Sound of Silence
Biju Kumar
India. 2017. 89 min.

Set in a beautiful Himalayan valley, it’s a journey of a neglected and abandoned mute boy, who loses his mother at birth and is furiously neglected by his father. When his father goes behind bars, the boy stares at a lonely and deserted life ahead. His relationship with an elderly Buddhist monk helps him to detach from his voiceless suffering and to explore the bond that each creation shares with nature. With nowhere to go, he joins a Budhist monastery even as he fights an inner battle of unrequited love.

Set in a beautiful Himalayan valley, it’s a journey of a neglected mute boy, who loses his mother at birth and is neglected by his father. His relationship with an elderly Buddhist monk helps him to detach from his voiceless suffering and to explore the bond with nature.

BIJUKUMAR DAMODARAN

Dr.Biju also known as BijukumarDamodaran, is a Director who has won multiple national and international awards. He won India’s national film awards three times. He is a Homoeopathic Medical Doctor by profession and a self-taught filmmaker. He debuted with Saira (2005). It was the opening film in the section Cinema of the World at the Cannes Film Festival 2007 .the film also selected to Indian Panorama. VeettilekkullaVazhi (The Way Home)(2010), his third film received India’s National film award for the best Malayalam regional film. AkashathinteNiram (Color of the Sky) his fourth feature was world premiered at Shanghai Film Festival 2012 in official competition. The film also selected to Indian Panorama. Perariyathavar (Names Unknown) (2013), his fifth film won two of India’s national film awards for the year 2013, for the Best actor and for the best film on Environment preservation. The film world premiered at Montreal Film festival in 2014 and later screened at more than 30 international film festivals. The film won best actor award at Fajr Film Festival Tehran Iran 2015 and best cinematography at Kazan international film festival Russia 2015 . His sixth film Valiya Chirakulla Pakshikal (Birds With Large Wings) (2015) received India’s national film award for best environment film and has been selected to Indian Panorama at International film festival of India 2015 and was nominated to the competition for UNESCO award. The film specially invited to screening at United Nations, Geneva in association with United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) on November 10th 2015.His seventh film Kaadu Pookkunna Neram (2016) premiered at Montreal film festival . The film received India’s National film award for best sound design and has been selected to Indian Panorama at international film festival of India 2016. The film screened at more than 20 international film festivals. Dr.Biju’s films have been sent to several film festivals and have won many awards. He also served as jury member for India’s National film awards 2012, India’s Oscar selection jury member 2015, 30th Fajr International film festival, Tehran, Iran 2012 and International Film Festival of Kerala 2011.

Walking with the wind
Praveen Morchhale
India. 2017. 79 min

10 year old Tsering lives in the difficult terrain of the Himalayas. One day he accidentally breaks his friend’s school chair. When he decides to bring the chair back to his village, the 7 kilometres long journey back home in mountainous landscape on a donkey, becomes even more arduous than usual. Chair is the metaphor for the awakening journey, quest for inner truth and reality, which people aspire to find in the adult world.

PRAVEEN MORCHHALE

Director Praveen Morchhale is an emerging noteworthy filmmaker from India making films based on his own original scripts that use children in pivotal, non-controversial roles. His films certainly cannot be classified as children’s films as these works, while tugging at the hearts of adult viewers, are essentially humanistic and philosophical in content that is relevant for viewers of all ages. His films are different in many ways from the average contemporary Indian cinema. The titles of his two films Barefoot to Goa (2013) and Walking with the Wind (2017) are in English, while the films are not in that language. Spoken words are minimal though important, while visuals and documentary-like performances dominate. Family values are underscored indirectly in both films. Both films exude positive thoughts, providing viewers with a breath of fresh air, not unlike the early works of the Iranian filmmakers Abbas Kiarostami and Amir Naderi. Director Morchhale, who has been influenced by the former’s works, dedicates the film to him as he passed away while the film was in production. Kiarostami’s evocative short film The Bread and Alley (1970) has a similar treatment of a different story.

While Morchhale’s first film compared and contrasted contemporary urban and rural western India, his latest film is entirely shot in a rural setting of Ladakh, in the northern Indian state of Kashmir, with principal actors playing their real-life roles. Italy’s filmmaking maestro Ermanno Olmi achieved a similar effect in the brilliant Golden Palm winning The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978). Morchhale spent time over two seasons with the community some 80kms from Leh, while developing the tale and roping in the inhabitants to join the film as non –professional actors in roles close to their own in real life.

Cesteando
Plácido Romero.
España. 2016. 59 min

In this world of records and ostentatious figures, Toño do Val can boast of having the best collection of baskets in the world. Because Toño, besides being a farmer, is “cesteiro” and in the small village of Castro de Leboreiro where he lives, the baskets are not an object of worship, but a daily utensil, now of ethnographic value, as well as other trades and objects. of Galicia, were weaving the warp of a people, and the face of a race that already walks to the condition of museum objective.

A documentary that, according to its author, aims to be an “honest reflection” on the loss of a culture and the abandonment of Galician rural “, without neglecting, explains the creative and ingenious personality of the cesteiro, the man who decided to go countercurrent choosing to step on the ground and not asphalt and in times of the virtual and the digital let them be their baskets, the truth that touches their fingers daily.

PLÁCIDO  ROMERO

Plácido Romero Bernardo, was born in Verín in 1952, where he lived childhood and youth. He worked as a History teacher in several secondary schools. In the nineties of the last century he participated in the working groups for the introduction into the didactic practice of the history of audiovisual media. Several of his works obtained prizes and recognition in school competitions. Later, and when he was no longer a professor, he continued to collaborate in institutes with the activities of Plastic and Visual Education departments, in the production of videos that reflected the innovations in that field.

CONTACT

Aser Álvarez

raiaseca@gmail.com

Alberto Luchini (Madrid, 1968) is Editor-in-Chief of the Metropolis magazine and web metropolis.com, as well as director of the Metropolis Eating and Drinking Guide in Madrid.

For more than 25 years, he has been a film critic. He has been an organizer and / or jury at various festivals.

He is a member of the European Film Academy and in 2014 he received the National Gastronomy Award for the Best Journalistic Work.

Azucena De La Fuente is an actress and director, known for Muerte en Granada (1996), Al salir de clase (1997) and Aquí no hay viva (2003).

Shee worked with Andy García in ‘Muerte en Granada’ (1996). A year later, she gave life to Marisol Garrido in one of the emblematic series of spanish television, ‘Al salir de clase’. That to name just two of the works of one of the co-founders of the General Union of Actors.

Now, after passing through the production of TVE ‘Medical Center’, is about to pack to return to the Mecca of cinema for the project Brothers of justice.

Counterfeit Kunkoo
Reema Sengupta
India. 2017. 14 min

Reema Sengupta’s film is India’s only short film entry at Sundance Film Festival in 15 years.

Counterfeit Kunkoo is unpretentious and realistic to its core. The film is about a separated single woman looking for accommodation in Mumbai and minces no words (or visuals) in underlining the desperation of her situation. With a satirical bent, the film showcases how women in India, even today, are expected to be accompanied by a man for finding a roof over their head. Says director Reema Sengupta, who wrote the film a few years back when her father asked her mother to find her own place after 24 years of marriage: “The idea was to address housing discrimination and the shift of attitude towards a woman after she decides to separate from an abusive marriage. I didn’t know how to channelise the deep sense of anger and helplessness I was feeling. So I chose to write a film about it.”

Obtained the diploma in Optics, initiated studies of Journalism. Later he entered the Official School of Cinema, where he coincided with Imanol Uribe, Ángel Luis Fernández and Julio Madurga, among others. He graduated in 1973.

His first feature was What does a girl like you in a place like this? by Fernando Colomo (1978). In his beginnings he worked a lot with Imanol Uribe and Montxo Armendáriz, which gave him great popular recognition in the Basque Country.

His consecration at the national level came from the hand of Alejandro Amenábar, with whom he collaborated in Los otros and Mar adentro. With Sea inside Oscar winner for the best foreign film of 2005, he won his sixth Goya award as director of photography. His professional career is plagued with multiple awards. This year also a compilation music video by Joaquín Sabina entitled Punto … y seguido.

In 2006 he made the film The Ghosts of Goya by Miloš Forman.

In 2007 he worked with Woody Allen in the movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

In 2009 he worked with John Hillcoat in the film The Road, based on the Pulitzer Prize novel by Cormac McCarthy.

In 2009 he worked as cinematographer with Chris Weitz on New Moon and with David Slade on Eclipse.

In 2013 he worked with Woody Allen in the movie Blue Jasmine.

Since 2007 he has been a member of Jakiunde, Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters of the Basque Country.

Cardelús was born in Madrid, Spain in 1981. He studied at the Superior Conservatory of Music (Salamanca, Spain), Royal Academy of Music (London), Franz Liszt Academy of Music (Budapest), and Berklee University of Music (Boston).

In 2013, Cardelús attracted national attention for his composition Con Aire de Tango, which was commissioned by members of the Berlin Philharmonic after they saw a video of his work on YouTube / YouTube. Other pieces by Cardelús have been presented in venues such as the Auditorio Nacional de Madrid.

In 2012, Cardelús made music for the movie The Paperboy. In 2015, he made music for the Italian film Chiamatemi Francesco. Cardelús has also worked on independent Spanish and American films.

In 2016, Cardelús was elected Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM). In 2017, Cardelús made music for En un Heartbeat, a film that received universal praise for its animation, progressive message and emotional resonance.

Cardelús lives and works in Los Angeles.

She was born on March 4, 1962 in Aranjuez, but grew up in Santander (Cantabria), growing up in the neighborhood of La Albericia. She studied journalism at the Complutense University of Madrid. She started working in Radio Minuto Fórmula de la Cadena SER, as an announcer and control technician.

Her first appearance on television was in the musical program Aplauso, in 1979, as a contestant in the section La juventud baila, presented by José Luis Fradejas being in third place behind Edel Bezanilla and the Madrid-born Rosa María Velasco, who won a prize of 25,000 pesetas. Professionally, she would debut with Javier Basilio in the contest Don Basilio’s boat, which was broadcast on the program of Jesús Hermida Por la mañana (1987-88). Later she went on to present a children’s program called Cajón desastre (1988-1991). She presented the contest of Un, dos, tres … together with Jordi Estadella (1991-1993).

Manhole
Vidhu Vincent
India. 2016. 86 min

Manhole is a Malayalam movie directed by Vidhu Vincent depicting the life and struggles of a manual scavenger’s daughter. The film was adjudged the Best Film of the year 2016 by the jury for the Kerala State Film Awards 2016 and the Director of the film was selected as the Best Director of the year 2016. This made Vidhu Vincent the first woman to win the Best Director Award in the history of Kerala State Film Awards since its inception in 1969. According to jury chairman Apurba Kishore Bir, Manhole was the unanimous choice among the jury members for convincingly bringing the plight of the marginalised on screen.

The film was also chosen as one of the only two Malayalam films in the competition category of the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) 2016. This has made Vidhu Vincent the first woman director to enter the competition section in the twenty-year history of IFFK. Manhole is the first feature film directed by Vidhu Vincent. The film also grabbed the FIPRESCI : Best Malayalam Film Award during the IFFK 2016. The film was selected for the award “for the raw reality with which the film sheds light on the persistent inhumanity of manual scavengers in India, despite its being legally banned, in a cinematically eloquent manner.”