Short Films Section, Women,s voices

The Violent (Sasha Gromova) Russia

The Violent
Sasha Gromova
Russia. 2023. 16 min

Zhenya is 15. Besides being a quiet and sensible boy, he is a promising violinist. Behind the door of Zhenya’s bedroom he daily hears his tyrannical stepfather being violent with the boy’s mother, but cannot find the courage to intervene. One sunny morning Zhenya comes to a decision to radically change his family’s life.

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Documentary Section, Women,s voices

Women Beyond Bollywood (Rahila Bootwala) Canada

Women Beyond Bollywood
Rahila Bootwala
Canada. 2022. 53 min

India’s cinema industry is the largest in the world, and Bollywood is its flagship: stars, music, drama, not to mention rampant sexism, are its defining features. Today, a new generation of filmmakers is finally showing women as more than eye candy or appendages to larger than life male heroes. Montreal filmmaker Rahila Bootwala left India as a young woman, wanting to work in film but feeling disconnected from an industry dominated by men and beholden to their fantasies. In this empowering documentary, she goes back to India to meet with the women who are reshaping the industry.

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Sin categoría

The Golden Wings of Watercocks (Muhammad Quayum) Bangladesh.

The Golden Wings of Watercocks
Muhammad Quayum
Bangladesh. 2022. 117 min

Bangladesh lies in a floodplain crisscrossed with numerous rivers and canals as well as hundreds of naturally occurring marshlands, known locally as haor and baor. Over 20 million people live in the haor region spreading across 7 districts of north-east Bangladesh. In monsoon, flash flood from upstream hills rushes on to overflow rivers and creeks to create a vast stretch of turbulent water. This extensive water body dries up slowly in 7 months after the monsoon and the land becomes cultivable when only a single crop of paddy can be harvested. There begins the race against time to bag this harvest before the monsoon submerges the land again.

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Sin categoría

Boy,s Things (Raquel Colera) Spain

Boy,s Things
Raquel Colera
Spain. 2022. 14 min

The 90’s. Summer begins in a rural town. Marta, a happy and innocent 12-year-old girl, enjoys playing football with her friends, riding a bike and building the same hut every year. Everything in her world is perfect, but Marta is different from the other girls in the village: besides being the leader of her gang of friends, she is the only girl in the group. Although gender has never been an obstacle in their friendship, this is about to change: Loren, a 16-year-old boy, arrives in town and approaches Marta’s friends, changing their gaze towards her. Loren has come to stay, and with him puberty and gender roles. Will Marta lose her innocence and accept the rules of her new world?

RAQUEL COLERA

Raquel Colera has a degree in Audiovisual Communication. She has worked in the film industry as a Producer and Production Manager for almost 20 years. Throughout her professional career, she has collaborated with directors such as Rodrigo Rodero (El idioma imposible), Ramón Salazar (10,000 Nights Nowhere) or Inés París (Manzanas, pollos y quimeras).
She has recently redirected her career towards screenwriting and directing: during 2021 she co-directed the fiction short film “Medina Querida”, which was awarded Best Short Film at the 16th EIMA Marathon of the Medina del Campo Film Festival and selected at FICAB 2021 in Argentina. She has also written and directed this fiction short film “Boys’ things” (2022). At the same time, she is developing the feature film of the same name, her first fiction project as screenwriter and director.

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Life section

I Am Not the River Jhelum (Prabhash Chandra) India

I am not the river Jhelum
Prabhash Chandra
India. 2022. 95 min

The film shows glimpses of the life of its young protagonist Afeefa living in Kashmir. On the one hand, the film explores the suffocation and trauma experienced by Afeefa in her personal life and, on the other hand, the film evokes the atmosphere of perpetual uncertainty and violence in the milieu. In following the life of Afeefa, the film traces her growing understanding of the forces at play in Kashmir, India.

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- Official Section -

Shivamma (Jaishankar Aryar) India. Official Section

Shivamma
Jaishankar Aryar
India. 2022. 104 min

Shivamma (46), a mother of two and the wife of an ailing bedridden husband, works as a government school mid-day meal cook in a small village. She is the only active working member of her family.
Her entire family is in the process of finding a suitable groom for her daughter, though she has her own affair running alongside. Shivamma is introduced to a nutritional product and, looking at it miraculously bettering her husband condition, she tries to explore it further and learns about its network marketing scheme and its financial benefits. Getting highly inspired at a motivational event, she decides to take the risk of setting up her own nutritional club, putting everything at stake. But one unfortunate event derails all her attempts and also threatens her daughter’s wedding. Despite all the opposition and the blame from her own family, Shivamma’s determination stays unaltered.

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