A Transplant
François Méthé
Three people are waiting for an organ donation. In delicate but nonetheless explicit images, “A Transplant” documents the miracle of the renewal of a waning life.
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A Transplant
Credits
Producer
Marie-Claude Morazain
Director
François Méthé
Music
Joseph Marchand
Cinematographer
Philippe St-Gelais
Editor
Sébastien Goyette
Script
François Méthé
Sound
Cyril Bourseault
In life’s holding pattern: Shannon, a young woman, three-year-old Nolan and five-times grandmother Suzanne all need an organ donation. A race against the clock and against death, which approaches rapidly and relentlessly while they slowly move up the waiting list step by step. For patients and relatives, this time of waiting is an ever-changing mixture of the fear of loss and the hope for a future. From this existential state of insecurity, worry and hope, “A Transplant” takes us in delicate but explicit images into the operating room and into the body that is being renewed by a team of doctors and helpers – practiced and level-headed, but also aware of the risks and the responsibility weighing down every movement. A film about the, if you will, uniqueness of life. And about the miracle that occasionally and in dire need it can even escape this uniqueness.
Lukas Stern
Lukas Stern
An Echoing Memory of a Tongue
Arash Akhgari
In his films the painter, draftsman and animation filmmaker Arash Akhgari keeps returning to a radical inner perspective.
An Echoing Memory of a Tongue
Credits
Producer
Arash Akhgari (Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema)
Director
Arash Akhgari
Music
Ashkan Behzadi
Editor
Arash Akhgari
Animation
Arash Akhgari
Sound
Arash Akhgari
In his films the painter, draftsman and animation filmmaker Arash Akhgari keeps returning to a radical inner perspective, for example in the “insomniac thoughts of a fearful mind”. This film is about the experience of an involuntarily fragmented act of speech: stuttering. Expressionist drawings, string instruments and broken repetitions of sounds illustrate the struggle of finding one’s language.
Esther Buss
Esther Buss
Callshop Istanbul
Sami Mermer, Hind Benchekroun
The phone booths of Istanbul link thousands of stranded refugees with home. Universal dramas in extremely confined quarters, vows of love, family disputes, and a global tragedy.
Callshop Istanbul
Credits
Producer
Hind Benchekroun, Sami Mermer
Director
Sami Mermer, Hind Benchekroun
Cinematographer
Sami Mermer
Editor
Sami Mermer
With their flickering lights the narrow call shops look like light towers in the maze of alleyways. Foreigners from all over the world, most of them on the road to Europe, are stranded here. But for many of them the journey ends right here, in the mega metropolis of Istanbul. The film finds an equally simple and effective point of access to the situations of these displaced persons by listening to their phone conversations with the relatives from whom they are cut off. Burning worries over their safety in war zones like Syria or Iraq, shared plans for a better future, declarations of love and vows of fidelity are sent along the lines. Universal dramas play out at close quarters. After years of failure, a homeless Senegalese man finds the courage to contact his family for the first time and promises better times. Later he negotiates in vain with a human trafficker. His face is tired.
From the micro portraits in the phone booths the film moves into the streets to show the protests on Taksim Square and Turkey from the point of view of migrant parallel societies. Three men from Benin who scrape along by selling watches calculate – based on partial knowledge – the risk of a crossing to Greece and decide to turn back. Information is essential for survival. It’s not just in this instance that “Callshop Istanbul” offers a change of perspective in the debate around flight and migration.
Lars Meyer
From the micro portraits in the phone booths the film moves into the streets to show the protests on Taksim Square and Turkey from the point of view of migrant parallel societies. Three men from Benin who scrape along by selling watches calculate – based on partial knowledge – the risk of a crossing to Greece and decide to turn back. Information is essential for survival. It’s not just in this instance that “Callshop Istanbul” offers a change of perspective in the debate around flight and migration.
Lars Meyer
Cheer Up
Christy Garland
The Arctic Circle Spirit Ice Queens are Finland’s worst cheerleading team. Coach Miia wants to change this, but the girls have other worries … Winning, losing and coming of age.
Cheer Up
Documentary Film
Canada,
Finland
2016
82 minutes
Subtitles:
English
Credits
Producer
Liisa Juntunen
Director
Christy Garland
Music
Tom Third
Cinematographer
Sari Aaltonen
Editor
Thor Ochsner, Graeme Ring
Try to cheer up! That’s what the girls get to hear even when one of their ingeniously constructed pyramids of bodies just collapsed and they lie on the floor, bleeding and injured. Cheerleading is the essence of the kind of motivation coaching that fills whole shelves of self-help books and always drives us to peak performances – since this is exactly what this sport is about. It’s just that the logic of the permanent drive to succeed doesn’t seem to work with the Arctic Circle Spirit Ice Queens in Rovaniemi near the Arctic Circle: they are Finland’s worst cheerleading team. But coach Miia is determined to change this. After a visit to the world’s top team in Dallas, Texas – which looks like brainwashing – she wants to make her flock “number one” by means of a “yes you can” strategy. But the flock have other worries: after the death of her mother Patu must cope with her father’s new partner; Aino is drawn into the wild party life and jeopardises her position in the team. Add first love and moving out from home. And Miia, too, realises that the American credo of “everything is possible” may be seen in a completely different light …
Christy Garland confidently mixes the narrative traditions of the classic sports film with those of the coming-of-age drama while staying close to her protagonists. Falling and getting up again. Sounds easier than it is.
Grit Lemke
Nominated for Young Eyes Film Award
Christy Garland confidently mixes the narrative traditions of the classic sports film with those of the coming-of-age drama while staying close to her protagonists. Falling and getting up again. Sounds easier than it is.
Grit Lemke
Nominated for Young Eyes Film Award
Cosmos Will Save the World
Patrick Lapierre
A barren field somewhere in Russia. This is where she spent her childhood. The woman is haunted by the ghosts of a long-gone age reminding her of ...
Cosmos Will Save the World
Credits
Producer
Anne Carrier
Director
Patrick Lapierre
Cinematographer
Guillaume Campeau-Dupras
Animation
Patrick Lapierre, Julie Rouvière, Milan Pejovic
Script
Patrick Lapierre
Sound
Ana Dall'ara Majek
A barren field somewhere in Russia. This is where she spent her childhood. The woman is haunted by the ghosts of a long-gone age reminding her of once significant words and steps – too big for the little girl she once was and her grandmother.
Die Gelübde meines Bruders
Stephanie Weimar
A young man who wants to lead a life of celibacy and poverty at a monastery – and his lesbian sister who asks questions: about the church, sexuality, and religion. An unexpected lesson in tolerance.
Die Gelübde meines Bruders
Documentary Film
Canada,
Germany
2013
88 minutes
Subtitles:
English
Credits
Producer
Frederic Bohbot, Andre Schaefer
Director
Stephanie Weimar
Music
Andre Feldhaus
Cinematographer
Fabio DeFelice, Erik Schimschar, Sebastian Lange, Christopher Yapp, Stephanie Weimar
Editor
Oliver Bronner, Carl Freed
Script
Stephanie Weimar
Sound
Ralf Jakubski, Kyle Stanfield, Frank Mertes
Gregor and Stephanie are siblings who couldn’t be more different. She jets across the world, living with women. It’s not even worth her while to rent a flat because she is so committed to being on the road and getting away from the narrow confines of home. Her top priority is self-fulfilment. Her brother Gregor, on the other hand, looks for contemplation, steadiness and a vocation in this world. A monastery, in a nutshell. To understand his choice, Stephanie Weimar takes up the camera and accompanies him from his first instructions to the day he makes his final vows with the Steyler Missionaries in the monastery of St. Augustin. How can a person voluntarily submit to obedience, poverty, and chastity – and do without sex his whole life? Her perplexity and anger at a church that condemns homosexuality in the name of God, bans condoms, and bears part of the blame for Aids drive this film and determine its perspective. We share Gregor’s – whose decision is a radical one – doubts and reflections on this road to enlightenment. But it’s the director who learns what real tolerance means. Because the fact is that we are all seekers for meaning.
Cornelia Klauß
Cornelia Klauß
Folly
Thomas Corriveau
Two men meet. One of them beats, the other is beaten. In memories the inevitability is set against the original reasons.
Credits
Producer
Thomas Corriveau
Director
Thomas Corriveau
Music
Jean Derome
Editor
Thomas Corriveau
Animation
Thomas Corriveau
Script
Thomas Corriveau, François Dumont
Sound
Roger Guérin
Two men meet. One of them beats, the other is beaten. In memories the inevitability is set against the original reasons. Thomas Corriveau delivers a brilliantly artistic serial adaptation of “Pour un oui ou pour un non” by Nathalie Sarraute. The drawn traces of the main characters and the musical melodies diverge, are superimposed and press against each other. Repetitions and multi-perspectives to the point of exhaustion. To the blow.
André Eckardt
André Eckardt
I’m OK
Elizabeth Hobbs
Ink strokes galloping at breakneck speed through the tempestuous delirium of Oskar Kokoschka: painter, dragoon, amant fou.
I’m OK
Animated Film
Canada,
UK
2018
6 minutes
Subtitles:
_without dialogue / subtitles
Credits
Producer
Abigail Addison (Animate Projects), Elizabeth Hobbs, Jelena Popović (National Film Board of Canada)
Director
Elizabeth Hobbs
Editor
Elizabeth Hobbs
Animation
Elizabeth Hobbs
Script
Elizabeth Hobbs
Sound
Sacha Ratcliffe
Galloping at breakneck speed through the tempestuous delirium of Oskar Kokoschka. After his failed amour fou with Alma Mahler he plunges into war as a dragoon in 1915, is wounded and comes to terms with things by creating the expressionist drama “Orpheus and Eurydice.” Elizabeth Hobbs takes up the dynamic quality of Kokoschka’s drawings and the turmoil of his emotional ecstasy. Restless ink strokes are entwined in a powerful and brightly coloured mesh of short-lived scenes of passion and suffering.
André Eckardt
André Eckardt
In Deep Waters
Sarah Van Den Boom
The three protagonists of this film are united by something that they must still learn to understand: a loss that happened so early in their lives they don’t remember it but that affected their development nonetheless.
In Deep Waters
Credits
Producer
Richard Van Den Boom
Director
Sarah Van Den Boom
Music
Pierre Caillet
Cinematographer
Sarah Van Den Boom
Editor
Sarah Van Den Boom, Annie Jean
Animation
Gilles Cuvelier, Gabriel Jacquel, Samuel Guénolé, Marine Blin, Marion Le Guillou, Denis Fleurion, Pierre Lesca (Studio Train-Train), Sarah Van Den Boom
Script
Sarah Van Den Boom
Sound
Pierre Yves Drapeau, Lise Wedlock, Jean Paul Vialard
The three protagonists of this film are united by something that they must still learn to understand: a loss that happened so early in their lives they don’t remember it but that affected their development nonetheless. The film uses different aesthetics to depict these persons’ search for a lost part of themselves, the questions they ask themselves and others, and the longing that will always be part of them.
Annegret Richter
Annegret Richter
It's a Dog's Life
Credits
Producer
Jacques-Rémy Girerd, FOLIMAGE STUDIO
Director
Julie REMBAUVILLE, Nicolas BIANCO-LEVRIN
Music
Adrien CHEVALIER
Cinematographer
Sylvie LEONARD, Xavier CRUZ, Morten RIISBERG HANSEN
Editor
Hervé GUICHARD
Script
Julie REMBAUVILLE, Nicolas BIANCO-LEVRIN
Sound
Loïc BURKHARDT
At mealtime, Fifi the dog skips under the table to read the newspaper between Dad, Mom, Thomas and Zo. This evening, the atmosphere is electric and reading becomes compromised.
Memory of the Peace
Jean Parsons, Jennifer Chiu
In the Western Canadian oil town of Fort St. John the balance of power between the industry, exploitation of resources and colonisation which goes back to the 19th century culminates in the planned construction of a dam.
Memory of the Peace
Credits
Producer
Jean Parsons, Jennifer Chiu
Director
Jean Parsons, Jennifer Chiu
Music
Scott Woodworth
Cinematographer
Farhad Ghaderi
Editor
Aynsley Baldwin
Sound
Daniel Kaga, Humberto Corte
In the Western Canadian oil town of Fort St. John the balance of power between the industry, exploitation of resources and colonisation which goes back to the 19th century culminates in the planned construction of a dam that will flood more than 80 kilometres of the Peace River Valley. To young oil workers it’s a good job opportunity, to Native Canadians it’s the loss of an identity going back thousands of years – and of a landscape which the film shows in stunning images.
Frederik Lang
Frederik Lang
Nightingales in December
Credits
Producer
Theodore Ushev, MTD:films
Director
Theodore Ushev
Music
Spencer Krug
Editor
Theodore Ushev
Sound
Olivier Calvert
A metaphorical surrealist tale is an allusion, a trip into the memories, and the fields of current realities. What if the Nightingales were working, instead of singing and going south? There are no Nightingales in December ... What is left, is left only the history of our beginning, and our end.
Credits
Producer
Julie Roy
Director
Karl Lemieux, David Bryant
Music
David Bryant
Cinematographer
Mathieu Laverdière, Karl Lemieux, David Bryant
Editor
Mathieu Bouchard-Malo
Animation
Karl Lemieux
Sound
Olivier Calvert, David Bryant
Electromagnetic fields are invisible. But “electrosensitive” people sense that we are surrounded by all kinds of radio waves. The images of the film, too, sense more than they show: lonely American landscapes, suburban homes, radio towers, and sometimes the narrator, a woman on the run from civilisation. “Quiet Zone” responds to the increasingly restless human communication by a disintegration of reality on the level of the film material itself.
Lars Meyer
Lars Meyer
Scratchy
Marv Newland
Scraping, rubbing, scratching one’s fingernails on the drum kit – growing and changing bodies. 20 hand-painted 2D scenes with rough and scabby surfaces make one music cartoon clip.
Scratchy
Credits
Producer
Marv Newland
Director
Marv Newland
Music
Jacob Cino, Lily Frost
Cinematographer
Jim Inkster
Editor
Peter MacAdams
Animation
Marv Newland
Script
Marv Newland
Sound
Craig Waddell
Scraping, rubbing, scratching one’s fingernails on the drum kit – growing and changing bodies. 20 hand-painted 2D scenes with rough and scabby surfaces make one music cartoon clip that licks and slurps itself smooth.
Lukas Stern
Lukas Stern
Taming the Horse
Tao Gu
Dong, 30 years old – leather jacket and lovesickness as the antithesis of the career ethos. No dropout, but a dreamer with self-doubts in today’s turbo-modernized China.
Taming the Horse
Documentary Film
Canada,
China
2017
124 minutes
Subtitles:
English
Credits
Producer
Aonan Yang, Xun Yu, Tao Gu
Director
Tao Gu
Cinematographer
Xun Yu
Editor
Tao Gu
Sound
Catherine Van Der Donckt
30-year-old Dong is lying on the bed, smoking and wondering: “What can I do to be a valuable member of society? Should I get up? No, I won’t.” When director Tao Gu, who hasn’t seen his old friend in ten years, meets him again in 2011, he meets a man crushed by personal defeat and the latest turbo developments of Chinese society. A man living in student digs who, with his leather jacket, lovesickness, guitar and alcohol, has come to epitomise the antithesis of the dictatorial career ethos. Dong spends his days dreaming and living out his emotional outbreaks in a social environment programmed for reticence.
This sensitive portrait doesn’t show a deliberate dropout but a man whose failure is due to self-doubt and the capitalist “freedom’s” pressure to succeed, who despite his youth is already cleverly sidestepped by a next generation boldly juggling with the logics of the market economy. The protagonist and the filmmaker set out by train to Dong’s home in Inner Mongolia. This train journey of several days runs like a thread through the film as it revels in Dong’s dream of taming horses in the endless steppe and enjoying a peaceful life with a simple Mongolian girl. The young man breaks off the journey.
André Eckardt
This sensitive portrait doesn’t show a deliberate dropout but a man whose failure is due to self-doubt and the capitalist “freedom’s” pressure to succeed, who despite his youth is already cleverly sidestepped by a next generation boldly juggling with the logics of the market economy. The protagonist and the filmmaker set out by train to Dong’s home in Inner Mongolia. This train journey of several days runs like a thread through the film as it revels in Dong’s dream of taming horses in the endless steppe and enjoying a peaceful life with a simple Mongolian girl. The young man breaks off the journey.
André Eckardt
Terminal Device
Ross Turnbull
From Captain Hook to Edward Scissorhands: a prosthesis wearer makes a fierce and humorous clean sweep with the history of prostheses in his own life and in pop culture.
Terminal Device
Credits
Producer
Ross Turnbull, Jennifer Hazel
Director
Ross Turnbull
Music
Slim Twig
Cinematographer
Ross Turnbull, Alex Kingsmill, Roland Echavarria, David Rendall, Jennifer Hazel
Editor
Meghan Remy, Ross Turnbull
Script
Ross Turnbull
Sound
Michèle Deslauriers
Who’s afraid of Captain Hook? He’s the archetype of the one-armed bad guy: the pirate whose missing hand was replaced by a prosthesis that ends in a hook of all things. Hook is a truly overpowering fiction which, quasi by self-fertilisation, brought forth an endless variety of descendants in the field of pop culture of whose power everyone affected can tell us one or two sad stories.
Canadian director Ross Turnbull, who’s missing an arm, is one of those people. From early childhood Hook and the whole gang from Candyman to Edward Scissorhands have been his unloved cousins, who meddled with his life again and again. “Terminal Device” is Turnbull’s fierce and funny way of making a clean sweep of the whole thing: using his own impairment as material for a downright gleeful story of coming to terms with the past and present. Including the bonus of multifaceted excursions into the cultural and medical history of the prosthesis. Often funny. Sometimes creepy. Always enlightening.
Ralph Eue
Canadian director Ross Turnbull, who’s missing an arm, is one of those people. From early childhood Hook and the whole gang from Candyman to Edward Scissorhands have been his unloved cousins, who meddled with his life again and again. “Terminal Device” is Turnbull’s fierce and funny way of making a clean sweep of the whole thing: using his own impairment as material for a downright gleeful story of coming to terms with the past and present. Including the bonus of multifaceted excursions into the cultural and medical history of the prosthesis. Often funny. Sometimes creepy. Always enlightening.
Ralph Eue
