Programme 1
Children of the Lake (2019)
Director: Emerson Reyes
Philippines
Narrative | 17 min
Tagalog with English subtitles
Lele and Bella are playing cops and robbers near the lake. Their innocent pastime turns into a deadly game of cat and mouse when they meet a lone soldier who is being hunted down for conspiring to take over their land. The two young children struggle to decide between righteousness and duty as they search for a way out of the conflict.
From the Mountain (2019)
Director: Faisal Attrache
Syria, Jordan, United States of America
Narrative | 21 min
Arabic with English subtitles
The charismatic and fiery leader of the Great Syrian Revolt of 1925 fights to keep the flame of revolution alive in exile, but when the fight for independence comes at the expense of his family’s well-being, he must decide how much he is willing to sacrifice.
Layla, At Last (2019)
Director: Julian Alexander
USA | UK
Narrative | 26 min
English and Arabic
Layla has a strange familiarity with the Atlas Mountain region in Morocco. Her mother lived there before moving to Europe, and with her mother gone, Layla has lost her connection to her culture. She finds herself in Morocco, following up on reported sightings of Atlas Lions, long thought extinct. Searching through remote lands for evidence of these lions, she moves from city to village, as if traveling through time, crossing paths with faces from her mother’s stories that are now too familiar. These people seem to know her, but Layla could not have known them, could she?