Official Section

FULL LENGHT FILMS

ALLEIN IN VIER WÄNDEN / ALONE IN FOUR WALLS

Alexandra Westmeier / 85´ / 2008 / Germany / Betacam SP

Direction: Alexandra Westmeier
Script: Alexandra Westmeier
Production: Alexandra Westmeier, Inigo Westmeier
Cinematography: Inigo Westmeier
Editing: Alexandra Westmeier
Sound: Evgeny Mursikov

 

Everyone sees in them only criminals, and forgets that they are children. Children who never had a childhood. Some of the inmates we meet are serving time for theft, some for murder - but filmmaker Alexandra Westmeier lets us spend enough time with them to see beyond their ‘hard man’ exteriors to the scared boys within. She also provides glimpses of their home lives, and we begin to realise that, for these children, prison is often an easier place to be.

 

ALEXANDRA WESTMEIER, whose maiden name is Alexandra Salomatova, is born in Chelyabinsk (Russia). She studied theatre and filmmaking at the Drama Academy in St. Petersburg and Moscow. She lives in Germany since 2001. Her last documentary Allein in vier Wänden – Alone in four Walls had his premiere in Sundance world cinema competition 2008. The film has received till now over 13 national and international prizes and has been screened at more than 70 film festivals at over 5 Continents. Her credits to date include Fremde.Heimat. Studium (2003), Finde mich (2005), Mama, mir geht es gut... (2006) and Allein in vier Wänden (2007).

 

ENJOY POVERTY

Renzo Martens / 90´ / 2008 / Holland / Betacam SP

Direction: Renzo Martens
Script: Renzo Martens
Production: Renzo Martens, Peter Krüger
Cinematography: Renzo Martens
Editing: Jan De Coster

 

Armed with a camera, a neon sign, and a compelling premise-that poverty is Africa's primary resource-the Dutch artist Renzo Martens spent three years traveling throughout the Democratic Republic of the Congo. "Who owns poverty," he asks. “The filmmakers and photographers who document it? Western consumers of these images? NGOs? The people of Africa?”. Confrontational, provocative, and bluntly satiric, Martens' journey is something of an art intervention.

 

Dutch artist Renzo Martens (1973) has spent the past several years examining the role of the camera in places of severe political unrest, utilizing performance and satire to create metafilms that raise questions about the use of journalism and documentation. For his film Episode 1 (2003), he travelled to Chechnya and, instead of recording the women in line for food, the children in refugee camps, or the heavily armed soldiers, he turned the camera on himself, asking his subjects what they thought about him. For Episode 3 Martens went to Congo, where he launched a two-year project that examined the exploitation of one of Africa’s major exports: images of poverty and suffering.

 

SHAKESPEARE Y VICTOR HUGO´S INTIMACIES

Yulene Olaizola / 83´ / 2008 / Mexico / Betacam SP

Direction: Yulene Olaizola
Script: Yulene Olaizola
Production: CCC
Cinematography: Yulene Olaizola
Editing: Yulene Olaizola
Sound: Pablo Fernández
Original Music: Emiliano Motta y Emiliano González León

 

On the corner of Shakespeare and Víctor Hugo Streets in Mexico City is Rosa Carbajal’s Guest House. Twenty years ago, Rosa met Jorge Riosse, a young guest with whom she began a close friendship. For eight years, his stay in the house left behind indelible marks on those who knew him. But it was after his sudden death that the darker features of his personality came to light.

 

YULENE OLAIZOLA was born in Mexico City in 1983. In 2002, she went to the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfi ca (CCC), where she has made a number of shorts. She is currently studying the fifth year of her degree, specialising in directing and sound. In 2005, she received a grant from the National Fund for Culture and the Arts (FONCA) for the development of the documentary, Intimacies of Shakespeare and Victor Hugo. In 2006, she took part in Morelia LabDoc, in the Morelia International Film Festival with the same project. In 2007, she won the support of the Jan Vrijman Fund at IDFA for the postproduction of Intimacies of Shakespeare and Victor Hugo. She is currently writing a fiction script for her Thesis Project at CCC.

 

 

LETTERS TO THE PRESIDENT

Petr Lom / 72´ / 2009 / Canada / Betacam SP

Direction: Petr Lom
Script: Petr Lom
Production: Petr Lom
Cinematography: Petr Lom
Editing: Petr Lom

 

Exclusive access fi lm about President Ahmadinejad of Iran and what life is like under his regime. The film takes as its narrative thread the ten million letters that ordinary Iranians have written to Ahmadinejad asking for help.

 

PETR LOM is an independent documentary director and producer. Entirely self-taught, he directs, shoots and edits his own films. He is a former academic with a Ph.D. in political philosophy from Harvard University. To anyone contemplating a career change, he says: do it as soon as possible.

 

 

 

MACHERA

Charles Martínez / 80´/ 2008 / Venezuela / Betacam SP

Direction: Charles Martínez
Script: Charles Martínez
Production: Charles Martínez
Cinematography: Vladimir Sosnowski
Sound: Alejandro Huizi

 

Machera is a documentary about observation, with elements of fiction, which explores the myth of Luis Enrique Cerrada Molina (1956 - 1977) a dead man who is extremely popular and believed to work miracles in the Andean city of Mérida. During his life, he was a petty criminal who was famous for handing over his ill-gotten gains to the poor of the city, and his violent death, facing alone the forces of public order, has made him a religious symbol.

 

CHARLES MARTÍNEZ (Valencia, 1980) finished his studies in Chemical Engineering at the Central University in Venezuela in 2005. From 2003 onwards, he performed as a composer and arranger at the Musical Lab C.A. production company, co-founded with Vladimir Sosnowski. In 2006, he travelled to London and gave a number or orkshops related with cinematographic production at he London Film Academy. Among his work, the video Superllanero (2005), the fiction short, Rating (2006) and La descolonización en Bolivia (2006).

 

PRINCESS OF AFRICA

Juan Laguna / 76´ / 2008 / Spain / DVCAM

Direction: Juan Laguna
Script: Juan Laguna
Production: Juan Laguna
Cinematography: Borja Pozueco, Gabriel Molera, Raúl Bartolomé, Hugo Herrera
Editing: Juan Laguna
Sound: Pedro Valero
Original Music: Manu Sanz, Juan Laguna

A film which participated in the 2007 Pitching in MiradasDoc

 

The history of two dreams. That of Marem, a fourteenyear-old Senegalese dancing girl who wants to emigrate to Europe, and that of Sonia, a Spanish dancer who is attracted by the magic of Africa. They are brought together by Pap Ndiaye, the father of Marem and husband of Sonia. Africa is not as Sonia dreamed (Pap Ndiaye has two more wives) and nor is Europe as Marem dreamed it (there are no children on the streets and there is also poverty).

 

JUAN LAGUNA, filmmaker, scriptwriter, composer and producer, was born in Madrid in 1980. In 2002, he produced, co-directed and co-wrote his first documentary, Bereberia 2002, with Julian Franco, for TVE. In 2004, he directed and produced the documentary, Bereberia the rendez vous (Latin-American Film Festival of Huelva). Princesa de África, his third documentary, was selected for and won numerous prizes at Spanish and foreign film festivals, including particularly the Festival of the African Diaspora in New York, the Festival of Spanish Cinema in Malaga, the Festival of World Films in Montreal, Seattle International Film Festival and the African Film Festival in Tarifa.

 

QADIR - ENAS AFGHANOS ODYSSEAS / QADIR – AN AFGHAN ULYSSES

Papathanassiou / 79´ / 2008 / Greece/ Betacam SP

Direction: Anneta Papathanassiou
Script: Anneta Papathanassiou
Production: Photini Economopoulou
Cinematography: Dimitris Kordelas
Editing: Chronis Theocharis
Sound: Stefanos Efthymiou
Original Music: Maria- Christina Krithara

 

The journey of Qadir, an Afghan refugee who came to Greece after the Taliban invaded his town. He returns home 9 years later, searching for his family but his emotions are mixed: besides the joy, there is anxiety and even fear. The country is destroyed and the Taliban are still there threatening with suicide bombers. The poverty and the insecurity worry Qadir. What will his decision be when he finds his family? Will he stay in Afghanistan or return to Greece?

 

ANNETA PAPATHANASSIOU. Licenciada en Económicas por la Universidad de Atenas y Graduada en Drama y Cine en la Escuela E. Hatzikou, realizó cursos de Teatro en la Universidad de Nueva York en la Universidad de Nueva York, y HB Studio en Nueva York. Lleva en el Escenario y en la Televisión más de 20 años. Enseña drama en el American College de Grecia y en el Theatro ton Allagon. Ha publicado dos libros de teatro, Lights Please, Theater Games en la editorial KEDROS. Es guionista del largometraje Helen and the Seven Dwarfs (Helen y los Siete Enanos). Qadir – An Afghan Ulysses (2008) es su último largometraje.

 

 

 SHADI

Maryam Khakipour / 58´ / 2008 / Iran / Betacam SP

Direction: Maryam Khakipour
Script: Maryam Khakipour
Cinematography: Farzin Khosrowshahi
Editing: Sara Rastegar
Sound: Ahmad Ardalan

 

A comedy company from Teheran is kicked out of their theatre and find themselves with no place to play. Moved by the fate of the “Joy Makers”, Ariane Mnouchkine invites them. Shadi has got to fight tooth and nail with her husband to obtain his “travel permission”. In Paris, the encounter with Ariane Mnouchkine worries the accompanying director, who becomes very suspicious of the young woman…

 

MARYAM KHAKIPOUR was born in Tehran. Siah Bâzi, the Joy Makers, her fi rst documentary was selected in many festivals like Tribecca (NY), Ecum (Brasil), Amiens, La Rochelle (France), Solothurn (Switzerland)… Shadi, her second documentary film, was selected in Festival du Réel (Pompidou Center, Paris), Clermont-Ferrand, La Rochelle, Amiens (France), Fidadoc (Maroc), Prague (Czech Republic)…

 

 

 

LA TUMULTUEUSE VIE D´UN DÉFLATÉ / THE TUMULTUOUS LIFE OF AN UNEMPLOYED MAN

Camille Plagnet / 60´/ 2009 / France, Burkina Faso / DVCAM

Direction: Camille Plagnet
Script: Camille Plagnet
Production: Jean-Marie Barbe
Cinematography: Michel K. Zongo
Editing: Florence Bresson
Sound: Sam Lallé
Original Music: Youen Cadiou, Eric Dambrin, Pierre Thévenin

 

The film portrays the hectic life of the “Great Z”, an engine driver of the Abidjan-Ouagadougou line for 20 years, laid off in 1995 by the National Railways of Burkina Faso following the privatization imposed by the World Bank. An inveterate hedonist to the bone, he suddenly found himself struck down as he was experiencing pure joyfulness. He lost everything, and has since then lived a gloomy life waiting for his retirement pension.

CAMILLE PLAGNET. Formation : INSAS & Master Documentaire de Lussas. Realisation of short documentary films: La cicatrice, Hello Mister Pigeon, La vie dans la cellule, La tête de l’emploi, Une capitale, des capitaux. He also works as editor or director assistant. La tumultueuse vie d’un déflaté (the hectic life of a dismissed worker) is his first feature film.

 

Z32

Avi Mograbi / 81´ / 2008 / Israel, Francia / Israel, France/ Betacam SP

Dirección / Direction: Avi Mograbi
Script: Avi Mograbi
Production: Avi Mograbi
Cinematography: Philippe Bellaïche
Editing: Avi Mograbi
Sound: Dominique Vieillard
Original Music: Noam Enbar

 

An Israeli ex-soldier who participated in a revenge operation where two Palestinian policemen were murdered seks forgivenes for what he has done. His girlfriend does not think it is that simple, she raises isues he is yet not ready to adres. The soldier wilingly testifies for camera as long as his identity is not exposed. While the filmmaker keps loking for the proper solution for concealing the soldier’s identity he questions his own political and artistic conduct.

 

AVI MOGRABI, filmmaker and video artist. Director of Mrs. Goldstein (2006), Avenge but one of my two eyes (2005) (Cannes Film Festival), Detail (2004) (Berlin Film Festival), August (2002) (Berlin Film Festival), Wait, it’s the soldiers, I’ll hang up now (2002), At the back (2000), Will you please stop bothering me and my family (2000), Relief (1999), Happy Birthday Mr. Mograbi (1999) (Berlin Film Festival), How I learned to overcome my fear and love Arik Sharon (1997) (Berlin Film Festival).

 

EL OLVIDO

Heddy Honigmann

 

 

 

 

El Olvido takes us to the forgotten city of Lima, to a forgotten people, the Peruvians and - like most countries in Latin America – the forgotten land of Peru. Occasionally - during presidential elections, after a serious earthquake, or when a new mass grave is discovered, and then only if it’s big enough - the world remembers Peru’s existence, but just for a few days.

 

HEDDY HONIGMANN es considerada como una de las mejores documentalistas del mundo. Sus películas han viajado a lo largo del mundo recibiendo grandes premios e importantes retrospectivas. Ha recibido muchos premios importantes por todo su trabajo, como el Premio Hot Docs Outstanding Achievement (2007), el Premio Golden Gate Persistence of Vision de la Sociedad de Cine de San Francisco (2007), el Premio J. Van Praag de la Asociación Humanista de los Países Bajos (2005), el Premio Jan Cassies por su obra completa del Fondo Nacional Holandés para Películas culturales para la televisión (2003) de los Países Bajos.