The Trouble with Nature

Denmark 2020, Rotterdam Bright Future competition

First feature film by Illum Jacobi

Synopsis

The year 1769. The philosopher Edmund Burke has fled London, debt collectors and a ramping midlife crisis to go on a grandtour of the Alps to rewrite his book on the Sublime in this 18. century roadmovie. Continuer la lecture

Ofrenda

Argentina 2020, Rotterdam Bright Future competition

First Feature Film by Juan Monaco Cagni

Synopsis

Ofrenda depicts two women who, at various stages in their lives, happen to be in the same place. Being and time. That might sound vague, but this is nonetheless what it is. The young teens spend time in summery fields, in desolate, abandoned warehouses and other buildings on the outskirts of a small provincial town in the Argentinian pampas. The same spaces reoccur a few years later when the young women meet again when one of them returns with a backpack symbolising the knowledge acquired. Continuer la lecture

Piedra Sola

Argentina 2020, Rotterdam Tiger Award competition

First Feature Film by Alejandro Telemaco Tarraf

Synopsis

Deep inside the Argentinian highlands in a small community at an altitude of 4000 ma.s.l, a native llama herder is following the traces of an invisible puma who is killing his livestock. Through his search, a mystical exchange is revealed between him, his ancestors and the changing form of the puma. Continuer la lecture

Market

India 2019, Busan A Window On Asian Cinema- Kim Jiseok Award

Feature Film by Pradip Kurbah

Synopsis

Iewduh is the name of the largest and the most vibrant market in Northeast India. Market, whose original title is ‘Iewduh’, tells the story of the people of the Iewduh Bara Bazaar market. Mike is a bathroom cleaner working in the darkest of the dark places in the market. He lives with Hep, a boy who was abandoned by his parents and was later taken in by Mike.

Private Fiction

Argentina 2019, San Sebastian Zabaltegi, IDFA Masters

Documentary by Andrés di Tella

Synopsis

Over several days and nights, an actor and an actress read the correspondence between Torcuato and Kamala, the film director’s parents, he from Argentina, and she from India. The letters, encompassing the decades from the 50s to the 70s, refer to love and idealism, record world travels, talk about socialism and psychoanalysis, about pain and broken dreams. Their reading reveals a relationship between the actors, with similarities and differences. Meanwhile, with his own daughter, the director sets about solving the puzzle of the family memory, an intimate twentieth-century tale.

The Elder One

India 2019, Toronto Special Presentations, Mumbai opening film

Feature Film by Geetu Mohandas

Synopsis

The search for Akbar brings his younger sibiling, Mulla from Lakshadweep island to the decadent underbelly of Mumbai. Continuer la lecture

Don’t Look Down

France 2019, London BFI

Feature Film by Olivier Ducastel & Jacques Martinot

Synopsis

A woman and four men who barely know each other find themselves in an apartment in the sky above Paris. They have all been the victims of the same perverse dominator who is locked in a room. That night, they decided to end it all. In turn, they tell each other memories that bind them to this man and enter the room to confront him. But what happens there between the monster and them remains their secret. Continuer la lecture

Bulbul Can Sing

India 2018, Toronto & Busan 2018, Berlinale Generation 2019- special mention

Feature Film by Rima Das

Synopsis

Bulbul, Bonny and Suman live an idyllic life, playing in the rain, climbing trees and swimming in the river. On the cusp of puberty, the inseparable trio go through their schooling days as a unit, discovering love, sexual awakenings and rebellion together. When a group of villagers discover the teens engaged in acts that outrage their moral modesty, the trio’s friendship is put to the test through violent punishment and tragedy. Continuer la lecture

Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream

France 2019, Berlin Forum, Curitiba Olhar do Cinema New Views Award – Feature for Best Film, DocLisboa Special Prize of the Jury

First Documentary by Frank Beauvais

Synopsis

January 2016. The love story that brought me to this village in Alsace where I live ended six months ago. At 45, I am now alone, without a car, a job or any real prospects, surrounded by luxuriant nature, the proximity of which is not enough to calm the deep distress into which I am plunged. France, still in shock from the November terror attacks, is in a state of emergency. I feel helpless, I suffocate with contained rage. I am lost and I watch four to five films a day. I decide to record this stagnation, not by picking up a camera but by editing shots from the stream of films I watch. Continuer la lecture

Gold Is All There Is

Italy 2019, Rotterdam Signatures

Non Fiction Film by Andrea Caccia

Synopsis

A river. A young boy who plays and gets lost in the woods. A naked man who wanders among the trees. A weapon. An illegal hunter. A police officer. A crime from the past. An old gold prospector. Real people, who go about their daily lives in a natural theatre where reality takes on the qualities of a fairy tale, a crime novel, a coming-of-age story. Five men at different stages of life who never meet yet are all part of one, unique, suspended narration.

Continuer la lecture