Programme 14
The Other (2017)
Director: Bettina Grossenbacher
Switzerland
Experimental | 14 min
No dialogue
A young woman enters a room, looks around and gazes into the garden. We suspect something is amiss. A colourful demon stares at us. A chair exhales, and suddenly the world seems to have been upended. We do not know if the woman is alone in the room or in the company of a doppelgänger.
A Blink of an Eye (2017)
Director: Fatima Al Banawi
Saudi Arabia
Experimental | 8 min
Arabic with English subtitles
Perhaps it is moments that occur in the blink of an eye that make an everyday story into a story worth sharing. This film presents five stories from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia that embody the lives of strangers who unite in a moment.
Clams Casino (2018)
Director: Pam Nasr
United States of America
Narrative ǀ 11 min
English
Clams Casino interweaves the lives of four Latina women. Arcelia is desperate to connect with her self-involved mother, Gladys, who is a harsh critic. Rocío battles with her secretive teenage daughter, Lourdes. Both daughters use technology to fill the void, but will they find a way to genuinely connect?
Before I Forget (2018)
Director: Mariam Mekiwi
Germany
Experimental | 31 min
Arabic with English subtitles
In this science fiction story set in a coastal region, the water level is rising, a captain disappears, a disciple takes a journey to cut off an internet cable, an amphibian woman appears at the shore and a scientist tries to gather members of a secret society of amphibians to save the world.
Happy Birthday, Marsha! (2017)
Director: Tourmaline
United States of America
Narrative | 15 min
English
Happy Birthday, Marsha! commemorates Black trans activist and performer Marsha ‘Pay It No Mind’ Johnson and her role in instigating the 1969 anti-police riots at the Stonewall Inn in New York. The film interweaves imagined scenes with found archival footage to counter the endemic erasure of trans women of colour from narratives of political resistance.
Ephemera (2017)
Director: Thanh Thao Ho
Vietnam
Narrative | 22 min
Vietnamese with English subtitles
A young girl has a mysterious reason for suddenly becoming intimate with a wanderer who only a minute before had disgusted her.
A Passage Between Two Points (2017)
Directed by Lamis Souliman
France
Experimental | 10 min
No dialogue
The film starts with a girl who draws her own place in life with the colour red.
an experi-mental e-motion picture (2018)
Director: Noura A. Rahman
Egypt
Experimental | 5 min
Arabic with English subtitles
This non-narrative experimental film focuses on visual and auricular expressions of negative states of mind that are related to mental and emotional health, specifically anxiety and depression.
Still Life After Death (2018)
Director: Sandra Powers
United States of America
Experimental | 11 min
English
This musical film explores the Cambodian Buddhist ritual in which a monk helps a dying person leave life behind. It features a musical composition written by the Cambodian composer Chinary Ung and performed by Stacey Fraser.
In-Between (2018)
Director: Sahar El Echi
Tunisia
Experimental | 6 min
Arabic with English subtitles
It is through the strange daily routine of a person confined at home that the painful tension of being manifests itself in its most radical forms.
Color It Yellow (2018)
Director: Leen Awad
Jordan
Documentary | 10 min
English with Arabic subtitles
This poetic documentary focuses on one of the many stories of women surviving violence. Dania, a courageous college girl, shares how she fell victim to several forms of abuse by her boyfriend, how she found strength through ballet dancing and how the experience affected her family.