First Last Month
Elena Vatamanu Margineanu
Poland. 2024. 21 min
Doina, a 12-year-old girl, has her first period on the day her grandma has a stroke. Since then, their roles are inverted. When Doina’s dad considers taking grandma to a nursery home, the girl has to prove to him that she is mature enough to take care and keep her only mother figure close to her.
Continue reading First Last Month (Elena Vatamanu-Margineanu) PolandMine
Kaja Sajdak
Poland. 2024. 16 min
A 70-year-old, wealthy Polish woman, Elżbieta, refuses to help her Ukrainian housekeeper, Oksana. When as a result of their conflict, Oksana disappears at night without a word, Elżbieta goes on a journey to find her. The expedition reveals the fate of Ukrainian war refugees who have arrived in Poland.
KAJA SAJDAK
A third-year student of Film Directing at the Warsaw Film School. Director of short etudes and 1AD, assistant director and set designer in professional productions including feature films. She combines her passion for cinema with her love for painting and other visual arts. She is a certified fine artist, which she also actively uses in the film industry.
PÓSTER
CONTACT
festival@szkolafilmowa.pl
Green Light
Weronika Jamroz
Poland. 2024. 15 min
A mother who has lost her rights to parental care, after two years not seeing her daughters, kidnaps them from school to spend the day with them, regain their trust and prove that she is a good mother.
Continue reading Green Light (Weronika Jamroz) PolandFrom You
Jedrzej Gorski
Poland. 2024. 15 min
Adam invites his father, Piotr, to a restaurant to discuss his recently deceased grandfather, a renowned journalist. Instead of a typical interview, Adam tries to catch his father in lies about the last days of his grandfather’s life. The father defends himself, sparking an intense argument. This single conversation not only affects their relationship but also reveals secrets that will permanently reshape the dynamics of their family.
Continue reading From You (Jędrzej Gorski) PolandAnjali Monteiro is a former Professor from the School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. She is involved in documentary production, media teaching and research. She played a key role, along with her colleague and partner, Prof. K.P. Jayasankar, in setting up of the MA and Ph.D. programmes in Media and Cultural Studies at TISS, the first of its kind in India and has done pioneering and innovative work in critical media education in India. In recognition of their contribution, the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad conferred the Prof. Satish Bahadur Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Contribution to Film Education on them, at the 6th Alpavirama — International Youth Film Festival, in November 2022.
Continue reading Anjali Monteiro, Jury at Imagineindia for Best EditingWhispering Walls
Eylem Kaftan
Turkey. 2025. 70 min
Whispering Walls is a creative, cinematic, and artistic meditation on a Turkish artist in New York in 1960’s trying to navigate his way in a complicated time in American history when people were out on the streets for civil rights and when art was a true act of struggle expressing itself in the most intense way on street walls.
Continue reading Whispering Walls (Eylem Kaftan) TurkeyMaroun Returns to Beirut
Feyrouz Serhal
Lebanon, Qatar. 2024. 125 min
2023 marked the thirtieth anniversary of Maroun Baghdadi’s sudden and tragic death. Maroun was a Lebanese filmmaker who wrote and directed films during the Lebanese civil war and contributed to documentary and fiction filmmaking from 1973 up until his death in 1993. In this film, Feyrouz Serhal embarks on a day trip in Beirut and navigates the city that profoundly shaped Maroun’s journey in life and cinema. Here she encounters individuals who were close to him and who shared his experiences. And as she traverses Maroun’s life and career, the social and political backdrop moves to the foreground. The film reflects on the last fifty years of the history of the country from a present standpoint. Through Maroun’s story, we perceive how cinema can, beautifully and dramatically, portray our stories and discourse our life events.
Continue reading Maroun Returns to Beirut (Feyrouz Serhal) Lebanon
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