Anemone
Alicia Hernanpérez
Spain. 2022. 14 min
Samantha and David are in the car looking out to sea. They are going to scatter their mother’s ashes on the beach of their childhood, but nothing goes as planned. Sister and brother will face their respective truths about that mother figure. This is a story about a miscarried ritual. It tells the difference between what we imagine and what actually happens.
Continue reading Anemone (Alicia Hernanpérez) SpainGood t’see ya
Nüll García
Spain. 2023. 10 min
Two friends bump into each other at a shopping mall’s toilet after losing touch in their teens. One is a successful white businesswoman while the other is a romani woman who hardly makes ends meet. Long gone are the endless summer days in the village. Nothing will ever be the same again.
Continue reading Good t’see ya (Nüll García) SpainThey call me Chino
Jesús Rivera
Spain. 2023. 17 min
Chino has returned to Adra after being away for some time. He’s about to turn 18 and wants to leave behind a life that has brought him nothing but trouble and make peace with his past.
JESÚS RIVERA
Jesús Rivera (Almería, Spain, 1990). Bachelor in Media and Communication, graduated by the University of Malaga. He has developed his career on theater, radio, advertising and cinema all around Spain. Seeing life with his one and a half eye, he is always looking for the way of showing his own perception of reality.
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CONTACT
distribucion@ecam.es
Divine Accounts
Eulalia Ramón
Spain. 2022. 14 min
Monica is a normal woman with a normal life in any place in any of these modern times. However, one day, for an unimportant detail that could have been resolved like any other previous disagreement, she kills her husband. She thus discovers crime as a substitute for anxiolytics, liberation from all hypocritical moralism and, why not?, the usefulnes.
Continue reading Divine Accounts (Eulalia Ramón) SpainAjantrik
Ritwik Ghatak
India. 1958. 96 min
Bimal is a taxi-driver in a small provincial town. He lives alone. His taxi (an old 1920 Chevrolet jalopy which he named Jagaddal) is his only companion and, although very battered, it is the apple of Bimal’s eye. The film shows episodes from his life in the industrial wasteland, delivering people from one place to another.
Film critic Georges Sadoul shared his experience of watching the film in this way. He said, “What does ‘Ajantrik’ mean? I don’t know and I believe no one in Venice Film Festival knew…I can’t tell the whole story of the film…there was no subtitle for the film. But I saw the film spellbound till the very end”. According to the noted Bengali poet and German scholar Alokeranjan Dasgupta, “The merciless conflict of ethereal nature and mechanised civilization, through the love of taxi driver Bimal and his pathetic vehicle Jagaddal seems to be a unique gift of…modernism.”
RITWIK GHATAK
Ritwik Kumar Ghatak; 4 November 1925 – 6 February 1976) was a noted Indian film director, screenwriter and playwright. Along with prominent contemporary Bengali filmmakers like Satyajit Ray, Tapan Sinha and Mrinal Sen, his cinema is primarily remembered for its meticulous depiction of social reality, partition and feminism. He won the National Film Award’s Rajat Kamal Award for Best Story in 1974 for his Jukti Takko Aar Gappo and Best Director’s Award from Bangladesh Cine Journalist’s Association for Titash Ekti Nadir Naam. The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri for Arts in 1970.
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Munnel (Sand)
Visakesa Chandrasekaram
Sri Lanka. 2023. 102 min
Rudran, an ex-Tamil militant returns home from military detention, looking for his lover Vaani who had disappeared during the war. Rudran’s mother, Sellamma who is gifted with a ‘boon’ of soothsaying, tells the locals whether their kith and kin are alive or dead, but she refuses to say the same about Vaani. While men and women defeated in the war find solace in massive Hindu temples, Rudran initially refuses to pray, but later in an act of desperation, he joins a month-long pilgrimage seeking help from God Ayyappa, hoping to unite with his lover.
Continue reading Munnel (Visakesa Chandrasekaram) Sri Lanka. Official SectionNirjan Saikate
Tapan Sinha
India. 1963. 122 min
The protagonist isa writer on his way to Puri by train. In the course of the journey he gets acquainted with a group of 4 Bengali widows accompanying their niece, also going to Puri. The writer was going to just get out of his day to day Kolkata life whereas these ladies were actually going to calm down their niece who had just suffered a breakup with her lover. The rest of the story revolves around these people and their attraction and involvement with the writer. The writer is amused with them and for his part tries to calm the girl. The story guides us around the different relationships the writer develops with each of the character he meets. The movie tries to show the social taboos for widows and teaches the philosophy that life is ahead of us and not behind. There is a pretty good description of Puri, Konark and Rambha. At the time this movie was shot it was possible for Tapan Sinha to shoot inside the Konark sun temple, also the bullock cart way to Konark is an extra for the viewer.
TAPAN SINHA
Tapan Sinha (2 October 1924 – 15 January 2009) was one of the most prominent Indian film directors of his time forming a legendary quartet with Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen. He was primarily a Bengali filmmaker who worked both in Hindi cinema and Bengali cinema, directing films like Kabuliwala (1957), Louha-Kapat, Sagina Mahato (1970), Apanjan (1968), Kshudhita Pashan and children’s film Safed Haathi (1978) and Aaj Ka Robinhood. Sinha started his career in 1946, as a sound engineer with New Theatres film production house in Kolkata, then in 1950 left for England where he worked at Pinewood Studios for next two years, before returning home to start his six decade long career in Indian cinema, making films in Bengali, Hindi and Oriya languages, straddling genres from social realism, family drama, labor rights, to children’s fantasy films. He was one of the acclaimed filmmakers of Parallel Cinema movement of India.
A Girl Who Spreads Light
Jayaraj
India. 2022. 76 min
He is writing his suicide letter because of he feels misfit in this world, life is miserable, meaning less. He bought a bottle of deadly poison and started to say good bye to some people close to him and some places like school, college, beach, temple, church, all the roads, look and corner he travelled. Visited his school teacher who lost her memory. Sat on a bench where he sat first time in the school. Visited the live classroom of his college where Romeo Juliet’s final poison scene is teaching. Releasing the parrot of a fortune teller. Enjoying the colourful bangles in the shop. At last, entering in a cinema theatre to spend the time to dawn. While sitting alone in the back seat a 13-year charming girl came and sit with her younger sister and brother. Her talkative pleasant attitude and sparkling smile made his mind positive. After one year he is meeting her again in the beach side. There she looked at him and spectators with a smile.
JAYARAJ
Jayarajan Rajasekharan Nair, professionally credited as Jayaraj, is an Indian filmmaker, who predominantly works in Malayalam film industry. Jayaraj is a recipient of the Crystal Bear award at the Berlinale, the Golden Peacock award at the IFF India, the Golden Crow Pheasant award at the IFF Kerala, the FIPRESCI award from the International Federation of Film Critics, the Don Quixote award from the International Federation of Film Societies, the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) award and a special mention award at the Karlovy Vary IFF for variety of his films. He is also a 6-time recipient of the National Film Award and several Kerala State Film Awards.
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CONTACT
samikshya@mountainriverfilms.com
The Fat Guy
Gudis Schneider
Israel. 2022. 93 min
Jimmy and Elik meet in the army, a minute before checking out. He is a fat corporaland she is a beautiful officer, but something clicks between them, They can talk. Ashame it doesn’t stand a chance. They run into each other through the years in thecity, Facebook and such, but only a decade later, when they’re both 30 plus, wiserand harder, they really become friends.
Everything is good, until love gets in the mix.
GUDIS SCHNEIDER
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All of Our Heartbeats are Connected through Exploding Stars
Jennifer Rainsford
Sweden. 2022. 77 min
On March 11, 2011 the largest earthquake in modern history hit Japan and then, thirty minutes later, dark tsunami waves roared in over the coast of North-Eastern Japan dragging cars, homes and lives out into the sea.
In the film we meet Yasu who has done over 100 dives in search of his lost wife. Sachiko keeps writing letters to her husband that was taken by the wave. Satoko is a young woman who struggles with overcoming her trauma from the disaster. On the other side of the ocean, in the Hawaiian island of Kaho’olawe, a group of volunteers are gathering to clean the beach from Japanese tsunami debris floating in from the Ocean.
imagineindiafestival.com 