The Diver
Michael Leonard,  Jamie Helmer
Australia.  2019.  12 min

Rage, chaos and confusion consume Callan’s mind,  creating a destructive environment for all those around him. Only the solitude of the underwater world is capable of soothing his volatility.  But when his base instincts are left unchecked, the violence he is capable of displays its full potential.

JAMIE HELMER – MICHAEL LEONARD

Michael Leonard started experimenting with cinema in 2008, creating his own DIY films and screening them throughout the city of Melbourne with other artists and musicians under the banner Beg, Scream and Shout. These events were committed to screening DIY film with live music and ran from 2009 – 2014.

In 2013 Michael took his DIY epic, Tears In the Cock, to America where it was an Official Selection at the Orlando Film Festival, and received an Honourable Mention at the Santa Monica Independent Film Festival.

Jamie Helmer’s first foray into filmmaking was during his undergraduate study at Murdoch University in Perth.  A series of experimental shorts preceded the dream-like short drama, Yesterday. Then, as his post graduate thesis began to take shape, the more ambitious featurette Fugue came to fruition. Fugue is the story of a grieving man who spirals into an increasing obsession with a string of local murders – the film examines western society’s paradoxical relationship towards death.  Fugue went on to screen at various film festivals including Perth’s Revelation Film Festival and the Denver Underground Film Festival (where it was runner-up for best narrative short).

DIRECTOR,S  STATEMENT

In creating The Diver,  we intended to investigate the relationship between human culture and its primal impulses towards violence. Our aim is not to provide answers,  but to open up the myriad of questions this concept provokes.  Through this, we hope to better understand the root of this seemingly inherent violent nature and the possible ways to quell these desires.

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Golden Moss Films :    goldenmossfilms@gmail.com

Isaac
Jurgis Matulevicius
Lithuania.  2019.  104 min

Courageous and stylish film-noir examines the dangers of life under surveillance in Lithuania during Nazi invasion and darkest times of the Soviet occupation. Infamous Operation Barbarossa expanded to Kaunas in June of 1941. 40-60 Jews were tortured and brutally killed in the most horrible incident, known as the Lietūkis Garage Massacre.  A simple neighbour Isaac was among unlucky victims.

Tragic event triggers a chain of fateful coincidences, suspicions, passions, false accusations and cold-hearted betrayals. Wounds of guilt remain unhealed for some witnesses and participants even 25 years later.  Experienced film director Gediminas returns back home from the USA with rather good intentions to produce a historical drama on a screenplay with too accurate facts about bloody killings, which are still being investigated by fierce KGB agents.  His crucial encounters with photographer Andrius will have unavoidable changes to the paths of their destinies.  While searching for truth two men fall in love for mutual friend Elena.

JURGIS MATULEVICIUS

Jurgis Matulevičius (b. 1989) is a director, screenwriter and editor form Vilnius, Lithuania.  He graduated from the Lithuanian Music and Theatre Academy with a degree in film directing.  Jurgis has worked with well-known Lithuanian film directors Šarūnas Bartas, Algimantas Puipa and others.  He recently made 4 short films: “Absurd People” (2011), “Anima Animus” (2012), “Victim” (2013), “Interrogator” (2015) that were seen and evaluated well by critics, festivals and audiences in Lithuania and abroad. “Isaac” is his first feature.  Currently he is working on a short documentary “The Golden Flask” where he is a Director of Photography as well.

READ INTERVIEW TO JURGIS MATULEVICIUS

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Stasys Baltakis :    baltakis@gmail.com

My Mexican Bretzel
Nuria Giménez Lorang
Spain.  2019.  72 min

My Mexican Bretzel opens with black-and-white clips of pilots during World War II in Switzerland, subtitled with excerpts from – so we are told – the diary of Vivian Barrett. She talks about herself and her husband Léon, who partly lost his hearing in an accident with his plane and could no longer fly.  The couple’s glamourous life then unfolds in diary excerpts and footage shot by Léon, about whom we also learn that he developed a successful anti-depressant, and had an obsession with many different forms of transportation.

The painstakingly edited home movies accompany Vivian’s thoughts and observations, and more abstract visual material represents her fears, secret desires and tormenting dreams.  She frequently quotes the Indian guru Kharjappalli, who keeps her going in times of uncertainty and emotional turbulence.  Sound is used cleverly and with restraint, reinforcing the images or underscoring the emotions.  We realise that the viewer is being manipulated, but to what extent only becomes clear at the end.

NURIA GIMÉNEZ LORANG

Nuria Giménez Lorang (1976, Spain) studied Journalism, International Relations and Documentary Film.  After her studies, she improved her knowledge of filmmaking by attending masterclasses and seminars of filmmakers such as Virginia García del Pino, Wang Bing and Stephen Frears.  She directed her first documentary short, Kafeneio, in 2017.  It screened at DocumentaMadrid and Bogota Documentary International Film Festival. My Mexican Bretzel (2019) is her first feature.

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Nuria Giménez Lorang :    bretzelandtequila@gmail.com

Chronicle of Space
Akshay Indikar
India.  2020.  86 min

First the raging sea, then the pouring rain, and finally the burbling river: water is one of few constants in eight-year-old Dighu’s life. He is finding it hard to adjust to life in his grandparents’ village in Konkan, a rural region on the Indian coast.  Along with his mother and older sister, he recently moved here from the city.  Above all he misses his father, who has disappeared seemingly without a trace. Dighu‘s sister does not know what happened to him either, and has given up asking the grown-ups about it. It is only in his diary and through his imagination that Dighu finds solace from loneliness and grief. Slow-paced and full of wistful beauty,  Akshay Indikar’s film tells a tender tale of coping with change and loss.

AKSHAY  INDIKAR

The Indian filmmaker comes from a nomadic family and studied at the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune. His directing debut Trijya premiered at the 2019 Shanghai International Film Festival where it was nominated in the categories of Best Film, Best Director and Best Cinematographer in the Asian New Talent Award. The film went on to screen at numerous international festivals.

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Akshay Indikar :    akshayindikar1@gmail.com

Joyride
Fardeen Khan
India.  2018.  20 min

On a particular deserted road, a girl asks a passerby driver for a lift. Whoever stops and picks her up is never to be found.  So goes the legend. A group of friends dares one of their own mates, Raunak, who don’t believe in the supernatural, to drive through that road at night. What follows is a dangerous journey that gets as twisted as it can.

FARDEEN  KHAN

Born in Jamshedpur (Jharkhand). Theatre background as an actor, assisted directors in few projects.

Joyride is his debut film as a writer and director. Currently working on a couple of scripts for the upcoming projects.

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Bandita Shome :    bandita.shome@viacom18.com

Aun
T S Prasanna
India.  2017.  12 min

Though humankind has the same sort of sense they can be differentiated by their lack of external experience.  This story details about the problem faced by the Protagonist against a Tribe who is in lack of wisdom due to the dearth of external experience.

 T S PRASANNA

TS Prasanna is an Indian Cinematographer born in 1995 in Tamil Nadu, a state in south India. In 2017 TS Prasanna enrolled in the BOFTA Film and Television Institute in Chennai and graduated in 2017 with a diploma in Cinematography. TS Prasanna is also a Director, Editor and Colorist. He made a short called A(U)N and which is awarded for Best film by Bofta.

A(U)N is his directorial debut.

Films:

1. A(U)N (Short)
2. Grey (Short)
3. Meippi (Short)
4. Pillayarpuram Inshallah (Feature)

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Bandita Shome :    bandita.shome@viacom18.com

Teaspoon
Aban Bharucha Deohans
India.  2015.  20 min

Rajiv, wife Kavita, and Rajiv’s father, live in an apartment.  Rajiv works as an insurance agent, and travels a lot.  Kavita represents a cosmetic company and works from home, as she cannot leave her paralytic father-in-law alone.  Also, a habit that Kavita hates is the manner in which the old man summons her. He mulishly hangs on to a Teaspoon, which he uses to bang on the bedpost to call her. And what’s frustrating is that he never does this when Rajiv is at home. Hence Rajiv cannot understand Kavita’s frustration. A fight over dinner escalates and the resentment is carried forward to the next morning.  Series of incidents become ingredients for a Molotov cocktail that leads to a disturbing end.

ABAN  BHARUCHA  DEOHANS

Aban has an Advertising Production House, CANDID CREATIONS and has directed over five hundred commercials. Candid Creations has won many awards for excellence in advertising and is well known for its visual quality, production values and performances.

 She is also a theatre actress and has acted on the English, Hindi, and Gujarati stage and has essayed the role of Aliya Bhatt’s Mom in Gauri Shinde’s film Dear Zindagi

 She has also written short stories and articles for several magazines and newspapers like Femina and Asian Age. She has written a book of short stories titled, ‘What a Life yaar!’ and her new novel Titled, ‘Touch Wood’ is complete and currently being edited. She has written the story screenplay and dialogues of a short film, Food For Thought which is on Zee5.

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Bandita Shome :    bandita.shome@viacom18.com

Ishq Ki Googly
Neeraj Udhwani
India.  2019.  14 min

The film is the most interesting and unnerving rigmarole of human emotions and relationships. A cab driver and his passenger go down the path of discussing fidelity and cheating. Once on the route with them, the viewer stumbles across sharp turns and ..,

NEERAJ  UDHWANI

Apart from writing and directing the critically acclaimed short films Aamad and Rewind, Neeraj has written the screenplay and story of Mere Dad Ki Maruti. He has also co-written the screenplay of Madhur Bhandarkar’s Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji.  He worked as an assistant director on Ruchi Narain‘s Kal and Mudassar Aziz‘s Dulha Mil Gaya. He has previously written episodes for the TV series Gumrah End of Innocence for Channel V, and was recently the lead writer and second unit director on the series Home for ALT Balaji.  He was the script consultant for the second season of Amazon’s Inside Edge, and subsequently was part of the writers’ room on its third season.

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Bandita Shome :    bandita.shome@viacom18.com

Red Velvet
Diksha Jyote Routray
India.  2019.  18 min

Shalmali, a writer, is visited by her curious, new neighbour, who insists that she tell her a story of her own.  But is it really a story or a disturbing tale of reality?

Red Velvet is a story that leaves you in conflict- you don’t want to believe that it is real, but all things indicate that it is.
Sayani Gupta plays her character Shalmali Bhalla to perfection. Shalmali is a grey character, who is fed up of her situation, and when push comes to shove, opts to choose the lesser evil. But again, does she, really?  Or is it just a story, a ploy to get rid of the annoying neighbour?  The ambiguousness of the film is its attraction point and Sayani perfectly adapts it.

DIKSHA  JYOTE  ROUTRAY

Dikssha believes that everything begins with a good script…whether it’s a TV Commercial or a feature film. She started her career in advertising as a copywriter and has worked with some reputed advertising agencies in Delhi and Mumbai (Rediffusion, Law & Kenneth, Draft FCB, Everest brand solutions).

Filmography: The Ideal Bride (Short Film, Writer and Director), Red Velvet (Short Film) –Writer and Director, Andhadhun – Creative Producer, Badlapur (DA Sriram Raghavan)

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Bandita Shome :    bandita.shome@viacom18.com

Maya
Vikas Chandra
India.  2018.  19 min

Having found someone she likes,  Maya is ready to commit to marriage under one non-negotiable condition:  that her mother joins the household.  The secret reason behind this requirement is awkwardly revealed during a loquacious exchange about love marriage over lunch between the two families.

“Maya” is an impressively well-paced and surprisingly affecting family drama without a single false note in characterizing the complex and contradictory emotions that arise when two headstrong yet interdependent women–a mother and a daughter– must embark on a new chapter in their lives.  With naturalistic dialogue and resolute turns in narrative, director Vikas Chandra’s script hits pain points that although specific to this arrangement are relatable, precisely because of a universal collapse in what’s considered “normal” with regard to family, caring and love.

VIKAS  CHANDRA

Vikas is a screenwriter and director based in Mumbai, India. Having grown up in a small town in eastern India, he strayed from his family ethos to join the unconventional “movie business.”  He was a Sundance Screenwriters Lab (India) Fellow in 2012 and also a Finalist at Film London’s feature film scheme,  Microwave International: Shakespeare India. Vikas was an associate creative producer on acclaimed director Dibakar Banerjee’s DETECTIVE BYOMKESH BAKSHY and also Executive Producer on Banerjee’s segment in BOMBAY TALKIES (2013), an anthology film celebrating 100 years of Indian cinema. Vikas has written for UTV Bindass, Bloomberg, SABTV, Cartoon Network & Star India.

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Bandita Shome :    bandita.shome@viacom18.com