FRIDAY, SEPT 8, from 21:00
AT GRĂDINA CU FILME – CINEMA & MORE
The Critical Gestures short film program reveals effervescent clusters that transcend their own boundaries through the power of voice and movement. From the protests against Colombia’s largest coal mine’s disastrous exploitation to memories of the last brickyard in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, from the digitized dialogues to the blurred lines between humans and animals, the third International Competition revolves around topics such as capitalism, violation of human rights, and the destruction of the ego.
FLOWERS FROM ANOTHER GARDEN
15:46, 2022, CH/CO
D: Jorge Cadena
In the north of Colombia, a group of queer activists use extravagant performative actions to denounce the disastrous exploitation by the country's largest coal mine.
HYBRIS I
6:18, 2022, DE
D: Corentin Kopp, Aaron Arnoldt Alexander
C: Louis Stiens, Shaked Heller
From the simplicity of the one and the zero, the future is bred. Natural and digital organisms embrace, yet reject each other in a new parallel world. Learning from each other, what shape can human bodies take in the middle of these balancing acts? HYBRIS I is the opening film of a trio of visual dialogues between the physical and the digital world.
JUST BE
8:31, 2023, RO
D: Stoica Filip, Laz Mihai
Being surrounded by people doesn’t mean being together. Being touched doesn’t mean being understood. Being seen doesn’t mean being cared about. A strive for connection that doesn’t truly happen. Together in loneliness.
URBAN GENESIS
18:01, 2022, FR
D: Fu Le
Phuong is released from prison and returns to her native village. She finds Khang, her childhood sweetheart. Khang runs a brickyard, but everything has changed, modernity is shaking up the world of his memories. “Urban Genesis” is a journey to the last brickyard of An Hiep Island in the heart of the Mekong Delta.
BEAST
10:38, 2022, PL
D: Iwona Pasińska
Behind seven lakes, seven hills, seven forests, there is a seemingly idyllic land. And in it, as if by magic, an unexpected meeting happens not only once but three times. The first time, as if from a flying carpet, we see an animalistic figure in the thicket. The second time, we observe a frisky animal herd colliding with otherness. For the third and final meeting, the moment when a man enters the ordered world of nature. How does the relationship between animals differ from the relationship between humans and animals?
IN THE SAME BOAT
7:31, 2022, FL
D: Mervi Junkkonen
A film about the limits of the ageing body and the boundless mind. Rauno’s story takes us on a boat trip with his father. A journey of misadventures and his father's new Finnish record in cursing.
THE DEATH OF EGO
15:45, 2023, RO
D: Corina Andrian
The Death of Ego sees seven dancers slowly bury themselves into states which degenerate to different degrees, sometimes to a higher state of consciousness and collective unity. The masterfully composed music occupies a special place, it controls and punishes the dancers, sends them to poetic realms of artistic ecstasy and envelops them in a veil of ambiguous certainty. The only pathway to complete freedom is the death of ego.