On The Edge
Aldiyar Bairakimov
Kazakhstan.  62 min.  2018

Life is an eternal clash of destinies. The lack of friendly support and family warmth, the conflicts with society are pushing the underage heroes of this story to a dangerous edge.

The film tells the story of two teenagers who come from two opposite worlds. These worlds unexpectedly collide forcing both teens to the dangerous edge.

Aldiyar Bairakimov

Aldiyar Bairakimov was born in 1991 in Almaty city, Kazakhstan.

From 2009 till 2014 has studied in The Kazakh National Academy of arts named after T.Zhurgenov, specializing in “Director, Producer of Cinema and TV”.

From 2014 to 2016 studied at the magistracy of the Kazakh National Academy of Arts named after T. Zhurgenov in the specialty “Directing the author’s documentary film”.

Between 2011 and 2018 Aldiyar created fourteen short movies and documentaries. He was a participant and laureate of many republican and international competitions and film festivals

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Aigerim Ramazanova :   ramazan.work@gmail.com

Lima
Harvan Agustriansyah, Lola Amaria, Adriyanto Dewo,
Tika Pramesti, Shalahuddin Siregar, Agha Fahriansyah
Indonesia. 110 min.  2018

Fara, Aryo and Adi recently lost their mother, Maryam. How Maryam was buried provoked a debate among her three kids since Maryam is a Muslim. Although it seems that the conflict has been solved, there are some things that are still a problem. Fara, who is a swimming coach, always chooses which athletes should be sent to the national trainings. However, he cannot do it without facing the challenges from the club owner. Despite the students never questioned him because of his skin color, Adi, who is usually harassed by his classmates, sees an inhuman event. Ayro, must deal with the inheritance issues since he is the firstborn and Jjah is obligated to come back home to require justice.

Harvan Agustriansyah

Harvan Agustriansyah graduated from the Arts Institute of Jakarta and he did his debut in 2006 with the short film “Sepeda” which was nominated as Best Short Indonesian Film in the Film Festival of 2007 and elected as Best Fiction Short Film in the Film ITB Festival of Ganesha 2008. He participated in the horror film Hi5teria: five stories of five directors, which was projected in the Korean Festival of Puncheon of 2012. In 2016, he wrote, directed and produced “Pangreh”, which was nominated in more than 30 cinema festivals locally and internationally. The next year he got Best Short Film Award at the 4th International Festival of Short Films of Chennai (India), in the International Shared View Short Film Festival (Romania) and in the Peace Film Festival of Asia 2017 (Islamabad, Pakistan).

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Harvan Agustriansyah :    harvankoh@gmail.com

Unsaid
Arjun Dutta
India. 85 min.  2018

Abyakto is a poignant tale of a mother and son. The story encapsulates an unusual journey of Indra right from his childhood, adolescence to being a grown man. A series of unexplained events which turn him into a man he never ought to be. And these unexplained and unusual series of events are come upon by the film’s three most integral pillars, Indra’s mother Sathi, his father Kaushik and his father’s friend and his favorite kaku, Rudra.

The film travels through various time lapses and captures the stirring and unexplainable situations and turmoil’s the trio goes through. The story zooms into the intricacies and complexities of various relationships. It is a humble attempt to explore love, regret, loneliness, sadness, the search of identity and various other emotions through the principal characters in the film.

Arjun Dutta

He was born and raised in Kolkata. Finished schooling from the Assembly of God Church school. Completed graduation in Sociology from Maulana Azad College, and Masters from Presidency College. He never went to a film school, nor did he has any film-related background in his family. He has not even assisted any filmmaker. Whatever he has learnt of filmmaking, learnt himself – by doing and making mistakes.

He has done 2 short films and Unsaid is his first feature.

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Arjun Dutta :    duttaarjun86@gmail.com

Life of an Outcast
Pawan K. Shrivastava
India. 81 min. 2018

Film about caste oppression and religious intolerance in India.

“Father, what is our caste?”
“Son, there is not caste for the poor…”

In an article published on Youth Ki Awaaz, Indian director Pawan K Srivastava starts with the phrase “We become what we read and watch”. The phrase, to him, sums up quite fittingly the kind of influence modern media has on the individual, the advantages as well as the negative aspects of this development.

Pawan K. Shrivastava

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Pawan K. Shrivastava :    pawan.taurus@gmail.com

Disparo a un caballo
Pablo Fuentes Fernández
España.  41 min.  2018

María has returned to the house where she grew up after twelve years without going. There she can get a lot of material for her new photography exhibition. Everything is perfect until one night, a noise coming from the floor below catches Maria’s attention. She feels that all the people of that village hide something, including Luis, her only friend and with whom she shares a small story of summer love. Every day that passes everything is stranger and the noises coming from the floor below are stronger every night.

Pablo Fuentes Fernández

Pablo Fuentes Fernández was born in León in 1997. Since childhood he was fascinated by the world of cinema and made a multitude of tests with his camera. Before starting college he studied an artistic secondary where he finally decided that he would dedicate himself professionally to the cinema. In 2016 he began his training in Master of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts, which he is still studying. In 2017 premiered his first short film called “ZOC”, as the final student film. And in 2018 he has just presented his latest short film called “Shooting a Dark Horse”.

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Pablo Fuentes :    pablo_fuentes_97@hotmail.com

The Way
Olesya Shigina/Veronica Ponomareva
France/Russia. 87 min. 2018

The Trans-Siberian Railway, boundless Russia … Two friends set off to find answers to simple and complicated questions talking to different people. They stay overnight with strangers and their families, visit monasteries, strike up conversations with fellow travelers on the train. What makes Russia tick? What are the main concerns of common people? How do dwellers of this huge country perceive its past and present? What or who will save Russia? What is the secret of the Russian soul? Should you listen to splashes of the Baikal waves to crack it? Or to the bells chiming? Or join the drinking song? If you follow your heart and trust your hunches, you won’t doubt the answer… It’s a long way from Moscow to Russky Island… Will you ever hit a boundary?

Olesya Shigina

Olesya Shigina is a poet and a filmmaker. She was born in Chelyabinsk. She graduated from South Ural State University. Now she lives and works in France and Russia. In 2017 she graduated from High Courses for Directors at Lenfilm (course of Makarov). Olesya Shigina is an author of the play “Sisters” and the collection of poems “To write about rain”. “The Way” is the debut film.

Veronica Ponomareva

Veronica Ponomareva is an artist, a poet and a film director. She graduated from Moscow Academy of Painting in 2005, the course of monumental painting. In 2016 she entered the High Courses for Directors (course of Khotinenko). Veronica is a founder of Russian Art Union. She worked as a costume designer on the film “The Attraction” by Fyodor Bondarchuk. “The Way” is the debut film.

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rusakovich@festagent.com

India’s Healing Forests
Nitin Das
India.  51 min.  2018

The Film travels across some fascinating forests of India to explore the amazing ways in which nature affects our body, mind and spirit. It uncovers some ancient wisdom and examines new findings, through inspiring stories of people whose lives are intricately woven with forests.

Nitin Das

Nitin Das runs an independent production house that specialises in creating films with socially relevant themes – films that tell stories of uncommon people and extraordinary places. His Youtube channel has over a 100 million views. Nitin is an Asia Society Fellow, being one amongst 21 people chosen from across Asia each year. He has also won a special award by the British Council for creative entrepreneurship in the social sector.

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Anjuli :    anjuli@psbt.org

The Death of Us
Vani Subramanian
India.  76 min.  2018

The debates on the death penalty today are marked by a cacophony of strident assertions. Going against this tide is The Death of Us – a quiet contemplation on a range of cases in which the death penalty was pronounced, ending in execution, commutation to life sentence, acquittal or even pardon. Speaking only to those who have been on death row or those very closely involved with the cases, we engage in complex conversations on crime and punishment, revenge and justice, popular rhetoric and personal experiences. Only to find ourselves confronting larger ethical and moral questions across time and space.

Vani Subramanian

One-time advertising writer, Vani Subramanian has been a women’s rights activist and documentary filmmaker since the nineties.
Her work as a filmmaker explores the connections between everyday practices and larger political questions, be they in the areas of culture, food production, primary education, urban development, communalism, sex selective abortions, or even matters of identity embedded in our food practices. Her films have been screened and received awards, both nationally and internationally. More recently, Vani has extended her practice to video art in performance, as well as a mixed media installation.

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Vani Subramanian :      vanishes@gmail.com

Purdah
Jeremy Guy
India, USA. 71 min.  2018

The independent-minded young women of the Mirza family have ambitious dreams for their lives and careers. Despite their earnestness, they face an uphill battle coming from a conservative Muslim family in Mumbai, India.

Kaikasha Mirza became enamored with cricket as a young woman, yet she was forbidden to play and forced to be a spectator in her burka. After months of persistence, Kaikasha eventually persuaded her father to allow her to remove her burka for the first time to become one of only a few Muslim women cricketers in all of Mumbai. Now Kaikasha is chasing her dream of playing for the prestigious Mumbai Senior Women’s Cricket Team. In the days leading up to the tryouts, Kaikasha’s parents give her the ultimatum that she will have two years to become a professional cricketer or they will arrange her marriage. Once married, her husband would likely not allow her to play, thus pinning all of Kaikasha’s hopes on the upcoming tryouts for the Mumbai team.

Kaikasha’s eldest sister, Saba, also has her own dreams for her career and yearns to become a model, yet she endures harsh criticism for wearing a niqab to interviews. Heena, the youngest sister, desires to become a fashion designer or a singer, but poverty may impede her pursuits. All three girls must contend with the wishes of their father who does not believe women should work, in addition to the whispered judgment of those in their community.

Purdah is a feature length documentary that follows each of the Mirza women as they battle through unexpected family crises, poverty, and intense societal pressure to pursue their dreams.

Jeremy Guy

Jeremy Guy is an award winning director and cinematographer based in Los Angeles. His work spans a wide variety of formats including narrative feature films, major television shows, and independent documentaries.

As a filmmaker, Jeremy has sought out films that push boundaries with challenging stories and that take risks with new visual styles. Many of these projects have played at prestigious film festivals including the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, the Palm Springs International Film Festival, and countless others around the world. Several of these films have won major awards, such as the feature documentary he recently shot, Beyond All Boundaries, which won six Best Film awards and, after its theatrical run, can now be seen on television, Netflix, and Amazon. Other award winning projects that he has shot or directed include Weak Species, that won four Best Film awards, Greatest Hits, winner of the 2Change Films filmmaking competition, and Perspectives, that the Santa Barbara Independent called “one of the best in the entire Santa Barbara International Film Festival.”

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Jeremy Guy :    jguy1128@gmail.com