Mixtape La Pampa

Argentina, San Sebastian Zabaltegi 2023

Andres di Tella

Synopsis

This is the cinematographic diary of an extended trip through the Pampas, on the trail of Guillermo Enrique Hudson, aka William Henry Hudson. Hudson is an enigmatic figure, full of contradictions: he was an Argentine gaucho who became an English writer. He fought in the army against the “savages” but also defended them. He wrote obsessively about his native land, but never returned. In the twists and turns of the road, a combination emerges of documentary speculation, personal memory… and dreams.

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Monisme

Indonesia, FID Marseille competition 2023, best film at Bucarest Experimental 

First feature film by Riar Rizaldi

Synopsis

Several professional actors and non-actor professionals portray a dynamic of human-nature relationship in one of the most active stratovolcano in the world, Mount Merapi. In the shadows of recent eruptions, these actors play a story that is written together with volcanologist, sand miner, and a mystic—people who have a close bond with the mountain, potentially illustrating fiction and nonfiction situations that could and would have happened in Merapi. Continuer la lecture →

Grace

Russia, Cannes Director’s Fortnight 2023

First feature film by Ilya Povolotsky

Synopsis

An old camper van passes through obscure Russian province, carrying a teen girl, her father and a rusty film projector. They’ve been on the road for long, drifting among the eerie picturesque “nowhere’s”. She’s used to his melancholy and random women. He bears with her whims. But everything changes on the way up North, when their world packed in the tight space of the car along with hopes, hurts, fears, and unburied past — eventually explodes. Continuer la lecture →

The Song of the Auricanturi

Colombia, Karlovy Vary Proxima competition 2023

First feature film by Camila Rodriguez Triana

Synopsis

Rocío returns to her home town to reunite with her mother Alba, from whom she was separated as a child. The only thing from her mother that Rocío had kept is a cassette recording of her voice singing her a song in a language that they invented to communicate with each other. Alba has stopped talking as a reaction to trauma from the war that their territory endured. This forces Rocío to find other ways to communicate with her mother and tell her that she is pregnant. Continuer la lecture →

Agra

India, Cannes Director’s Fortnight 2023

2nd feature film by Kanu Behl

Synopsis

Guru, a young man in his twenties, works in a call center in Agra. In love with Mala, a work colleague, he stills lives with his parents, whose house is divided in two parts. Guru lives on the ground floor with his mother while his father is upstairs with his mistress. when Guru announces that he wants to marry Mala, and make the terrace of the house his future bedroom, nothing goes as planned. Frustrations, faults and family hatreds come to light, symptoms of an Indian patriarchal society with many taboos. Continuer la lecture →

Le Spectre de Boko Haram

Cameroon, Rotterdam Tiger award 2023, FESPACO Paul Robeson award

Documentary by Cyrielle Raingou

Synopsis

A group of children forge their own world amid the dangers of armed conflict. We meet Falta, studious and hardworking, who is struggling to come to terms with the death of her father in a terrorist attack. Her classmate, Ibrahim, and older brother, Mohamad, struggle to balance their childlike energy with a traumatic past that takes them away from the innocence of their eight and eleven years. Continuer la lecture →

La Bonga

Colombia, Paris Cinema du Reel, NY MoMA Doc Fortnight, True False 2023

Documentary by Sebastian Pinzon Silva & Canela Reyes

Synopsis

Two decades after a death threat from right-wing paramilitaries caused the maroon community of La Bonga to flee, the townspeople embark on a symbolic journey through the jungles of the Colombian Caribbean to resurrect a home that exists only in their memories.  Continuer la lecture →

There is a Stone

Japan, Tokyo Filmex 2022, Berlinale Forum 2023, Jeonju Grand Prize

Feature Film by Tatsunari Ota

Synopsis

Yoshikawa, who works for a travel agency, is visiting a town in the suburbs to do research for a new tour project. However, Yamakita, which used to be a prosperous « railway town », is no sign of life in front of the station and the shopping street is almost closed. Halfway through her research, she walks along a nearby riverbed and discovers a man, Doi, who is diligently skimming stones.

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Voyages en Italie

France, Rotterdam big screen competition 2023

Feature film by Sophie Letourneur

Synopsis

A French couple burnt out by the routine of their daily family life decides after much hesitation to travel to Sicily for a short holiday. Voyages en Italie depicts the neuroses and eccentricities of Jean-Philippe and Sophie, the gracious dynamics of their relationship and the depth of their affection and intimacy. Continuer la lecture →

Shivamma

India, Busan 2022 new currents award winner, Nantes 3 Continents young jury award

First feature film by Jayshankar Aryar

Synopsis

Shivamma (46), a mother of two and the wife of an ailing bedridden husband, works as a government school mid-day meal cook in a small village. She is the only active working member of her family. Her entire family is in the process of finding a suitable groom for her daughter, though she has her own affair running alongside. Continuer la lecture →