The Cousin
Tzahi Grad
Israel.2017. 92 min

Tzahi Grad stars as Naftali, a local media presence in an Israeli village, whose belief in more open dialogue between Jews and Arabs is the foundation of a reality TV project he’s pitching. Needing renovations done on a crumbling studio on the grounds of his family home, he arranges to hire a Palestinian Muslim recommended by his gardener. The worker who climbs aboard his car at the designated pickup point is not the man with whom Naftali spoke, but claims to be his equally skilled brother, Fahed (Ala Dakka). While he’s mildly suspicious about the switch, Naftali takes him back to begin the job anyway.

It’s often said in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that Jews and Arabs are both descended from Abraham, giving them shared genetic roots. That belief supplies the title of The Cousin, Israeli actor-writer-director Tzahi Grad’s message-driven seriocomedy about good intentions that get severely tested when a crime is committed and fingers point automatically to a Palestinian laborer.

TZAHI  GRAD

Tzahi Grad was born in 1962 in Jerusalem, Israel. He is an acclaimed actor, director and writer, known for Big bad wolves (2013), Girafot (2001) and Mal gesto (2006). Was nominated for many awards in Israel for his directing, as well as acting and writing. Won an Israeli Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Mishehu Larutz Ito (2006). His latest film and third feature as a director is The Cousin (2017). He graduated “Nissan Nativ” Acting Studio. Participated in many plays, films and television series. Also directed a few plays for theater (fringe).

CONTACT

Nick Donnermeyer :   nick@bleibergent.com

Rukh
Atanu Mukherjee
India. 2017.  106 min

After the sudden death of his father Diwakar Mathur (Manoj Bajpayee), young Dhruv comes back from boarding school to be with his mother Nandini (Smita Tambe). As days go by, he begins to suspect that his father’s death is probably not an accident but a murder.

As far as thrillers go, ‘Rukh’ is a one-of-a kind Hindi film. It does not travel at a breakneck speed as most thrillers do, but the timing is not slow either. The film moves at a perfectly natural pace. At its heart, ‘Rukh’ is a coming-of-age film. In the beginning we see Dhruv, an aggressive young boy whose life changes when he is sent to a boarding for assaulting his schoolmate. But as another tragedy strikes, with the passing of his father in a violent road accident, Dhruv has to make certain choices which will affect how his life shapes up. Does he give in to anger and spiral out? Or does he look at things for what they truly are?

First time filmmaker Atanu Mukherjee seems to have been inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s ‘Rashomon’. He uses a similar plot device as the classic, where Dhruv gets to know about the last days of his father’s life from the point of view of several characters that have a stake in the proceedings. And the ploy doesn’t seem wasted or gimmicky either, because you get to the truth along with the protagonist.

ATANU  MUKHERJEE

Mukherjee, a graduate in editing from the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, came to Mumbai from Kolkata in 2009 and began assisting film editors Namrata Rao and Suresh Pai. In between, Mukherjee made a few documentaries and short films, including My House Is Not So Far (2010) produced by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust, and Stray Dogs (2013). He also edited feature films such as Amit Kumar’s Monsoon Shootout (2014) and Amitabha Singh’s Shortcut Safaari (2014). In an interview, Mukherjee spoke about his foray into filmmaking, his inspiration for Rukh and the process of bringing it from script to screen.

CONTACT

Drishyam Films :    ritika@drishyamfilms.com

Blockage
Mohsen Gharaei
Iran.2017. 82 min

As an enforcement official, Qassem has to combat illegal street hawking in Tehran, but he mainly uses his position to extort money from traders. Now that his boss has noticed and announced his sacking, Qassem has to look for an alternative source of income.
He knows there’s a lot of money in recycling, so he wants to buy a truck using his father-in-law’s bequest as a down-payment. His wife wants to spend the money on a house, so they won’t have to bother her sister’s family any more, but behind her back, Qassem presses on with his risky plan.

In this solo directing debut by Mohsen Gharaei, corruption and hypocrisy set the tone. “Don’t tell anyone I said that” is a regular incantation. The nerve-racking plot development is largely due to Qassem’s impulsive and hot-headed character. He’s certainly not the only one who has trouble doing the right thing – even when no one happens to be watching.

MOHSEN  GHARAEI

Mohsen GHARAEI (1984, Iran) is a graduate of Mining Engineering. In 2006, he started his film career as an assistant director, working with prestigious Iranian filmmakers such as Bahram Bayzai, Reza Mirkarimi, Majid Majidi and Mohsen Abdolvahab. Next to directing, he has worked on casting, editing and line production for various film projects. Gharaei co-directed his first feature film Don’t Be Tired! (2013) with Afshin Hashemi. Gharaei’s first independently directed feature Blockage (2017) won the award for Best Film in the New Currents section of the Busan International Film Festival.

CONTACT

Mohammed Atebbai :    info@iranianindependents.com

Newton
Amit V. Masurkar
India.2017. 145 min

Newton is a serious-minded young civil servant who decides to prove his dedication to the democratic ideal by volunteering for a gig no one else wants — overseeing a ramshackle polling station in the middle of a rebel-infested nowhere, so that a handful of locals can participate in an election about which they know little and care less. Earlier scenes have already established him as a man of unyielding principle who is nonetheless caught between tradition and progressiveness: He rejects a marriage arranged by his doting parents once he discovers the girl is underage. But Newton will find his ethical rigidity bent to the breaking point in the jungle, with a motley crew of assistants, including irreverent old-hand Loknath and Malko, a pretty young local woman brought in to facilitate and translate for the villagers, who don’t understand Hindi.

AMIT  V.  MASURKAR

Amit V. Masurkar, director of Newton, India’s official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards, was bitten by the film bug while studying engineering at the Manipal Institute of Technology. He got hooked to cinema from across the world at the illegal video parlours outside the campus. Masurkar dropped out of the course, and his film journey began.

Amit is born and brought up in Mumbai and studied in IES School, Dadar.  He dropped out of an engineering course at Manipal Institute of Technology at the age of 20 to pursue filmmaking. He later acquired a BA degree in History from Mumbai University.

CONTACT

Drishyam Films :   ritika@drishyamfilms.com

Bomba
Ralston Gonzales Jover
Philippines. 2017.  105 min

Pipo makes ends meet by taking on the toughest jobs. Life is more difficult because he’s deaf. He supports himself and his teenage lover Cyril. His irate boss is getting difficult and Ben, his childhood friend wants his daughter Cyril back. Like a bomb, Pipo’s ticking to explode, anytime soon.

RALSTON  GONZALES  JOVER

Ralston G. Jover hails from Manila, where he attended Creative Writing and Film Studies at the Mowelfund Film Institute.

His first big break came in 2006 when he wrote Kubrador (The Bet Collector), tackling the gambling menace called jueteng in the Philippines.

Then he went on to write Manoro (The Teacher), about an indigenous girl who teaches a literacy program to her tribe members in preparation for the coming national elections and, in 2007, Foster Child, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight.

In 2009, Ralston directed his first full-length film entitled Bakal Boys (Children Metal Divers), about the social condition of poor children diving for scrap metals in Manila Bay. It went on festival tour, mostly in Europe, and won Best Film prizes in Vancouver, Turin, Barcelona and Lyon. It also gained Best Screenplay awards in Thessaloniki, Greece and the Skip-City D-Cinema Film Festivals in Japan.

CONTACT

Ralston Gonzales Jover :    ralstonjover@gmail.com

Pomegranate Orchard
Ilgar Najaf
Azerbaijan. 2017. 90 min

Old and infirm, Shamil is now unable to look after the large pomegranate orchard extending beyond the modest family homestead in rural Azerbaijan. His daughter-in-law Sara and her young son Jalal are unlikely to help him care for the ancient trees in the future, so it looks as if the family may have to give up their only real source of trade. The lazy progression of sultry summer days is disrupted by the unexpected return of Shamil’s son Gabil, who fled the village without warning twelve long years ago and wasn’t heard from again. The deep emotional scars he left on his father, his wife and their son can’t be erased from one day to the next… As this private family drama unfurls, we discover the reasons for Gabil’s sudden departure only gradually, in keeping with the leisurely pace of the camera as it pans across the picturesque surroundings. However, the wrongs of the past continue to simmer uneasily beneath the veneer of this innocent landscape, and it is only a question of time before they break the surface.

ILGAR  NAJAF

Ilgar Najaf (b. 1975, Armenia, USSR), and his family were expelled from Armenia after the ethnic conflict in 1988, and he became a refugee at the age of thirteen. From 1993 to 1997 he studied film and TV direction at the Azerbaijan State University of Culture and Arts. He began as a documentarist, turning out Shacks without Shades (Kölgəsiz komalar, 2000) and There Exists an Old Man (Bir qoca var…, 2002), and he also made shorts (Theatrical Life / Teatral həyat, 2009, Silver Remi from Houston’s WorldFest). He established Buta Film in 2004. His feature film debut Buta (2011), the tale of a seven-year-old boy living with his grandma in a mountain village, depicts traditional rural life unmarked by the frenzy of the modern age. The film won awards at several festivals, among them the Houston WorldFest and the Isfahan IFF, and it was also Azerbaijan’s submission to the Academy Awards.

CONTACT

Buta film :   butafilm.info@yahoo.com

Asif Rustamov :   asif_rustamov@yahoo.com

Out of Frame
Wai Lun Kwok
Hong Kong. 2016. 95 min

Over the years, Tang has insisted on painting in black. These so-called ‘Black Paintings’ are created by splashing black paint on black canvases; thus, all finished works look the same. Like most of the artists, he lives hand-to-mouth by selling his paintings one at a time. Life in the East Village is not any easier. There are tens of thousands of artists competing for an elusive kind of breakthrough. Tang, his fellow artists and dear friend Gold, must seize every single chance. However, the first exhibition they try to organise is shut down by the government. Tang starts to use his own blood to create Black Paintings as a protest to all kinds of violence and oppression. A female filmmaker Mary comes to the East Village to make a documentary called Real Artist and gradually becomes Tang’s anchor. Unfortunately, Tang was once again arrested during a private party/exhibition organised by Mary. Since then Tang starts to utilize the form of ‘Performance Art’ and his own body to express his reflections on this ruthless world. Tang finds the audacity to unleash his inner powers to fight for his artistic ideals till the end, amidst extreme oppression and introspective struggles, and becomes a prototype of free spirit.

WAI  LUN  KWOK

Born in 1969 in Hong Kong, he studied Theatre Design at Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, pursued Film-making at School of Visual Art (New York). In 1997, he made his first feature, ‘In the Dumps’, which won the Silver Award at the Hong Kong Independent Short Film and Video Award. It was also be invited to the 3rd Busan international film festival and nominated in the main competition of French Amien’s film festival 1998. His second feature and ‘so and so’ (2000), was likewise selected for several international film festivals. ‘Darkness Bride’ (2004), his third feature film, was invited to the 54th Berlin Forum, as well as the 8th Busan IFF, the Seattle Film Festival and many other festivals. He has self-produced all of his features.

DIRECTOR,S  STATEMENT

“In China, many artists, i.e. poets, writers, painters, filmmakers, are at high-risk … of course, not everyone will get into trouble, as long as you obey the rules of the game. For me, the essential nature of art is precisely NOT to subject to any authority or institutions. But this principle does not apply in China. Official shackles on the freedom of expression and more insidiously, self-censorship both suppress the nature of the genuine artist. Market value becomes the only recognised value in the art world. Certain factions of society might even believe that these so-called ‘troublesome artists’ are only putting on a political show to profit themselves and so on. I do not want to argue with them. Shouldn’t we focus our attention to discuss and respect the art itself, rather than to suspect the artist’s intention, in the first place?”

CONTACT

Wai Lun Kwok :   wailunkwok7@gmail.com

DNA of Wild Beasts
Delphine Montaigne
France. 2017. 18 min

Along her team, the “36′, Lea, commander of operation, faces the true face of the news, filled with blood crimes, and is one the top on the French police force.
Protected and connected by their invisible bonds, weaknesses and solidarity is in their DNA.
24 hours in the life of Lea, member of the elite forces, but also a daughter and a woman.

DELPHINE  MONTAIGNE

Born in Lyons. Trained in drama arts in Nice and Paris, France.
Delphine Montaigne has been a comedian since age 13.
Commercials, documentaries, she has spoken a thousand voices and has incarnated just as many characters. She enjoys the subtle reassurance and tranquillity of backstage and dubbing studios.
She switches universes, from stages, to sets, to mikes, and has always done so.
She never stopped working, in other words, never stopped playing.
Encounters and opportunities have progressively drawn new projects. One of  which was all about exploring human beings’ relationships dynamics. An obvious focus for an artist.
Her growing interest for strange and fascinating reactions of her peers led to another venture in her life. In 2016 directing movies just happened, or so it seemed.
Since then the actress directed two films and is now writing two more.