2019 / Seattle Film Festival, USA 2019 / TIFF \\ \\ Transilvania Film Festival, Romania 2019 / Lviv International Short Film Festival Wiz-Art, Ukraine 2019 / Festival de San Sebastián, Spain 2019 / Astra Film Festival, Romania 2019 / Internationalen Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, Switzerland 2019 / Viennale, Austria 2019

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] QUINZAINE DES RÉALISATEURS THEME PROGRAM: PRESENTATION CAUGHT IN THE FRAME

Curatorial text by: CĂLIN BOTO

Five hand-picked films initially presented during this year’s edition of Cannes’s Quinzaine des Réalisateurs are sharing the big screen once again, this time under BIEFF’s Caught in the Frame program. Frame by frame, the spectator would quickly discover that it’s a selection that is precisely about frames – social, geographic, personal and political. By destroying monsters, escaping museums, protesting, or observing, assisting and obeying, different characters are learning how to undertake or overcome their own frames.

In GRAND BOUQUET Yoshingai seems to It is very, very difficult to successfully pull are normally considered either opposite between ex-revolutionary and bourgeois have absorbed and regurgitated a buffet off one-take films in busy, naturalistic to each other or generated one from the artworks such as “Mona Lisa” and a blue of exciting influences; Jonathan Glazer’s locations without slipping into a sense other. Nobody imagines these situations Egyptian faience hippopotamus, the stars Under The Skin seems like a possible visual of either quirky artifice or would-be occupying the same time and place, which of the exhibition. But that’s about to touchpoint, while the hard-to-watch body- documentary. STAY AWAKE, BE READY instead is what we do. (Flatform) change, and the statue is willing to go on horror elements feel like some of the (d. Pham Thien An) successfully navigates the streets of Paris, right in the middle of slightly more disturbing parts of body- the challenges of portraying a busy It’s easy to imagine how, right in the protests. Abrantes’ CGI fairytale follows invasion anime have been blended with Vietnamese street-corner, managing beginning of Gabriel Abrantes’ THE a political coming of age which tackles David Cronenberg at his most clinical. to offer up a heightened slice-of-life MARVELOUS MISADVENTURES OF THE both the politics of museums and the (Catherine Bray, Screendaily.com) that deftly nails the spirit of its location STONE LADY, in the museum guide’s ones of street protests. without falling into the trap of feeling the mind, the yellow caps worn by a group Sergio Caballero provides a dark, surreal need to pursue the chimera of so-called of children he’s taking on a tour for space that illustrates much of the anguish realism. (Catherine Bray, Screendaily.com) are slowly becoming yellow vests. He’s that’s between the two women, very much talking about social inequality, political in the tradition of German Expressionism. That Which Is to Come Is Just a Promise’s art, and class struggle right in front of The studio-like surroundings are a visual idea certainly arises from some recurring Eugène Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the

QUINZAINE THEME PROGRAM tour de force in which the director (who’s elements that characterize much of our People”. The kids aren’t listening, but an BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL also the production designer) combines recent work. In particular, we are referring ornamental sculpture is. And it’s right \\ rear projections, surreal décor, and sterile to the attention given to spatiotemporal before the night in which the sculpture \\ installations to create an experimental changes that, through a complex editing is magically receiving life – it walks, form of spatiality. JE TE TIENS could easily process, are created out of real footage. talks, and, most important, thinks for be the end of a dark and twisted soap What has interested us for several years is herself. The sculpture used to be the opera, but it’s a solid short film about the possibility of working on the landscape lumpenproletarian of the museum, stuck endings and much more. to create a continuum of situations that

62 63 GRAND BOUQUET JE TE TIENS 15’, 2019, Japan 21’, 2019, Spain DIRECTOR: NAO YOSHIGAI DIRECTOR: SERGIO CABALLERO

CAST: Hanna Chan CAST: Ángela Molina, Virginia Rousse, Sosaku Miyazaki SCRIPTWRITER: Nao Yoshigai SCRIPTWRITER: Sergio Caballero CINEMATOGRAPHY: Koh Terai CINEMATOGRAPHY: Claudia Mallart ANIMATION: Ryo Taniguchi, Tatsuki Saito (CG) EDITING: Bernat Vilaplana EDITING: Nao Yoshigai SOUND: Pedro Alcalde

\\ CAUGHT IN THE FRAME\\ SOUND: Masaya Kitada MUSIC: Pedro Alcalde, Sergio Caballero MUSIC: Kazuya Matsumoto PRODUCTION COMPANY: Advanced Music S.L PRODUCER: Shinya Fujiwara PRODUCTION COMPANY: Whatever Inc. WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

NAO YOSHIGAI SERGIO CABALLERO

FILM PRESENTATION: Humans possess the ability to sympathize with DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: This film is my voice and my flesh, born out of FILM PRESENTATION: A mother and her daughter are driving on a road CURATOR’S COMMENT: SERGIO CABALLERO provides a dark, surreal other people through our own bodies’ pseudo-experience of their an unknown body named NAO YOSHIGAI, and the spark it caused with all of trip like never before – all the way through their rotten relationship. Just space that illustrates much of the anguish that’s between the two feelings. This enables us to imagine the joyful mood of a movie character, the events which occurred around it. If my flesh and voice, which will remain the two of them in a car, on a road to nowhere, they try to come to terms women, very much in the tradition of German Expressionism. The studio- or share its troubles and pains. In addition to visuals and sound that as a film, can become a gift for someone, to be metabolized for energy for with each other in a deeply tensed, confrontational and melodramatic like surroundings are a visual tour de force in which the director (who’s rouse the viewer’s physical senses, this haptic movie contains elements the next generation, I will be satisfied. We will continue to collect flowers discussion. But understanding the other seems to be the main difficulty also the production designer) combines rear projections, surreal décor, that convey the protagonist’s emotions and resulting physical changes from around the world to send a bouquet for the future. in this babelian situation, and the daughter is on the verge of giving it and sterile installations to create an experimental form of spatiality. JE through vibrations in the chest, stomach and back – arguably the most all up. TE TIENS could easily be the end of a dark and twisted soap opera, but it’s (NAO YOSHIGAI) direct form of sympathetic experience. a solid short film about endings and much more. (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2019) (NTT InterCommunication Center – ICC) (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2019) CURATOR’S COMMENT: YOSHINGAI seems to have absorbed and regurgitated a buffet of exciting influences; Jonathan Glazer’s Under FESTIVALS/AWARDS: 51° Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, Cannes Film The Skin seems like a possible visual touchpoint, while the hard-to-watch Festival, 2019 body-horror elements feel like some of the slightly more disturbing parts FESTIVALS/AWARDS: 51° Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, Cannes Film of body-invasion anime have been blended with David Cronenberg at his Festival, 2019/ Palm Springs International ShortFest, USA, 2019 most clinical.

WORLD SALES: ADVANCED MUSIC S.L

QUINZAINE THEME PROGRAM (Catherine Bray, Screendaily.com) T : +34 93 320 8163 BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL E: [email protected]

\\ W: www.amfilms.eu \\ WORLD SALES: CaRTe bLaNChe FB: www.facebook.com/CaRTebLaNCheFilmsVideos W: [email protected]

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] THAT WHICH IS TO COME STAY AWAKE, IS JUST A PROMISE BE READY 22’, 2017, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand 14’, 2019, Vietnam, South Korea, USA DIRECTOR: FLATFORM DIRECTOR: PHAM THIEN AN

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Flatform, Simon Baumfield, CAST: Le Quoc Bao Vi, Vu Trong Tuyen, Trung Dong Cao, Jess Charlton Be Hieu, Huynh Ngoc Hanh ANIMATION: Reinier Van Brummelen SCRIPTWRITER: Pham Thien An

\\ CAUGHT IN THE FRAME\\ EDITING: Flatform CINEMATOGRAPHY: Dinh Duy Hung SOUND: Wiebe De Boer EDITING: Pham Thien An PRODUCTION COMPANY: Dugong Films, Serious SOUND: Do Vu, Tamas Steger Films, Blueskin Films PRODUCER: Pham Thien An, Tran Van Thi WITH THE SUPPORT OF: PRODUCTION COMPANY: JKFILM

FLATFORM PHAM THIEN AN

FILM PRESENTATION: In a long sequence through Funafuti island, DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: This film’s idea certainly arises from some FILM PRESENTATION: Street pubs & stalls are places where people in CURATOR’S COMMENT: It is very, very difficult to successfully pull off the state of drought and flooding alternate fluidly, and without recurring elements that characterize much of our recent work. In particular, Vietnam can chat about many things without the fear of being judged. one-take films in busy, naturalistic locations without slipping into a sense interruption. The places and the actions of their inhabitants, in the we are referring to the attention given to spatiotemporal changes that, Through the conversation of three young men in front of the street of either quirky artifice or would-be documentary. STAY AWAKE, BE READY constant and smooth movement from one state to another, set aside the through a complex editing process, are created out of real footage. What stalls on a street corner, a traffic accident happened suddenly nearby, successfully navigates the challenges of portraying a busy Vietnamese two recurring situations of the island: the waiting and the suspension. has interested us for several years is the possibility of working on the the director wants to sketch a multi-color picture of humanity. When street-corner, managing to offer up a heightened slice-of-life that deftly Since some years, Funafuti in the Tuvalu archipelago is the scene of a landscape to create a continuum of situations that are normally considered society makes people rush day after day, they often think of themselves nails the spirit of its location without falling into the trap of feeling the unique phenomenon: due to the unnatural overheating of the sea, salt either opposite to each other or generated one from the other. Nobody as the center of the universe and actually forget how small they really need to pursue the chimera of so-called realism. water rises from the ground, flows through the pores of the land and imagines these situations occupying the same time and place, which are in the big world. (Catherine Bray, Screendaily.com) floods it, putting the future of life at risk on the island. instead is what we do. (PHAM THIEN AN) (FLATFORM) (FLATFORM)

FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Illy Award for Best Short Film- 51° Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, Cannes Film Festival, 2019/ Locarno Film Festival 2019 FESTIVALS/AWARDS: 51° Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, Cannes Film Festival, 2019/ BFI London Film Festival, 2019 QUINZAINE THEME PROGRAM BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

WORLD SALES: LIGHTS ON \\ \\ E: [email protected] W: https://www.lightsonfilm.com WORLD SALES: LIGHT CONE T : +33 1 46 59 01 53 E: [email protected] W: www.lightcone.org/en

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] THE MARVELOUS MISADVENTURES OF THE STONE LADY GOLDEN SHORTS: 20’, 2019, France, Portugal DIRECTOR: GABRIEL ABRANTES BEST FILMS IN MAJOR CAST: Liza Lapert, Virgil Vernier, Vimala Pons, Alexis Manenti, \\ CAUGHT IN THE FRAME\\ Annie Mercier, Caroline Deruas SCRIPTWRITER: Gabriel Abrantes CINEMATOGRAPHY: Kanamé Onoyama FESTIVALS I ART DIRECTION: Victor Melchy WITH THE SUPPORT OF: ANIMATION: Irmã Lúcia (José André, Carlos Almeida) EDITING: Margarida Lucas SOUND: Jules Jasko, Matthieu Deniau, Philippe Deschamps MUSIC: Gabriel Abrantes PRODUCER: Justin Taurand, Gabriel Abrantes DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: I wanted to make a film that was about art PRODUCTION COMPANY: Les Films du Bélier, Artificial Humors and its relationship to politics. The film is a metaphor for art that wants to escape from the institutional restraints of the museum, and to become SPECIAL PROGRAM politically engaged in the ‘real world’. GABRIEL ABRANTES (GABRIEL ABRANTES)

CURATOR’S COMMENT: It’s easy to imagine how, in the mind of the FILM PRESENTATION: THE MARVELOUS MISADVENTURES OF THE museum guide, the yellow caps worn by a group of children he’s taking STONE LADY is loosely inspired on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Fir on a tour for are slowly becoming yellow vests. He’s talking about social Tree, penned in 1845. HCA’s story is about a naïf pine tree that wishes inequality, political art, and class struggle right in front of Eugène it would be cut down and taken from the forest and turned into a Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People”. The kids aren’t listening, but Christmas tree. As soon as wish becomes reality, things get pretty dark an ornamental sculpture is. And it’s right before the night in which the for the little fir. Likewise, in THE MARVELOUS…, a naïf sculpture wishes sculpture is magically receiving life – it walks, talks, and, most important, she were more than a banal decorative ornament. One night she runs thinks for herself. The sculpture used to be the lumpenproletarian of the away from the Louvre, out onto the streets of Paris, to confront life museum, stuck between ex-revolutionary and bourgeois artworks such as and become something more meaningful. Like the young fir, the young “Mona Lisa” and a blue Egyptian faience hippopotamus, the stars of the sculpture finds out that reality isn’t rosy as she had hoped.

QUINZAINE THEME PROGRAM exhibition. But that’s about to change, and the statue is willing to go on the BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (GABRIEL ABRANTES) streets of Paris, right in the middle of protests. ABRANTES’ CGI fairytale \\ follows a political coming of age which tackles both the politics of museums \\ and the ones of street protests. FESTIVALS/AWARDS: 51° Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, Cannes Film (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2019) Festival, 2019/ Short Film Nominee, European Film Awards, 2019

WORLD SALES: Portugal Film - Portuguese Film Agency T: +351 965195255 68 E: [email protected] 69

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] LAST YEAR WHEN I SIGNED THE PETITION 10’, 2018, United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland THE TRAIN PASSED BY DIRECTOR: MAHDI FLEIFEL 17’, 2018, France DIRECTOR: PANG-CHUAN HUANG SCRIPTWRITER: Mahdi Fleifel CINEMATOGRAPHY: Mahdi Fleifel SCRIPTWRITER: Pang-Chuan Huang EDITING: Michael Aaglund

\\ GOLDEN SHORTS\\ CINEMATOGRAPHY: Pang-Chuan Huang SOUND: Dario Swade ANIMATION: Pang-Chuan Huang PRODUCER: Patrick Campbell, Mahdi Fleifel EDITING: Pang-Chuan Huang PRODUCTION COMPANY: Nakba FilmWorks SOUND: Chun-Chu Yu MUSIC: Giong Lim PRODUCER: Natalia Trebik PRODUCTION COMPANY: Le Fresnoy WITH THE SUPPORT OF: WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

PANG-CHUAN HUANG MAHDI FLEIFEL

FILM PRESENTATION: Starting from a series of photographs taken CURATOR’S COMMENT: What goes on behind the windows you see CURATOR’S COMMENT: Plagued by anguish after having signed a FILM PRESENTATION: Radiohead, Palestine, and the question during his own train journeys a year before, PANG-CHUAN HUANG flashing past when you’re traveling? Director PANG-CHUAN HUANG petition asking Thom Yorke’s band not to play in , the signer decides of individual power, debated during a personal overseas phone initiates a process of inquiry on what goes on behind the windows, went looking for the answer. He visited the residents of houses he’d to drop a call to a Palestinian friend living in London. Answering the conversation between Palestinian director MAHDI FLEIFEL and an behind a stranger’s gaze. He visits the inhabitants of these alienated photographed from the train a year before and asked what they’d been tortured questions of his faraway friend at the other end of the phone, he acquaintance. The slightly tense, sometimes reassuring voices discuss landscapes and presents their lives, to which he attributes a certain doing at the moment the photo was taken. This produces moving, dramatic ironically seems to shrug off most of the concerns, minimizing the other’s one of the most complex ethical issues of contemporary Germany degree of the poetry of everyday. Gradually, it becomes clear that and sometimes comical stories: about loss, sadness, love and hope, of anxieties. But as the conversation goes on, the political temperature – a country where we understand that the director lives at present – the stranger is as alien to the viewer, as the viewer is to the stranger. people trying to build a life and give meaning to the things that happen rises, and the conversation becomes more focused. A debate ensues about regarding Europe’s moral obligation to support Israel, and Israel’s harsh Consisting of black and white photographs and glimpses of life shot to them. The film also says something about the workings of memory and what it means being Palestinian, how signing a petition may get you in the towards Palestine. Images shot on film of the director’s apartment filled on 8mm film, LAST YEAR WHEN THE TRAIN PASSED BY is a tribute to the tragedy of constant change that is life, not to mention the resilience crosshairs of different control systems and the effectiveness of today’s with spots of sunlight coming through large windows are juxtaposed celluloid, to which it offers the chance to save a forgotten past, and to of people who keep persevering after apparently insurmountable events. political actions. A film based on a very simple idea but executed in an with found footage of the Palestinian struggle, putting in contract the reduce the distance between two types of alienation. The commentary, the nostalgic-looking photos, poetic images, and the extremely precise way. A Kammerspiel without bodies or actors, made intimate safe space with the troubled and uncertain place that the two compelling soundtrack carry us towards an enthralling climax. only with voices that try to come to terms with the contradictions and (Emil Vasilache, BIEFF 2019) men call “home”. hypocrisies of post-modern politics. (IDFA) (Emil Vasilache, BIEFF 2019) (Giona A. Nazzaro – Visions du Réel - 2018)

FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Grand Prix (Lab Competition – Clermont-Ferrand WORLD SALES: LE FRESNOY – STUDIO NATIONAL BEST FILMS IN MAJOR FESTIVALS I International Short FF 2019 / Best International Film Award - London Short DES ARTS CONTEMPORAINS FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Best Short Film – Visions du Réel 2018/ Best BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Natalia Trebik WORLD SALES: NAKBA FILMWORKS

\\ FF 2019 / Critics Jury Special Mention - 25FPS International Experimental European Short – Sarajevo Film Festival 2018/ Hot Docs 2018/ Sheffield \\ T: +33 20 28 38 64 Patrick Campbell Film And Video Festival 2019 / MoMa Doc Fortnight 2019 / Locarno FF E: [email protected] Docs 2018/ European Film Awards 2018 T: +4407852840462 2018 / Taipei Golden Horse FF 2018 / IDFA 2018 W: https://vimeo.com/lefresnoy/albums E: [email protected] W : www.nakbafilmworks.com

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT THE LABYRINTH 30’, 2018, Germany, Italy 21’, 2018, Colombia, France DIRECTOR: NINA FISCHER & MAROAN EL SANI DIRECTOR: LAURA HUERTAS MILLÁN

CAST: Soumaila Makadji, Edem Akuété, Beatrix Abdul-Azeez, CAST: Cristóbal Gómez Millicent Norvikor, Karen Nwachukwu, Deborah Odeyemi, Kudirat SCRIPTWRITER: Laura Huertas Millán Osinowo, Michelle Dangana, Victory Aiguobasinwin, Dorcas CINEMATOGRAPHY: Laura Huertas Millán

\\ GOLDEN SHORTS\\ Amihere, Esse Aloba, Sonia Omoregie, Blessing Okpokiri, Zion EDITING: Laura Huertas Millán Adeegbe, Regina Ndukuba, Tsikenu Ackah, Joel Akoto, Promise SOUND: Laura Huertas Millán Oparaku, Joshua Adagboyin, Abraham Boham, Victor Benson, PRODUCER: Laura Huertas Millán Marie Konam, Presley Okuimose, Alex Aigubasinwin, Chorus PRODUCTION COMPANY: Studio Arturo Lucia leader: Irene Iyabode Lawson and 31 Athletes from Liberi Nantes SCRIPTWRITER: Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani CINEMATOGRAPHY: Johannes Praus, Maroan el Sani SOUND: Björn Wiese ANIMATION: Jan Gieseking PRODUCER: Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani EDITING: Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani PRODUCTION COMPANY: Fischer & el Sani, Berlin LAURA HUERTAS MILLÁN

NINA FISCHER MAROAN EL SANI FILM PRESENTATION: Back in the ’80s, wishing to display his opulence, DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: In THE LABYRINTH we encounter a rarely- Columbian cartel king Everisto Porras built in the south of Columbia a seen narrator, a man who tells of his experiences with the drug trafficker replica of the mansion from the famous American soap opera Dynasty. Evaristo Porras, a cartel king who constructed a replica of the mansion LAURA HUERTAS MILLÁN films the ruins of this copycat construction, from the television show Dynasty in southern Colombia before being FILM PRESENTATION: Composed of three chapters and conceived to be DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT is a revisiting of the guided by the voice of a local who seems to have known the cartel boss busted and reduced to poverty. He and his dream house fell into ruin. The shown as a video installation as well as a film, FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT 1960’s Olympic marathon in Rome, when Ethiopian Abebe Bikila won a gold and who speaks of the luxury, decadence and obsolescence of his life. television spectacle, though easily datable to the 1980s, remains frozen speaks of the historical moment in which Abebe Bikila, the Ethiopian medal as the first black athlete representing an African nation. With this Mixing fragments from the TV show with shots of the remains of the in its perfection, protected from the degradation that has overtaken its runner wins the gold medal at the Olympic marathon in Rome in 1960, 25 work, we examine the complexity of ideological, political and architectural luxurious mansion, now a ruin taken over by nature, MILLÁN underlines Colombian simulacrum. To underline the incompossibility of these two years after fascist Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia. The film then connects the implications of the image of Bikila running, since 1960 Rome to this day. the existence of two parallel modes of representation of a constructed worlds, HUERTAS MILLÁN uses sound to stage their collision, at times need for freedom of movement, and Ethiopia’s struggle with colonialism The narrative aims at linking the stories of the 1960ʼs marathon, the reality and illustrates the cultural influence the United States has over playing the Dynasty soundtrack over the images of the ruin and vice versa. with the present-day refugee crisis. “Why do we run?” wonders a voice current migration crisis and the silent language of Romeʼs controversial South America. THE LABYRINTH speaks to the syncretism of contemporary Colombia, from off as archive footage of Bikila running barefoot is juxtaposed with modernist architecture. where the disaster of narco-capitalism coexists with enduring precolonial images of fascist oppression. (Emil Vasilache, BIEFF 2019) relations to the world, creating an accord between the violence of the (NINA FISCHER & MAROAN EL SANI) (Emil Vasilache, BIEFF 2019) drug wars, the violence of European conquest, and possibilities of survival and resistance against both.

(Erika Balsom, film critic, senior lecturer in Film Studies WORLD SALES: STUDIO FISCHER & EL SANI FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Pardi di domani Best Direction Prize – Locarno

BEST FILMS IN MAJOR FESTIVALS I at King’s College London) BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani International Film Festival 2018/ Toronto International Film Festival FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Short Tiger Award Winner and Candidate for the E: [email protected]

\\ 2018/ Best experimental short film, Best editing, Best script – Bogoshorts \\ European Film Award, 2019 - International Film Festival Rotterdam, 2019/ W : http://www.fischerelsani.net / San Francisco Film Festival 2019/ Hamburg Short Film Festival 2019 / IndieLisboa - International Film Festival, Lisbon, 2019/ Nürnberg Human WORLD SALES: LAURA HUERTAS MILLÁN New York Film Festival 2018/ Viennale 2018/ Rotterdam International Rights Film Festival, 2019/ 19th Las Palmas International Film Festival, T: +33667783951 Film festival 2018/ Stockholm International Film Competition 2018/ / E: [email protected] Spain, 2019/ Videoex – Experimental film & Video Festival, Zurich, 2019 Festival Biarritz Amerique Latine 2018

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] UMBRA THE DISTANCE BETWEEN 20’, 2019, Germany, USA DIRECTOR: FLORIAN FISCHER, JOHANNES KRELL US AND THE SKY 9’, 2019, Greece, France SCRIPTWRITER: Florian Fischer, Johannes Krell DIRECTOR: VASILIS KEKATOS CINEMATOGRAPHY: Florian Fischer, Johannes Krell EDITING: Florian Fischer, Johannes Krell SCRIPTWRITER: Vasilis Kekatos

\\ GOLDEN SHORTS\\ SOUND: Florian Marquardt, Johannes Krell CINEMATOGRAPHY: Giorgos Valsamis MUSIC: Florian Marquardt, Alexander Schmidt EDITING: Stamos Dimitropoulos PRODUCER: Stephan Helmut Beier, Ray Peter Maletzki SOUND: Yanis Antypas PRODUCTION COMPANY: ROSENPICTURES Filmproduktion GbR MUSIC: The Boy PRODUCER: Eleni Kossyfidou PRODUCTION COMPANY: Blackbird Production WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

FLORIAN FISCHER JOHANNES KRELL VASILIS KEKATOS

FILM PRESENTATION: The film indicates a priori a sense of stylization CURATOR’S COMMENT: Formally and aesthetically complete, beautiful FILM PRESENTATION: What are the chances for a young man finding CURATOR’S COMMENT: While the courtyard of a petrol station may offered by the subject matter i.e. the will to document an eclipse. The and consistent, UMBRA has an irresistible arc of tension, a celebrated, not himself in a gas station at night to approach another traveler and ask him not seem the most romantic location, Kekatos, along with his sparkling sound of footsteps in the grass or the movements in water triggered always definable and therefore all the more fascinating pull. The film can for money and not receive an instant and flat refusal? Director VASILIS central duo, played by Nikolakis Zeginoglou and Ioko Ioannis Kotidis, by a human body – the cameraperson themselves – create an uneasy be read as an apocalyptic science fiction horror abstraction, as Kubrick Noir, KEKATOS aims to create a possible universe, where an immense and inject the cold light and the concrete with the energy and warmth of new feeling, becoming marks of subjectivity as our gaze becomes one so to speak. (Kubrick once mocked the fact that experimental film would tender intimacy can grow between two people who are strangers to romantic possibility. with the creature’s and we move along with it along twigs and thorns, never work on the big screen, and later shot the arguably most epic of all each other and to the particular site they find themselves in, since for (Jake Cunningham – BFI, 2019) witnessing a bizarre darkness, doubled by an even stranger light. On experimental films). UMBRA can also be perceived as a meditation on space one of them the place is a nest he does not want while for the other it is the other hand, we have a sun that is distant but not absent, whose and its exploration. Or is it a fantasy about aliens traveling to our planet? no more than an accidental stop in his journey. Filmed in close shots and omnipresent gaze cannot see whatever is swarming on the earth below. The images we know of the moon’s surface are similarly abstract. To semi-obscurity, THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US AND THE SKY is a romantic A dialogue of gazes between the sun itself and all the other creatures surrender oneself to UMBRA and the emotions and associations it triggers fantasy for those who dream to reach the sky, but are stuck on earth. WORLD SALES: SHORTCUTS which are not the sun , and therefore find themselves at the opposite means to begin a journey into space and to grant space to the ephemeral. (Emil Vasilache, BIEFF 2019) T: +33 (0)6 15 27 80 35 end of light. E: [email protected] (Berlinale 2019) W : www.shortcuts.pro (Emil Vasilache, BIEFF 2019)

FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Palme d’Or Best Short Film, Queer Palm Short Film - Cannes Film Festival 2019/ Melbourne International Film Festival WORLD SALES: ROSENPICTURES FILMPRODUKTION GbR 2019 / Sarajevo Film Festival 2019 Ray Peter Maletzki – Producer BEST FILMS IN MAJOR FESTIVALS I BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Golden Bear Best Short Film – Berlinale 2019/ Jury T: +49 (0) 157 51239044 E: [email protected]

\\ and Audience Award – Kurzsuechtig Leipzig 2019/ Hamburg International \\ W: www.rosenpictures.com Film Festival 2019/ Curtas Vila do Conde International Film Festival 2019/ Moscow International Experimental Film Festival 2019/ Festival de Finos Film Sao Paulo 2019

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] SWATTED 22’, 2018, France DIRECTOR: ISMAËL JOFFROY CHANDOUTIS

GOLDEN SHORTS: SCRIPTWRITER: Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis CINEMATOGRAPHY: Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis ANIMATION: Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis EDITING: Maël Delorme, Céline Perreard, BEST FILMS IN MAJOR Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis SOUND: Alban Cayrol MUSIC: Disasterpeace PRODUCER: Natalia Trebik FESTIVALS II PRODUCTION COMPANY: Le Fresnoy WITH THE SUPPORT OF:

ISMAËL JOFFROY CHANDOUTIS

FILM PRESENTATION: Swatting is a term which refers to making hoax CURATOR’S COMMENT: Some game trolls in the United States make a calls to emergency services in order to have S.W.A.T teams sent to a sport of getting other players “swatted” live during the game: they find SPECIAL PROGRAM specific address. The film is a captivating inquiry into this phenomenon, out someone’s name and address, fake his caller ID, and make a bogus 911 so infamous in the world of online gaming. It uses testimonials, call. The next thing you know, a SWAT team armed to the teeth is bursting fragments of internet videos, and recordings from GTA V (Grand Theft into his house and giving him the fright of his life. This is all streamed Auto) in order to create a complex web of information. The camera live on camera, of course, so everyone can be in on the joke. SWATTED navigates through the blueprint of virtual reality, through the digital is a cinematic exploration of this phenomenon based on 911 calls by nervous system of the homes interlinked by thousands of connections offenders, YouTube videos of games and raids, and first-hand accounts and bits of data. A film with guns, cops and a heavy rain that never seems of what it’s like to be swatted. Mesmerizing, almost surreal animations to stop – a true modern noir. explore and depict the strange borderland of gaming fantasy in which game and reality overlap—an unreal zone in which gaming and swatting (Emil Vasilache, BIEFF 2019) look increasingly similar. The film raises the question of which is the more frightening thought: that the trolls hiding behind computer screens and phones don’t entirely understand just how serious their game is, or that they’re actually very aware of it. FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Special Jury Award – Clermont-Ferrand International (IDFA, 2018) Short Film Festival 2019/ Best Short Documentary – Indielisboa 2019/ Phil Solomon Award – Chicago Underground Film Festival 2019/ Special Mention BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ – Norwegian Short Film Festival 2019/ One World International Human \\ Rights Documentary Film Festival 2019/ International Documentary Film WORLD SALES: SOME SHORTS Festival Amsterdam 2018 Wouter Jensen T: 0031 622076717 E: [email protected] W : www.someshorts.com

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] RETOUR ALL THESE CREATURES 20’, 2017, France 13’, 2018, Australia DIRECTOR: PANG-CHUAN HUANG DIRECTOR: CHARLES WILLIAMS

SCRIPTWRITER: Pang-Chuan Huang CAST: Yared Scott, Mandela Mathia, Helen Hailu, CINEMATOGRAPHY: Pang-Chuan Huang Melody Demessie EDITING: Pang-Chuan Huang SCRIPTWRITER: Charles Williams

\\ GOLDEN SHORTS\\ SOUND: Pang-Chuan Huang CINEMATOGRAPHY: Adric Watson MUSIC: Giong Lim ART DIRECTION: PRODUCER: François Bonenfant ANIMATION: PRODUCTION COMPANY: Le Fresnoy EDITING: Dan Lee SOUND: Craig Conway MUSIC: Chiara Costanza WITH THE SUPPORT OF: PRODUCER: Elise Trenorden WITH THE SUPPORT OF: PRODUCTION COMPANY: Simpatico Films PANG-CHUAN HUANG CHARLES WILLIAMS

FILM PRESENTATION: One of the film’s main strong points is the DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: Two linear paths from different eras unfurl FILM PRESENTATION: A coming of age story that takes place during DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: I think we all re-evaluate our memories of authorial presence of PANG-CHUAN HUANG in the film. It is something simultaneously. One is a return journey across two continents. The other the summer, in the home of a family of migrants of African origin living in our parents as we get older. This is especially true if we have a parent fairly reminiscent of CHRIS MARKER in this Taiwanese director’s is based on an old photograph of my grandfather. Gradually, the rhythmic Australia. ALL THESE CREATURES uses a narrative that relies on the oldest that was volatile or destructive – our memories of these figures can take perception of the world. The photographs are eloquently fluid and swaying of the train blends past with present, leading us to dig out a son’s strong sensorial memories of the degradation of his father’s mental on an almost mythic quality. [...] With ALL THESE CREATURES I wanted to illuminatingly communicative. HUANG manages to create a visual memory, long-forgotten, and covered in dust. The thousands of images health. The confusion and the feeling that whatever takes place over the immerse an audience viscerally and emotionally in these themes. To follow experience that transcends the dimensions of the space he depicts. He form a vast horizon running from the right, presenting the past, to the summer is caused by a curse are justified formally by the protagonist’s off- the memories of someone trying to understand a parent and the damage transports the viewer in a multidirectional temporal area, and in his train left, presenting the future. This way of looking resembles a Chinese scroll screen voice, who recalls and mystifies his own perception. The film plays caused – were they or or a victim themselves - and, in the journey across the two continents he suddenly utters “The bag in my painting that keeps to one and the same timeframe, like in a film. with all sorts of religious symbols in order to enhance the catastrophic process, questioning their own potentially unreliable experience of the hands becomes very heavy, I open it, another railway stretches out” and undertone. Filled with fragmentary, impressionistic images, the story world. My hope is that the film can deliver some sense of understanding for the journey is bound to continue. (PANG-CHUAN HUANG) structure becomes somewhat literary in form, almost like a nightmare. those volatile creatures who may have caused harm in our lives.

(Emil Vasilache, BIEFF 2019) (Emil Vasilache, BIEFF 2019) (CHARLES WILLIAMS)

WORLD SALES: LE FRESNOY – STUDIO NATIONAL DES ARTS CONTEMPORAINS FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Grand Prix Lab Competition - Clermont-Ferrand Natalia Trebik FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Palme D’or Short Film – Cannes 2018/ Toronto WORLD SALES: SOME SHORTS T: +33 20 28 38 64 Wouter Jansen International Short Film Festival/ Locarno International Film Festival/ E: [email protected] International Film Festival 2018/ Raindance Film Festival/ Rotterdam T: 0031 6 22076717

BEST FILMS IN MAJOR FESTIVALS II International Documentary Festival Amsterdam/ General Slate - Golden W: https://vimeo.com/lefresnoy/albums International Film Festival/ Oberhausen International Short Film Festival/ E: [email protected] BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Harvest Awards for Outstanding Short Films/ Taipei Film Festival Grand Prize Firebird Award – Hong Kong International Film Festival 2019 / W : www.someshorts.com \\ Best Short Fiction Film – Tirana International Film Festival 2018 \\

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DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] PRISONER OF SOCIETY CASTLE TO CASTLE 16’, 2018, Georgia 40’, 2018, Belgium, France DIRECTOR: RATI TSITELADZE DIRECTOR: EMMANUEL MARRE

CAST: Adelina CAST: Pierre Nisse, Francine Atoch, Simone Benichou, CINEMATOGRAPHY: Rati Tsiteladze Jean-Baptise Marre, Julie Fréal-Saison, Sophie EDITING: Rati Tsiteladze SCRIPTWRITER: Emmanuel Marre & Julie Lecoustre

\\ GOLDEN SHORTS\\ SOUND: Rati Tsiteladze CINEMATOGRAPHY: Emmanuel Marre, Paloma Sermon MUSIC: Credo Chamber Choir of Kiev, Bogdan Plish EDITING: Nicolas Rumpl PRODUCER: Nino Varsimashvili, Rati Tsiteladze SOUND: Vincent Villa PRODUCTION COMPANY: ArtWay Film PRODUCER: Sébastien Andres, François-Pierre Clavel, Alice Lemaire PRODUCTION COMPANY: Michigan Films

RATI TSITELADZE EMMANUEL MARRE

FILM PRESENTATION: The opening shots are filled with an energy as DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: I met Adelina when she approached me FILM PRESENTATION: We see a charismatic, solitary, character, and DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: Spring 2017, during the French presidential strong as a coffee pot about to boil – an image reminding of CHANTAL through social media, in a way I’d say the story found me. I was profoundly we follow him through two dimensions of his life: the political, and the election. Pierre, 25 years old and on a scholarship for a prestigious ACKERMAN’s LA CHAMBRE – that is how Adelina, a transgender woman touched by her life, but what has struck me the most was the fact that personal. In both, the future is an uncertainty and the present is filled Parisian School, is housed by Francine, who is 75, disabled and confined to from Georgia, is presented. A woman forced into anonymity by a society she spent more than a decade of her life locked up at home, isolated from with confusion - sometimes sprinkled with brief, clumsy moments of her wheelchair. Both puzzled and disoriented, they witness the electoral that refuses to accept her identity. PRISONER OF SOCIETY is composed society. Initially, my intention was to focus on her individual voice as a human contact between our disillusioned protagonist and his talkative fair that’s playing out. Their political opinions and social backgrounds are of four chapters entitled “mother”, “father”, “Adelina”, and “family”. In means of orchestrating the collective experience of her feelings, but when landlady whose age and physical disability seem to grant her a sort of opposite but they still confide in each other. While waiting for the polls each of them, director RATI TSITELADZE acts as a catalyst for the harsh I met her parents, I realized that I could not tell the story without them. wisdom which is baffling and comforting for the young man. CASTLE TO verdict, Pierre tries to look after Francine’s body while Francine tries to discussions between her and her family, discussions that denote a firm CASTLE is a fantastic narrative story about loneliness and meaning or the heal Pierre’s resentment. (RATI TSITELADZE - 2019) and genuine sincerity, and that are hard to ignore. Although captive, lack of it. The crisis of angst in the face of neoliberal politics, or what could Adelina is a fighter, a prisoner on her way to freedom. have been JOKER in Macron’s France. (EMMANUEL MARRE)

(Emil Vasilache, BIEFF 2019) (Emil Vasilache, BIEFF 2019) CURATOR’S COMMENT: A transgender woman’s desire for freedom is in direct conflict with the traditional expectations of Georgian society where WORLD SALES: AGENCE BELGE DU COURT MÉTRAGE LGBTQ+ individuals are still the targets of abuse and physical violence, Anne-Françoise Reynders FESTIVALS/AWARDS: European Film Academy Nominee 2018/ Short despite discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity FESTIVALS/AWARDS: Pardino d’oro & Young Jury Prize - Locarno 2018/ E : [email protected] Film Conference – Clermont-Ferrand ISFF 2018/ Documentary Grand being outlawed since 2014. PRISONER OF SOCIETY focuses on the effect Clermont-Ferrand 2019/ IndieLisboa 2019/ Best Short Film - Cine de Las Prix - Odense International Film Festival/ Hong Kong International of being a transgender woman has on a Georgian family and how isolating Palmas de Gran Canaria 2019/ Prix de la Critique - Brussels Short Film BEST FILMS IN MAJOR FESTIVALS II Film Festival/ Melbourne International Film Festival/ Internationale oneself from that society is the only path to survival. RATI TSITELADZE Festival BSFF 2019/ Grand Prix - Festival du moyen métrage de Brive/ BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

\\ Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen/ Tirana International Film Festival/ Rio de has created a documentary giving us insight into the reality hidden behind Grand Prix - Coté court de Pantin 2019/ AegeanDocs 2019/ Weiterstadt \\ Janeiro International Short Film Festival closed doors. 2019/ Prix du Jury Nouvelles Vagues Acuitis - Festival international du film de La-Roche-sur-Yon (Directors Notes – 2019)

WORLD SALES: ARTWAY FILM LLC. Nino Varsimashvili - General Director T: +995 599 992277 E: [email protected] 80 W : http://www.artwayfilm.com 81

DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: DIRECTOR’S CONTACT: E: [email protected] E: [email protected] This series includes films produced from 2006 to 2017. It aspires Continuă să not to be an exhaustive review of period production, but to SIDE EVENT: present some of the most significant forms and lines of work citești pe pursued by the Spanish essay film in recent years. Its diversity website-ul is visible in both the subjects broached and the formal options chosen. Several generations of filmmakers are represented, while FOCUS SPAIN the varying duration of their product necessarily determines different depths of reflection. The Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival is proud to present a selection of Spanish essay films featuring some of the most significant forms and A SQUIRREL’S IMPROVISATION (Improvisaciones de una ardilla) lines of work coming from several generations of Spanish filmmakers. This program is the result of the Virginia García del Pino (2017, 27’) collaboration with Instituto Cervantes Bucharest. A reflection on the role of media in concemporary politics, a critical analysis of the degeneration of journalistic production, the theatricality of politics or the tyranny of current events.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS (Felices Fiestas)

Víctor Moreno (2008, 6’)

A first person account of an African immigrant who came to Spain ESSAYISTIC in a dinghy. VARIATIONS IN CONTEMPORARY LIMITS: 1st PERSON (Límites 1ª persona) SPANISH FILMMAKING Elías León Siminiani (2009, 8’) A self-referential experiment on the limits of love.

Selection from a Program curated by Norberto Mínguez Arranz I BELIEVE IT (Yo me lo creo) Deschide camera și Essay film is a form that thinks. (Jean-Luc Godard) Colectivo Terrorismo de Autor (2016, 40’) plaseaz-o deasupra Along the line of prior works by the collective author Terrorismo acestui cod.

The substantially lower costs of film production BUCHAREST EXPERIMENTAL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL de Autor, the film confronts viewers with distressing realities, in afforded by digital technologies have provided authors

\\ an insightful emotional exercise that cannot be experienced with \\ with a powerful creative tool dependent neither on indifference. major investment nor consolidated industrial structures. Films in Frame is an online Romanian film magazine which Their emergence may be said to have spawned a new presents both the local and international industry through form of moving image-based writing, at the service of NORBERTO MÍNGUEZ-ARRANZ is Professor of Communication at carefully crafted materials written by our editors and creativity and free thinking. One of the most singular the University of Madrid./e He is the co-author of Principios de Teoria collaborators. We write about what we think it’s relevant, developments in contemporary culture in that context General de la Imagen and the editor of Literatura espanola y cine, about young and emerging talents undiscovered yet and about is the essay film. everything we believe it’s important to get to our readers. 82 as well as an editor of Telos, a journal devoted to communication, 83 culture, and society in Spain and Latin America. Find us more about us at www.filmsinframe.com \\

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