Films

• To All Sons of Our Mother, 8'27”

  Production: BE 2016

  “Do you remember that night? The empty glasses, empty bottles, the broken glasses, the blown up buildings. People yelling, people on the floor, while you were there sitting in your damned living room. Does that tell you something? Everything started with a dream, a dream of oblivion. They dreamt of getting out of their bodies, to reach an eternal light, in an absolute well-being.” Antonin Blanc has created an oneiric documentary film that borders on the experimental. The film’s screening at this year’s Szczecin Film Festival will mark its world premiere.

  

  

  

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  Authors:

  • Antonin Blanc
• Empty Diagonal, 27'50"

  Production: FR 2015

  A film about searching suburban landscapes. About drifting along an empty diagonal and its urban areas at the end of a hot summer. A few chance encounters. Warehouses, roundabouts, coloured logos. An exploration into the “frozen waters” of everyday life. Guillaume Ballandras’ film is an interesting combination of documentary and experimental cinema. It also features comedic elements that evoke an involuntary smile, as well as associations with avant-garde and surrealism.

  

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  Authors:

  • Guillaume Ballandras
• The Diary of Théodore Kracklite, 16'7"

  Production: FR/IT 2016

  This extraordinary film depicts the events of an archeological expedition form the 1920s, on the tracks of the elephas falconeri – a dwarf elephant, a creature that existed but is nonetheless reminiscent of the legendary Cyclops. Théodore Kracklite found the creature’s fossilised skulls in the undersea caverns of Sicily. The film revisits the well-known myth from Homer’s “Iliad,” which grows to the rank of a metaphor of the modern ecological crisis and serves as a reminder of the massive extinction of species.

  

  

  

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  Authors:

  • Jacques Lœuille
• Journey to Aleppo, 21'2"

  Production: FI/SY 2016

  Aleppo is a city in north-western Syria, located about 50 km south of the border with Turkey. Today it is considered to be the most dangerous and restless city in the world. Its inhabitants live in a state of constant fear and threat. Their existence can be compared to sitting on a time bomb. Juuso Lavonen and Vesa Rajala have produced an unusually disturbing short documentary about a Syrian-born Finnish citizen  who delivers humanitarian aid to the city's children. It would be no exaggeration to call him a “secular saint.” The film is an unforgettable journey into the heart of true hell.

  

  

  

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  Authors:

  • Juuso Lavonen
  • Vesa Rajala
• The Deal, 4'28”

  Production: UK/PL 2015

  “The Deal” is a short animated story about arranging marriages in the 1950s and 60s set in the eastern Polish borderland. The script is based on a part of Mikołaj Smyk’s diary - the author’s grandfather. The objects used in the animation, such as an authentic headscarf, Polish and Russian books, the copy of Mikołaj Smyk’s diary and photographs help situate the story in its original environment and express the atmosphere of the times. The film is a very personal contemplation on the intricacies of memory and the items that evoke memories.

  

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  Authors:

  • Ewa Smyk
• Wreck, 9'50"

  Production: FI/IT 2016

  “Wreck” was made in 2014-2015 at a refugee boat graveyard on Lampedusa, an Italian island believed to be one of the most wonderful nuggets of the Mediterranean Sea and a symbol of European paradise. It is an uncanny story about a strange metamorphosis, where garbage becomes useful. A story about useless objects that unexpectedly gain value.

  

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  Authors:

  • Jan Ijäs 2016