Tree Full of Parrots
Jayaraj
India. 2021. 90 min

Tree Full of Parrots is about an elderly person who has lost his sense of hearing and memory. Narayanan who is visually challenged and is the main teacher at the Dharmashala Model Blind school plays the leading role. He hails from Kannur Mayyil Cherupazhassi. The elderly man forgets his way home once he reaches the city. Finally, it is a fisherman’s son who helps him find his way back home. Master Adityan plays the part of the fisherman’s son.

All he knows is that his house is near a tree that had a lot of parrots. The film revolves around the search and the events surrounding it. Jayaraj’s wife Sabitha also plays an important role in the film. Another highlight of the film is that they have used the famous poem by Vayalar Rama Varma and LPR Varma.

JAYARAJ

Jayarajan Rajasekharan Nair, professionally credited as Jayaraj, is an Indian filmmaker, who predominantly works in Malayalam film industry. He is the founder of the Birds Club International and is actively involved in philanthropic work. Jayaraj is a recipient of the Crystal Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, the Golden Peacock award at the IFFI , the Golden Crow Pheasant award at the IFFK , the FIPRESCI Award from the International Federation of Film Critics, the Don Quijote 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 International Film Festival. He is also a 7 time recipient of the National Film Award and several Kerala State Film Awards. His notable films include, Desadanam (1996), Kaliyattam (1997), Karunam (2000), Shantham (2001), Daivanamathil (2005), Vellapokkathil (2007), Ottaal (2015), Veeram (2017) and Bhayanakam (2018).

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jayarajfilms@yahoo.com

Oliver Black
Tawfik Baba
Morocco. 2020. 93 min

VENDREDI, a young black African boy walks alone in the desert, and meets WHITE MAN. Both they go into a journey into nowhere. Vendredi wants to make Circus in Morocco. White Man wants to assist to his grand daughter’s wedding. During their travel, their relationship goes higher and very deep. Vendredi gives the whole innocence and bravery he has, and saves White Man from a mine and pulls him for long distance till an army stops them.
Vendredi becomes a soldier after White sells him as a simple object. Finally Vendredi becomes a new terrorist with ISIS. He becomes Oliver Black.

TAWFIK BABA

Tawfik Baba is a filmmaker based in Ouarzazate city, in Morocco. He studied French literatures at the university; then studied Directing and screenwriting skills at the French School of Arts and Medias STUDIO M in Casablanca. He also studied Spanish Language and Accountancy. Since teenager he loved writing, and tried to write whatever as poems, short stories and philosophical essays. As living in Ouarzazate, He worked in a lot of film shootings as Kingdom of heaven, Rules of engagement, Cleopatra, Babel… etc, in many different departments. In 2013, he got the fund of the Moroccan Cinematographic center as a screenwriter in a short “Ten dollars”, then he got the same fund in 2014 for another screenplay of short “ The ring”. He wrote and directed his first short Epitaph in 2013, and then four others will follow: Winter time, Sand man, Routine, Clowns, and a feature pilot The lake House. In 2017, he wrote and directed his first indie Feature: Oliver Black released in 2020 .

DIRECTOR,S NOTE

When you just go through some lonely streets and see some foreign guys from Mali, Senegal, Ivory Coast or Burkina Faso…begging and asking strangers for a piece of bread or some money to feed themselves or their kids… When you just walk and fade into your own warmth and touch your cold heart and feel it sad. Thus you know: A new age of slavery is raised. A slavery chosen by their own free will. They dream to cross the boarders and cross the sea to reach Europe and make a beautiful tomorrow, but they stuck here. And little by little, their dreams fade away and they give up, and leave only a profound hidden tear in their beautiful eyes. In the other side, I see us, like that lizard, which witnessed those sad gloomy stories and can’t talk, like Mama Africa, can’t talk… This is how Oliver Black invades my thoughts as a writer, then as a Director.

I just tried to tell a story where I am silent. To tell a story of a journey where childhood is taken from its innocence, and where dreams can be bigger than a whole nothingness in no man’s land. Once in 1963, someone said “I have a dream!” and made it an endless hope for all the humans… But now, it becomes Friday, a used and a slaved everlasting character.
I tried to tell others, that something is happening. We’re losing our humanity, we’re losing our dignity and we just pretend we’re Ok, and we’re not. I wanted to tell that we need to stop being machines waiting to be manipulated by other machines of economy, money, war, terrorism and politics… As much as I know I am just a little single lonely voice with a very bad ugly tune to sing a freedom song.

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dry2rain@yahoo.fr

La Vie es dans la Pré
Eric Guéret
France. 2020. 52 min

Paul François is what we call a grain producer. Farmer in Charente, he cultivates 250 hectares of land. He was poisoned in 2004 by Lasso, a herbicide from Monsanto.
After ten years of doubts and hesitations, Paul decided to overcome his fears and to convert his lands into organic farming. We follow this exciting change for a year, from his last “chemical” harvest to his first crop without pesticides. Paul takes significant risks, but the stakes are high. If he succeed in organic farming, he will prove that biological agriculture is sustainable solution.

For 12 years, he has been fighting against Monsanto for the recognition of the firm’s responsibility on his health problems. This trial, which has become emblematic, will see its conclusion in this film during a final hearing at the Court d’Appel de Lyon.

ERIC GUÉRET

Eric Guéret has been making documentaries on social and environmental issues since 1992. He is specialized in the cinema of proximity, filming in total immersion, as close as possible to people, during very long periods.
Most of his films are about struggles, in all their forms. Collective struggles, as in “Greenpeace, Operation Plutonium”, which plunges into the heart of Greenpeace’s nuclear campaign, or “Tous ensemble”, which follows the struggle of CGT trade unionists.
Individual struggles, as in “La mort est dans le pré”, with farmers who are victims of pesticides, or “Femmes sans domiciles”, which recounts the survival conditions of homeless women.
He has made several investigative documentaries on environmental issues such as “Déchets, le cauchemar du nucléaire” and
“Nuclear safety, the big lie”.

He has also focused on the fight against violence and discrimination. “Les insoumises” is about women who face male violence around the world, “Homo la haine” about homophobia and its consequences, and “Trans c’est mon genre” about the rejection of transgender people.

His latest films focus more on the reconstruction of victims of trauma, such as “13 novembre, vivre avec” (November 13, living with) which accompanies some victims of the Paris attacks during their first year as survivors, or “Enfance abusée” (abused childhood) which gives voice to 8 victims of pedo-crime.
On October 21, 2020, his first film for the cinema, “Le feu sacré” (Holy Fire), was released in theaters. It tells the story of the battle of the Ascoval steelworkers in the north of France to save their factory. The film was unanimously received by the press and the public.

FILMOGRAPHY

1992 : Les Enfants du parti, documentaire – 52 min – Planète+
1998 : Histoires de profs, série documentaire de 8 épisodes de 13 min – La Cinquième
1999 : Paroles d’enfants, documentaire – 60 min – TSR (Suisse) et RTS (Sénégal)
2001 : France Gall par France Gall, documentaire – 120 min – France 3
2001 : Citoyen du vent, documentaire – 60 min – France 3 Corse
2002 : Renaud, le rouge et le noir, documentaire – 125 min – France 3
2003 : Langues maternelles, documentaire – 90 min – La Cinquième et Planète+
2003 : Julien en Clerc, documentaire – 130 min – France 3
2005 : Greenpeace, opération plutonium – feuilleton documentaire – 5 x 26 min – Arte
2006 : Les Mitterrand(s), coécrit avec Serge Moati – 57 min – Arte
2006 : Coluche, la France a besoin de toi – 52 min – France 3
2007 : Femmes sans domicile, documentaire – 98 min – Arte
2009 : Déchets : Le Cauchemar du nucléaire, documentaire – 98 min – Arte
2010 : Tous ensemble, en collaboration avec Hugues Nancy – documentaire – 75 min
2012 : La Mort est dans le pré, documentaire (sur les produits phytosanitaires1) – 52 min – France 2
2013 : Les Insoumises, documentaire – Infrarouge, 110 min – Canal+
2014 : Homos, la haine, documentaire – Infrarouge, France 2
2015 : La santé en France, documentaire – 90 min – France 3
2016 : Trans, c’est mon genre – Infrarouge, France 22,3
2016 : 13 novembre, Vivre avec – Infrarouge, France 22,3
2017 : Sécurité nucléaire : le grand mensonge, documentaire – Arte4
2018 : Enfance abusée, documentaire – Infrarouge, France 2
2020 : La vie est dans le pré, documentaire – 79 min – France 3
2020 : Le Feu sacré, documentaire – Cinéma

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communication@bonnepioche.fr

Neighbours
Mano Khalil
Switzerland. 2021. 124 min

In a Syrian border village in the early 80’s, little Sero attends school for the first time. A new teacher has arrived with the goal of making strapping Panarabic comrades out of the Kurdish children. To enable paradise to come to earth, he uses the rod to forbid the Kurdish language, orders the veneration of Assad and preaches hate of the “Zionist enemy”- the Jews. The lessons upset and confuse Sero because his long-time neighbors are a lovable Jewish family. With a fine sense of humor and satire, the Film depicts a childhood which manages to find light moments between dictatorship and dark drama. Little Sero gets involved in dangerous pranks with his friends, and dreams of having a television so he can finally watch cartoons. But he also experiences how the adults around him are increasingly crushed by the despotism, violence and nationalism which surround them.
The film was inspired by the director’s personal experiences, and so his bitter-sweet memories connect the Syrian tragedy to the present.

MANO KHALIL

Mano Khalil was born in Kurdistan – Syria.
1981-1986 Studied history and law at Damascus University in Syria. 1987-1994 Studied fiction film direction in the former Czechoslovakia.
1990-1995 Worked as independent film director for Czechoslovakian and later for the Slovakian Television. Since 1996 lives in Switzerland, working as independent film director and producer. 2012 grounded the production film company Frame Film.

FILMOGRAPHY

2021 Neighbours – Fiction 124 Min
2018 Hafis & Mara – documentary 88 Min
2016 The Swallow – Fiction 102 Min
2013 The Beekeeper – documentary 107 Min
2010 Our garden of Eden. Documentary 97min
2009 My Prison, my Home. Documentary 33 Min.
2007 David the Tolhildan, Documentary, 54 Min
2005 Al-Anfal, in the name of Allah, Baath and Saddam Documentary.
2003 Colorful dreams. Fiction 52 Min
1999 Triumph of Iron. Fic-Doc.
1995 Kino-ocko (Kino eye) Doc.16mm, 20Min
1992 The place where god sleeps. doc.16mm, 30Min

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mano.khalil@bluemail.ch

Alborada
Asoka Handagama
Sri Lanka. 2021. 108 min

Alborada ( The Dawning of the Day ) is a fictionalized account of famous Chilean poet and activist Pablo Neruda’s time in Sri Lanka from 1929-1931 (British Ceylon at time) as an ambassador: his memoires from his time in Ceylon include a harrowing confession to raping a low-caste Tamil woman, tasked with cleaning his outhouse each dawn.

Although there are many accounts of his life portrayed in fiction and film, this part of the story is often carefully left out. Though his poems about love outwardly sound romantic, they hide within them the exoticization and objectification of women and particularly, women of color. The depiction of a Burmese woman Josie Bliss (widely regarded as a figment of the poet’s imagination) as a “perceived threat, desire and barbarity” in his poem Widower’s Tango, combined with his confession show Neruda’s complicated relationship with women and race.

Alborada is an elaboration of the incident, beginning with Pablo’s first arrival in Sri Lanka. It explores the psychological and the emotional factors behind Pablo’s attraction to a woman bound by her caste: an innocent woman who, unbeknownst to her, played a part in a bizarre fantasy that ended in a sexual assault.

Alborada( The Dawning of the Day ) was shot during the pandemic in Sri Lanka. It held its World Premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival 2021 ( In Competition ) and well received there. Was screened in International Film Festival in Kerala ( IFFK ) under World Cinema.

ASOKA HANDAGAMA

Asoka Handagama is considered as a leader of the third generation of Sri Lankan cinema.  Studied Mathematics at the University of Kelaniya.  He obtained his MSc in Development Economics at Warwick University in 1995. He is also the Assistant Governor of the Sri Lankan Central Bank. His films such as This is My Moon(2000), Flying with One Wing (2002) always tend to explore new forms and narratives.  Amiens International Film Festival, paid tribute to Asoka Handagama for his contribution to development of independent cinema in Asia, at its 33rd edition.  His latest film Let Her Cry is his eight full-length feature.

Fascinating what you say about the film and its analysis of the toxicity of patriarchy, which is now finally being challenged. The ultimate goal of feminism is to replace patriarchy with a more just, egalitarian and kinder civilisation. I think it’s important to take the idols down from their pedestals, because they are flawed people, as we all are, but you can’t cancel their work. If we are going to destroy the work of poets, because they were sinners, we should also destroy the work of scientists, politicians, generals, inventors, musicians and so on. There would be nothing left.” ISABEL ALLENDE.

The script is a fiction that is structured from Neruda’s own memories in “I confess that I have lived” (1974) in the chapter “The Luminous Solitude”, where he describes in seven lines about how one day he sexually forces himself on a Tamil girl, who came from the lowest caste of the Sakkili, who were considered “untouchables”.

Asoka Handagama, an admirer of Neruda’s work, was stunned to read this paragraph of the memoir and for more than ten years entertained the idea of making a film about the incident. But it was not until 2021, in the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic, that this dream would be realized with the filming of “Alborada”. The title was inspired by the name Neruda had given to his Ceylonese friend Lionel Wendt’s house built in the elegant Cinnamon Gardens neighborhood of Colombo. Wendt was a musician, photographer, filmmaker and promoter of the arts in his country.

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ahandagama@yahoo.com