Category: Selection 2022

The spirit world around you takes place much more through the third eye than through the physical ones. To Luiz’s eyes, that which is invisible is not invisible thanks to his spiritual sensitivity

Director: Rodrigo Sena, Carlos Segundo

Writer: Rodrigo Sena

Producer: Arlindo Bezerra

Key Cast: Luiz Gonzaga de Melo

Runtime: 15 minutes

Country of Origin: Brazil

Country of Filming: Brazil

Language: Portugues

Subtitles: English

Rodrigo Sena

Rodrigo Sena is a photographer and audiovisual director. He has worked in the photography department for 20 years, worked in journalism for 10 years, developed advertising pieces, directed and photographed 4 award-winning short films, and is currently finishing the Encantarias series for cineBrasilTv. He is the owner of the production company Ori Audiovisual and a partner of Aboca Audiovisual..

If we were make a Venn diagram of human kind and our metaphysical relationship with nature, the area that the two share, “the union” could be seen to form that basis of this film.
MACHINES is a series of short cinematic movements focused on the overlapping motifs that exist between man and his elemental environment, the point where we connect physically and spiritually with nature and put part of ourselves within the essential material, creating new translations of the modern human condition. It is the rendering of this act which represents the legacy of our ancient past, the pre-technological junction of memory and place, within the natural order yet removed from the vantage point that overlooks this knowledge.
MACHINES is the legacy of my film MATERIALS; through the development process of that production I began to see more than one film emerging, MATERIALS a study of the underlying forces of nature presented as distinct characters, and a second film, MACHINES, which shows what lies between the mind of man as superimposed on the landscape, and these forces. Astronomically aligned earthworks and stone monuments, mills, mill races and locks are all examples of ancient machinery, with prehistoric roots, and as such these and other constructions present a very clear picture of this concept.
Whereas MATERIALS is the picture of the elements characterised as alien to our being, MACHINES is the code, the bridge by which we attempt to communicate.
The soundtrack was composed and performed by David Bickley with Sound Design by Tom Green.

Director: David Bickley

Writer: David Bickley

Producer: David Bickley

Runtime: 19 minutes

Country of Origin: Irland

Country of Filming: Ireland, United Kingdom

Language: No

Subtitles: No

David Bickley

E.

Kinnaur is an Indian Himalaya tribal district located between Tibet and the Gangetic plain. A place of spirits, exorcisms and great peaks where the cult of the grokch, the village oracles survives. Today Kinnaur is facing an epochal watershed, dictated by the spread of new economic models, above all the spread of the “applecracy”, the apple monoculture. After centuries of agricultural and pastoral activities respecting the environment, the apple business has increased the availability of money a hundredfold, upsetting the perspective of the Kinnauri’s existence. Applecracy transformed Kinnaur from a land of diaspora to a destination for thousands of migrants arriving from rural India and Nepal
The success of fruit growing is now threatened by the water crisis and global warming, whose effects are evident to such an extent as to make Kinnaur a useful model for understanding the impact of climate change in the Himalaya.

Director: Emanuele Confortin

Writer: Emanuele Confortin, Monica Guidolin, Daniele Costa

Producer: Emanuele Confortin

Keycast: Kinnauri People

Runtime: 1hour 16 minutes

Country of Origin: Italy

Country of Filming: India

Language: English, Hindi

Subtitles: English

Emanuele Confortin

Emanuele Confortin is an Italian freelance journalist and documentarist specialized on Indian Subcontinent: social environment, political background, history, religion and social dynamics. Since 1998 he works between Europe, South Asia and Middle East. He focuses on conflicts, climate change, geopolitics, migrations and threatened minorities on the fringe of modern society. In over almost 15 years on the field, he worked to China, Hong Kong, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Greece, Israel, Fyrom, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Italy.

In southwestern Guinea Bissau there are some islands where a very special people live, the Bissago. What is it that makes them so special? It is not the fact of living in balance and harmony with the spectacular nature that surrounds them, taking from the land or the sea only what they need to survive. Neither is their deep animistic spirituality, which marks their life with rites to acquire the knowledge of their ancestors. What makes them so special is that, in the Bissago society, the woman is the protagonist.
They are the ones who decide how to manage the crops or punish the crimes, they are the priestesses of the temple, those who can communicate with the gods, the forces of nature and the spirits of the deceased. For the Bissago, the woman is feared and respected, since they consider her capable of deciding about life and death.
This documentary focuses on the lives of some of the women of Eticoga, the main village on the island of Orango. Through their lives and ways of looking we will know the most outstanding and peculiar aspects of this matriarchal society so different, not only from the Western way of life, but from the rest of Africa and almost all other cultures on the planet.

Director: Raúl Bueno Herrera

Writer: Raúl Bueno Herrera

Producer: Carlos Pérez Romero

Runtime: 52 minutes

Country of Origin: Spain

Country of Filming: Guinea-Bissau

Language: English

Subtitles: No

Raúl Bueno Herrera

Searching for Life, on the trail of exoplanets. 2018 (Director y guionista)
Astro-tourism, feeling the Universe. 2017 (Director y realizador)
El pasado a nuestros pies. 2017 (Director y realizador)
El sueño de tener familia. 2016 (Director y realizador)
Acetre 40 años. 2016 (Director y realizador))
Extremadura universo micológico. 2015 (Director y realizador)
Alerta Incendio. 2014 (11 programas TV, realizador
Hecho en Extremadura. 2012 (36 programas TV, realizador)
Fiestas populares de Extremadura. 2007-2013 (200 documentales TV, realizador).

Greyland is the story of what was the fastest shrinking city in the United States, Youngstown, Ohio. Once the booming centre of American steel, when the bottom fell out of the industry in the 1950s, 60% of the population moved out. Today, 37% of those left, live beneath the poverty line. Like Rocco and Amber. A recovering heroin addict turned urban archeologist, Rocco hunts through hundreds of abandoned houses. Vintage clothing, records, art works, everything he finds goes to Greyland, his art gallery come thrift store, to be converted into cash. Meanwhile Amber is a single mother and the president of the Neighbourhood Association of Homeowners, leading the fight against city hall for their inaction in cleaning up her neighborhood. “We want to believe,” Amber says, “that there’s good, hopeful things coming.”
Through poetically apocalyptic imagery of a town taking its last breath, Greyland tells the story of two individuals’ resilience when everything has fallen apart around them. ‘You can try, but you’re not going to change it. All that trying just becomes part of the way it goes’, Rocco sings echoing the struggles of a generation in limbo. Youngstown has been held up as a symbol of post-industrial decline not only in the United States, but in the modern world. And if it can happen in the land of opportunity, it can happen anywhere. Greyland follows Rocco and Amber’s search for meaning and hope in the midst of economic decline and a political landscape out of synch with the needs of its community. Should Rocco and Amber continue to fight for their city or flee like thousands before them? ¨Leave if you want to leave,” says Rocco, “but don’t turn it into something it’s not.” Question is, without change, can the community of Youngstown continue to satisfy anyone? What can grow back in a land burnt to the ground?

Director: Alexandra Sicotte-Lévesque

Producer: Alexandra Sicotte-Lévesque, Sylvia Van Brabant

Runtime: 1 hour 17 minutes

Country of Origin: Canada

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Subtitles: No

Alexandra Sicotte-Lévesque

Alexandra Sicotte-Lévesque is a humanitarian aid worker and filmmaker. Originally from Montreal, Canada, Alexandra has always believed in the power of media for social change. She cofounded the non-profit organization Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) in 2002 for which she received Canada’s Governor General Medal for Meritorious Service.
After working for nearly 3 years in Sudan, with BBC Media Action and the United Nations peacekeeping mission, Alexandra produced and directed the feature documentary film, The Longest Kiss, about the split between Sudan and South Sudan. The film received the Corus-Hot Docs Fund, was aired on Super Channel in Canada and was awarded a special mention for the Magnus Isacsson Prize at the Montreal International Documentary Film Festival (RIDM).
Alexandra currently works for the Red Cross Movement in Switzerland, where she combines her passion for visual storytelling and important social issues of our times. In recent years, she has worked in humanitarian crises in Iraq, Jordan, Haiti and the Philippines..

For a long, long time, perhaps since the dawn of time, the Pasvik Sami managed their small borderless area in harmony with nature. Then Norway, Russia and Finland divided the area between them. Mining and power plants changed the landscape and the river. On the Norwegian side, the language and culture were almost obliterated. But they never managed to eradicate the East Sami genes.

In the film, we follow Venke Tørmænen who wants to learn to sew the Skolt Sami womenś hat her great-grandmother wears on an old picture. – I feel that when I can sew it and put it on my head, the ring is closed. I want the world to know that we exist. We are here and we live here. ”

Director: Anstein Mikkelsen, Harry Johansen

Writer: Anstein Mikkelsen, Harry Johansen

Producer: Anstein Mikkelsen

Keycast: Venke Tørmænen “herself”

Runtime: 60 minutes

Country of Origin: Norway

Country of Filming: Finland, Norway

Language: Finnish, Norwegian

Subtitles: English

Anstein Mikkelsen, Harry Johansen

Directors Harry Johansen and Anstein Mikkelsen
We are both filmmakers born and living in Finnmark, the northernmost part of Norway.
Totally we have made more than fifty films, mostly documentary films.
Harry Johansen has worked in Swedish Sami television and now as a freelancer for the Norwegian Sami television. He has also directed and photographed a lot of Sami documentary films.
Anstein Mikkelsen is the only filmmaker in the world continuously making Kveni films, but also some Sami films. Most of the films is about people living in the northern areas of Norway, Finland, Sweden and Russia, but also nature films, experimental films and fiction.

Set amid the remote hills of Eastern Bosnia, THEN COMES THE EVENING provides a quiet meditation on the seemingly uncomplicated pastoral lives of two women. Through simple and precise composition with attention to light and texture, the mundane details of their lives are rendered with the tactile richness of an oil painting. Their every action and word is infused with ceremony, ritual, and intangible cultural heritage in this intimate yet epic examination of how nature and humanity interact.

Director: Maja Novaković

Writer: Maja Novaković

Producer: Maja Novaković, Milan Milosavljević

Cinematogarphy: Jasna Prolić

Editing: Marija Kovačina

Sound design: Luka Barajević

Keycast: Obrenija Radić “herself” , Vinka Radić “herself”

Art director: Maja Novaković

Production assistan: Nikica Novaković

Runtime: 27 minutes 30 seconds

Country of Origin: Serbia

Country of Filming: Bosnia and Herzegovina

Language: Serbian

Subtitles: English

Maja Novaković

Novaković holds a Master’s in Art History and is currently undertaking a Ph.D. on the work of Sergei Parajanov at the University of Belgrade, she is also a researcher at the Mathematical Institute at the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Then Comes The Evening is her first film.

In 2008, local authorities evict 2,000 villagers from Guanzhou, a river island in Southern China to build a presumed Ecological Parc. In spite of the demolition of their houses and police pressure, a handful of inhabitants return to the island. For 7 years, Boris films their battle to save their ancestral land, from the ruins of the village where nature is slowly reasserting itself, to the worksites of the mega city which inexorably advances towards them. Will they share the same fate of 5 billions of Chinese peasants expropriated yearly?

Director: Boris Svartzman

Writer: Boris Svartzman, Laurine Estrade

Producer: Anne-Catherine Witt, Antonio Magliano

Editing: Suzana Pedro, Emma Augier

Sound editing: Nans Mengeard

Sound mix: N’Dembo Ziavoula

Color grading: Lucie Bruneteau

Runtime: 1 hour 11 minutes 20 seconds

Country of Origin: France

Country of Filming: China

Language: Chinese, Yue Chinese (Cantonese)

Subtitles: English

 Boris Svartzman

Boris Svartman is a Argentinean and French photographer and director. As graduate in Chinese and Sociology, he spent over ten years living in China.
Since the beginning of the millenium, Boris has documented the social consequences of urbanisation in China. As a Sociologist and Photographer, he is interested in forced eviction in big Chinese cities and in the countryside. His principal series of photographs, “Tabula rasa” and “Disrupted China”, were exhibited in several festivals, notably in: Visa pour l’image, Lianzhou International Photo Festival, Architecture Museum of Stockholm…
Boris focuses on the expansion of Chinese cities in rural areas and the progressive disparition of the dwindling peasantry in China. For a decade he has filmed the resistance of residents of one Chinese village faced with the urbanisation of their land, the subject of his first documentary. He has also published a scientific paper on this issue, “The leap to the city”, in the academic review China Perspectives.
Boris Svartman has also collaborated on several documentary movies, as assistant director, second camera and sound recorder on the film South, Water, North, Displaced by Antoine Boutet (2014), and as a translator on several films linked to China (The Dying Souls by Wang Bing (2018); A Young Patriot, by Du Haibin, 2015)

Tomorrow is Djurdjevdan*. The locals of Oparic are preparing the Saint Patron’s Day dedicated to the Holy and Great Martyr George and they are glorifying the holiday that follows winter, evokes spring and awakens all the senses. Despite the fertile land, there are fewer cultivated fields in Oparic, and more weeds and abandoned gates. However, people, plants and legends in this village in the Levac area are still weaving colorful Djurdjevdan’s wreaths together. From the beginning of time to Instagram.
* Djurdjevdan (St. George’s Day) has been in the National Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Serbia since 2015. This Christian and national holiday is celebrated throughout Serbia, but each region nurtures specific beliefs and customs that celebrate St. George’s Day.

Director: Predrag Todorović

Writer: Predrag Todorović

Producer: Predrag Todorović

Camera: Zlatko Đurđević

Researcher: Marko Mirković

Interviews: Slađan Bogdanović

Keycast: Marija Bogosavljević, Miloš Lazić

Editor: Predrag Todorović

Runtime: 50 minutes

Country of Origin: Serbia

Country of Filming: Serbia

Language: Serbian

Subtitles: English

Predrag Todorović

Predrag Todorovic (1976) has 25 years of work experience in media production as an editor, producer and director. In collaboration with his colleagues Marko Mirkovic, Sladjan Bogdanovic and Zlatko Djurdjevic, he is the author of the numeros documentaries awarded at TV and film festivals.

Where can I get a screw? My neighbor has one, but I had a fight with him yesterday. That’s a big problem when you live isolated in the middle of the Atlantic on a small island at the westernmost edge of Europe. On Corvo.
There is a fantastic volcanic crater that attracts some guests and an airport on the edge of the small town. But those who come here hardly stay longer than a day. And miss stories of pirates, a saint and a very special community. The 440 inhabitants stick together on the mini-island – as best they can. And in the end, there is always a suitable screw to be found somewhere…

Director: Anders Lang

Writer: Anders Lang

Runtime: 50 minutes

Country of Origin: Germany

Country of Filming: Portugal

Language: English, Portuguese

Subtitles: English, German

Anders Lang

Anders Lang was born in Hamburg in 1966 and lives and works there. More info: www.anderslang.de
I experienced a massive loss of field of vision after a stroke and made my first longer film that dealt with exactly that. What is the visual experience like when you can no longer see much? I went travelling with my camera and discovered many new perspectives and exciting stories.