Competition
INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM COMPETITION
Girl Power On - International Short Film Competition I
October 18, 16:00 KSuns
October 22, 14:00 KKc cultural centre
CUTTING GRASS, Asier Altuna, documentary, Spain, 2013, 13’
Zęla Trovkę is an old Slovak “moritat”, a type of ballad that narrates the events surrounding a murder.
A MILLION MILES AWAY, Jennifer Reeder, fiction, USA, 2014, 28'
Contemporary relationship drama reaches its apotheosis to the beat of a 1980s heavy metal anthem. A woman (the conductor) is on the verge of a nervous breakdown and just like the teen girls (the choir) undergoes a transformation. Teacher and pupil roles are reversed when the woman can't decipher her lover's text message. Melancholy as a survival strategy in the American Mid-West.
SUPERVENUS, Frederic Doazan, animation, France, 2013, 2’
A plastic surgeon is creating in real time the new goddess of beauty.
IT GIRL, Oriol Puig Playà, fiction, Spain, 2014, 3’
Overwhelmed by her husband’s medical bills, Sofia takes a desperate measure: she becomes an egoblogger.
SUBTOTAL, Gunhild Enger, fiction, Norway, 2014, 19'
What is the true cost of a bargain? Subtotal is a story of an nontraditional encounter between a Swedish salesman and a Norwegian couple on their monthly bargain hunting at the border between Norway and Sweden.
The New World Order - International Short Film Competition II
October 18, 18:00 KSuns
October 22, 16:00 KKc cultural centre
SYMPHONY No.42, Réka Bucsi, animation, Hungary, 2013, 10'
The film applies an unconventional narrative. It presents a subjective world through 47 scenes. The small events, interlaced by associations, express the irrational coherence of our surroundings. The surreal situations are based on the interactions of humans and nature.
BUTTERLAMP, Hu Wei, fiction, France/China, 2013, 16'
A photographer weaves unique links among nomadic families.
SAFARI HEAT, Antti Laakso/Simo Ruotsalainen, animation, Finland, 2013, 5’
They Came For Our Minerals. Denny must choose his side as key witness in the biggest court case in Cape Town history. Final episode.
SIMPLE, Markus Wende, animation, Germany, 2013, 1’
"I just want sex!" says Tanja to Benjamin.
RABBITLAND, Ana Nedeljkovic/Nikola Majdak Jr., animation, Serbia, 2013, 7’
Brainless Rabbits live in Rabittland, a perfect world ordered according to the most successful examples of war zones, ghettos and slums. They are intensively pink, have holes in their heads instead of brains, and they are happy regardless of what happens to them. They are the highest stage the evolution has ever reached. Their everyday life is completely fulfilled. The Rabbits spend days voting on free and democratic elections, which take place in Rabbitland once a day, because Rabbitland is an ordered democracy.
WHAT'S YOUR SECRET OF LONG LIFE? Ester Jánka, animation, Hungary, 2013, 1'
The animated short film tries to find the secret of long life. 13 lovely elderly animals are ready to share their secrets and give you tips how they managed to live for such a long time. A short but heart-warming interview, which contains the truth about life.
DEMONTABLE, Douwe Dijkstra, hybrid, Netherlands, 2014, 13'
A playful rendering of the absurd distortion between our daily lives and the global news: war is waged on the kitchen table while a man drinks coffee. The world is on fire. Attack helicopters shred a newspaper, while a dinner plate suffers a drone strike...
EXLAND, Mihai Grecu/Thibault Gleize, documentary, France, 2013, 8'
Somewhere, lost among majestic fjords and snowy tops, mysterious postmodern monuments show an ambiguous human presence, having tried to modify the landscape forthe benefit of an abstract ideological symbolism. This movie is at the same time a visualisation of the works of an utopian land art, a criticism of the consumer society as well as a diversion of the contemporary imaging of disasters.
CHILDHOOD: International Short Film Competition III
October 18, 20:00 Ksuns
October 23, 16:00 KKc cultural centre
SEVEN TIMES A DAY WE BEMOAN OUR LOT AND AT NIGHT WE GET UP TO AVOID OUR DREAMS, Susann Maria Hempel, animation, Germany, 2014, 18'
Structured as a "devotional book gone astray" and based on interviews, the film tells the Passion story of an EU pensioner from East Thuringia who has become entangled in a chain of unfortunate events since losing his memory in a prison in 1989.
SUN STROKE, Morgane Le Péchon, animation, France, 2013, 4’
A hot Sunday by the lakeside. Whilst his father is fishing and his mother sunbathes, Irvine dreams up an extravagant death for himself.
MARC JACOBS, Sam de Jong, fiction, Germany, 2014, 15’
A short film about a young boy living in Amsterdam Noord who longs to go on holiday to Morocco with his father.
REDEMPTION, Miguel Gomes, documentary, Portugal/France/Germany/Italy, 2013, 26'
On January 21, 1975, in a village in the north of Portugal, a child writes to his parents who are in Angola to tell them how sad Portugal is. On July 13, 211, in Milan, an old man remembers his first love. On May 6, 2012, in Paris, a man tells his baby daughter that he will never be a real father. During a wedding ceremony on September 3, 1977 in Leipzig, the bride battles against a Wagner opera that she can`t get out of her head. But where and when have these four poored devils begun searching for redemption?
* The film is screened as part of the competition programme, but does not compete.
LIFE GAME - International Short Film Competition IV
October 19, 14:00 Ksuns
October 22, 18:00 KKc cultural centre
I, Jona Honer, documentary, Netherlands, 2013, 27'
Peter, a 56-year-old writer, undergoes a personality change caused by the brain damage a tumor inflicted. His wife, Annette, must learn to live with her new husband. FIlmed before, during and after surgery, the documentary I contemplative shows us how fragile our personality is and how closely it is connected to our physical brains.
FOREIGN BODIES, Nicolas Brault, animation, Canada, 2013, 5'
Foreign Bodies is based on the myth of the 'transparent body' conveyed by modern medical imaging (CT, MRI, cryosection) to sustain the viewer the feeling of strangeness that can sometimes inspire him his own body.
THE WAY OF ALL FLESH, Deben Van Dam, fiction, Belgium, 2013, 26’
Tibo has a serious condition: boredom. He works as a nurse on a palliative care floor, and all he can think of lately is money. Once in a while, he tries to break the routine by placing bets with his co-workers on the last breath of dying patients. All in vain. One day, his colleague Anouk asks him for a favor. Whether Tibo would like to spend the day with Frans Claeskens, the only patiënt without any friends or family, because today Frans will undergo euthanasia. A big favour for everyone who knows the racist and perverted Frans Claeskens.
I AM NOT HERE NOW, Zisis Kokkinidis/Ion Papaspyrou, fiction, Greece, 2013, 9’
Somewhere between a home-video and a postmodern documentary this film is composed entirely of user uploaded videos. Arte Povera, POV documentary, cinémavérité, perhaps a portrait of a generation: Joe catalogues and preserves. Who is Joe? Or, more accurately, what the hell is water?
INEVITABLE ANXIETY - International Short Film Competition V
October 19, 16:00 KSuns
October 23, 14:00 KKc cultural centre
THE SATANICAL THICKET-ONE, Willy Hans, fiction, Germany, 2014, 30'
The chicken is slaughtered, the song is sung, the lake is crossed and the female hitchhiker never knew where she was heading in the first place. One thing is for certain: It’s no easy task to try and understand other people.
THE IMMACULATES, Ronny Trocker, documentary, France, 2013, 13’
In December, 2011, in a city in the North of Italy. As every evening, a young man goes back home. He is parking his car, when he discovers his sixteen-year-old sister in tears in front of the door of their house. She tells him that two young Roma's raped her brutally. The young man leaves immediately in search of the aggressors, but does not find them. The local residents organize a torched walking in solidarity with the girl. The tension begins to rise.
FOUR DEGREE WATER, Gabriel Studerus, hybrid, Switzerland, 2013, 9'
Who is to blame for the Costa Concordia disaster? Anonymous entries in a blog are the starting point of a heated debate on blame and responsibility. It is an armchair case law that ends in chaos and emotional upheaval, universal issues become more important than the actual accident.
LABORAT, Guillaume Cailleau, documentary, Germany, 2014, 21'
Oncological Research Center in Berlin, January 2011. A film team meets with researchers. Using analogue filming methods, the film team records experiments performed on mice. The mice are forced to undergo diverse measures. Whether the film deals with one or several tests, one or several mice is difficult to ascertain, the tests and the naked animals are too similar. Parallel to this, the film team documents their own activities, necessary to make the resording. in Laborat, filmmaker Guillaume Cailleau interweaves the levels. He documents examinations performed on the object with great precision, while simultaneously reflecting on the process of the documentation itself. Distance to the object becomes suspended. The object becomes the subject, the spectator an accomplice. A tapestry of images. Unease sets it.
BALTIC SHORT FILM COMPETITION
Student films
October 23, 20:00, KSuns
FAKE ME A HAPPY NEW YEAR/
ČETRI MIELASTI, Liene Linde, fiction, Latvia, 2013, 35’
Anita and her two children, daughter Santa and son Krista's, live in an apartment in Riga, Latvia, small Eastern European country. Every year, they celebrate New Year’s Eve with grandma, uncle Peterand a feast fit forkings. As the years go by, the children grow up and life goes on, presidents give their New Year’s addresses, and 'The Irony of Fate' is on TV again. Twelve years of birth, death, joy, hatred and potato salad - four evenings in the life of a family and in that of a nation from 1999 to 2012.
LAST DROP/
PĒDĒJAIS PILIENS, Viljams Timrots, fiction, Latvia, 2014, 17’
Agnese is fired from her current job position and she splits up with her boyfriend. Nevertheless, she has lost all things she truly cared for and gave hope for a better future. Ass he seems so hopeless with job and relationship, Agnese decides to run away from everything around her. On her way to Balvi she picks up hitchhiker Arthur with purpose to propose his girlfriend. Unfortunately Agnese is not planning to go to Balvi and makes Arthur a companion to her revenge plans against boyfriend and employer. Plot may sound very harsh, but it's full of funny situations and awkward moments in life of protagonists.
ARGUMENT/
KONFLIKTS, Valērijs Oļehno, fiction, Latvia, 2013, 5’
A young couple’s circle of conflicts, that is moving in reverse and returning to the starting point.
DEMBAVA, Laurynas Bareisa, fiction, Lithuania, 2014, 10'
Last night Matas and Tomas kidnapped and raped a girl. Now it’s morning and both are at a loss at what to do next. Brothers circle their hometown, visit familiar places and slowly descend into darkness both will be unable to climb out of. As night falls they find an inexplicable solution. In 2013, near Panevezys, Lithuania, two young men burned a car. A girls body was found in the trunk of that car.
BLACK SEED/
ĻAUNUMA SĒKLA, Francesco Rosso, animation, Estonia, 2014, 7'
A middle-aged Siberian man living in a windy steppe, his life suddenly change due to a strange guest. Absurdity and realism are combined together into a small wooden cabin where there's no room for hope.
Experimental films
October 23, 18:00, KSuns
OUT OF NOWHERE/
NO NEKURIENES, Gints Gabrāns, experimental, Latvia, 2014, 13'
The plastic sculptures have been made using a simple physical process – pouring liquefied polyethylene in cold water. Thus spontaneously, as a result of the principle of self-organisation, complex forms and structures are created. This process resembles the casting of “fortune” on solstice night by pouring liquid tin in cold water. It reveals a form-creation process which is close to nature, therefore it is easy to see organic, natural shapes, lines and ornaments in these objects. In nature such spontaneous processes of form-creation are managed by evolution, which selects the “working” models. The artist has simulated a similar strategy in creating the plastic sculptures by selecting pairing and partially fusing the best object samples through four generations, from 2010 to 2013. The power of evolution has been applied as an algorithm for the perfection of artificially created forms.
SHORT FILM ABOUT LIFE/
ĪSFILMA PAR DZĪVI, Laila Pakalniņa, fiction, Latvia, 2014, 2’
Life is happening now.
EXTREME FUGUE FOR ONE VOICE. LAIMA/
EKSTRĒMA FŪGA VIENAI BALSIJ. LAIMA, Ieva Epnere, experimental, Latvia, 2013, 4'
In Extreme Fugue of One Voice. Laima (2013) she subtly portrays a singer giving a virtuosic rendition of a contemporary vocal composition. This experience transforms her body into an instrument beyond any diva-like performance.
NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY/
NE-EIKLĪDA ĢEOMETRIJA, Skirmanta Jakaite / SolveigaMasteikaite, animation, Lithuania, 2013, 11'
This is about the laws of love, which are as simple as one, two, three, when we are still in love, but incomprehensible and unexplainable once love retreats. About the logic of the heart, which has nothing in common with common logic, just like non-Euclidean geometry disproves and surpasses the Euclidean one.
BRIDE'S FAREWELL/
LĪGAVAS ATVADAS, Inese Vēriņa, experimental, Latvia, 2014, 8'
A young woman is walking through the night accompanied only by her song. The sun rises while darkness slowly fades.
IMG_00:01.JPG, Zane Oborenko, animation, Latvia, 2014, 3’
As in a moment of awakening the film slowly develops into awareness. From small bits and pieces of seemingly random spots of light and darkness silhouettes of bodies appear. Is it a dream or just a constantly evolving moment of thought?
PULSAR, Vsevolod Kovalevskij, experimental, Lithuania, 2013, 9'
Working with traditional film (8mm, super8, 16mm, 35mm, etc), it is very clear where there is the start point and the end point of a movie.
In Pulsar, there is no end and no beginning of a movie - there barely is a movie anymore.
INDEPENDENT FILMS
October 23, 22:00, KSuns
ALL MY DEAD/
TRAUSLĀ SIRDS, Astra Zoldnere, fiction, Latvia, 2014, 14’
They met on Christmas Eve, beyond one’s usual living-space:at the morgue. In an outburst of feelings, they try to manipulate each other in order to get what they want. She wants him, but he wants to vanish – following the rules of black comedy, neither one of them will get anything.
RAINY DAYS/
LIETUS DIENAS, Vladimir Leščiov, fiction, Latvia, 2014, 8’
During a rainy day, an elderly Japanese man boards a ferry heading towards an unknown island. As he looks out over the water, the falling rain triggers memories of a childhood moment in Fukuoka and a brief encounter as an adult aboard a smoke filled seaside train. Arriving on the Island, a mysterious woman on a motorbike greets the man…
CASTRATUS THE BOAR/
KASTRĀTS KUILIS, Raitis Ābele/Lauris Ābele, fiction, Latvia, 2014, 23'
"Castratus the Boar" is an impressionistic story about a small town resident Valter and his secret that prevents him from intergrating in local community. He spends his days breeding pigs and singing in the churh choir but that doesn't make him less lonely. When he finally tries to establish closer contact with a fellow girl Aija, his representations of masculinity take a weird turn.
ORDINARY PEOPLE/
NORMĀLI CILVĒKI, Alise Zariņa, fiction, Latvia, 2014, 30’
When the elderly fisherman Arvīds finds himself thrown out of his own apartment, his only solution is to start a new life together with an eccentric family which will eventually teach him to accept a completely different lifestyle. An ironic tale about our understanding of what and who is "an ordinary person".
CRACKHOUSE/
NARKOMĀNU MIDZENIS, Martinus Klemet, animation, Estonia, 2014, 5'
A man brings a cat home one day. It turns out he has a special plan for his new pet. However, he doesn't seem to know that cats have nine lives.
THE NOISEMAKER/
TROKŠŅOTĀJS, Karolis Kaupinis, fiction, Lithuania, 2014, 15'
A distant provincial school is waiting for an official delegation from the Ministry. They're about to bring a new school bell. This is not what the school needs though. Having shrunk throughout the years, it lacks two pupils to satisfy the governmental quota established for any school in the country to exist. The gift from the capital is a threat for the survival of the school. Anticipating the arrival of the delegation, the principal makes his best to mask the lack of pupils and avoid the unavoidable school closure.
WORST-CASE SCENARIO/
SLIKTĀKAIS VARIANTS, Kristjan Holm, animation, Estonia, 2014, 15'
Two managers Adolf and Rudolf solve the problem that threatens to ruin the company.
THE PUSSY/
TUPSU, Triin Ruumet, fiction, Estonia, 2011, 17'
Andrei and Oliver are criminals, lost in the brutal world of Estonian 90's. On the early hours of the day that sunk ferryboat Estonia, they are faced with a task to kill a young boy called Valeri who is dwelling in an apartment building in Tallin ghetto. Will they survive their crime?
FEATURE DEBUT FILM COMPETITION
KEBAB & HOROSCOPE, Grzegorz Jaroszuk, fiction, Poland, 2014, 72'
October 21, 22:00, KSuns
A group of misfits from a carpet shop have a chance to change their lives with the help of two marketing experts - an ex-kebab shop worker and an ex-fortune teller from a wildlife magazine.
METAMORPHOSIS/
METAMORPHOSEN, Sebastian Mez, documentary, Germany, 2013, 84'
October 19, 18:00, KSuns
Settled somewhere in nowhere in the South Ural region in Russia, the film tells the story of the people living in one of the most radioactively contaminated spots on the Earth. Unbeknownst to a wide public, this region was repeatedly irradiated by different accidents on the nuclear facility Mayak, which was the first plant for the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union and is still in operation. Rather than to make an investigative flick, the attempt of the filmmaker is to find a cinematic translation for the danger that is not perceptible and to capture the strenght of people and nature that has to cope with it.
ROCKS IN MY POCKETS/
AKMEŅI MANĀS KABATĀS, Signe Baumane, animation, Latvia, 2014, 88'
October 19, 20:00, KSuns
A surreal tale, based on true events, about five women of Signe Baumane's family, including herself, and their battles with depression and madness. In this dramatic and, at the same time, funny film the events from the history of Latvia interlace with personal life histories, family secrets and love stories.
THE MANIFESTATION OF CAPITALISM IN OUR LIVES IS SADNESS/
DMD KIU LIDT: DIE MANIFESTATION DES KAPITALISMUS IN UNSEREM LEBEN IST DIE TRAURIGKEIT, Georg Tiller, fiction/music documentary, Germany, 2014, 55'
October 20, 19:00, KSuns
DMD KIU LIDT is an anti-music film which follows the Austrian pop-rock band Ja, Panik and their social circle of fellow musicians in Berlin and Vienna. It is a chronicle of a group that centers on the conditions of music-making in a state of prolonged sadness dominated by the shadow of a permanent crisis (of capitalism). The actors - all musicians - play themselves, acting out a consiously absurd drama about art, depression and love.
WHERE ARE YOU BUCHAREST?/
BUCURESTI, UNDE ESTI?, Vlad Petri, D, Romania, 2014, 77'
October 21, 20:00, KSuns
Vlad Petri followed the Romanian protesters who occupied the streets of Bucharest in 2012. A poignant documentary about people who are devastated and impulsive, lost and encouraged, all at once. And about a revolution that becomes a tragic absurdity.