The Noonday Witch
Jiri Sadek
Cezch Republic.  2016.  90 min.
Cast:  Anna Geislerová, Karolina Lipowska, Zdenek Mucha.

The Noonday Witch is based on a traditional Czech tale and tells the story of a mother, Eliska, and her eight-year-old daughter, Anetka. Both move to a remote country home to start a new life together after the father’s death in strange circumstances, but Eliska insists that the girl’s father is “out on business.” The daughter discovers the truth and from that moment their relationship deteriorates. Then, the mythical creature of The Noonday Witch begins to appear and when the frightening figure approaches the pair, a terrifying question arises. Is it a real danger or is it all in the crumbling head of the mother? It is an unsettling movie that treats feelings of pain for the loss and power of self-deception.

JIRI  SADEK

Jiří Sádek (1989) studied at the secondary school affiliated to the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. He continued his education at the Miroslav Ondříček Film Academy in Písek, specialising in audiovisual production. His short film Don’t Speak Too Soon (Neříkej hop, 2010) was nominated for a Magnesia Award in the student film category in 2010 and won numerous accolades at domestic festivals, including the Audience Award at the Filmmakers to Watch event organised by Nova TV. His next short film Mr. Late (Pan pozdě, 2011) was also nominated for a Magnesia Award and won Best Film and Best Screenplay at the International Student Festival in Písek, for which Sádek filmed the trailer the following year. His filmography to date includes another two shorts, Cave of Dogs (Psí jeskyně, 2012) and Quantum (2013). The Noonday Witch (2016) is his feature film debut.

A Death in the Gunj
Konkona Sen Sharma
India.  2016.  110 min.
Cast:   Gulshan Devaiah, Kalki Koechlin, Vikram Massey.

It’s the story of a family reunion for seven days and its interpersonal dynamics. In 1979 a wealthy family comes to their holiday home in the Anglo-Indian city of McCluskiegunj to spend a week of relaxation, games, sun and joy. There are several generations of people who live together and, inevitably, tensions and conflicts arise, the worst part of which for Shutu, a shy student whose disdain and superiority make his personality crumble. This story has no moral or philosophical purpose, but tries to show a mosaic of characters, a patch of real life.

KONKONA  SEN  SHARMA

Konkona Sen Sharma was born in New Delhi in 1979 and she’s an award winning actress from India. A death in the Gunj is her first feature film as a writer and director. She is the daughter of the award-winning filmmaker Aparna Sen and granddaughter of Chidananda Dasgupta, a film historian, critic and co-founder of the Calcutta Film Society along with Satyajit Ray. She began her career as an actress at the age of four, Konkona has performed in more than 40 hindi, bengali and english films. She has received two National Awards and several industry awards.
The film’s world premiere took place at the 21th Toronto International Film Festival and at the 21th Busan International Film Festival in 2016. It was chosen as the opening film for the 18th Mumbai Film Festival, where it was screened in October 2016 and where director Konkona Sensharma received the “MasterCard for Best Female Filmmaker India 2016”.

The Tiger Hunter
Lena Khan
USA.  2016.  94 min.
Cast:   Danny Pudi, Rizwan Manji, Jon Heder.

Lena Khan was inspired by the stories of her father and other immigrants when they first went to America to write this story that reflects the process of immigrants to strike the balance between their cultural traditions and the diversity of American society . It is the story of a young Indian who moves to Chicago in the seventies to become an engineer, but when his work falls, resort to a farce made with maladaptive friends to attract their love of childhood.

LENA  KHAN

Lena Khan graduated summa cum laude and received degrees in political sciences and history from the University of California, Los Angeles. Then she graduated from UCLA‘s prestigious Theater, Film and Television School and spent several years directing short films, commercials and music videos for international artists such as Maher Zain, while adding experience in major producers such as Participant Media (SYRIANA, THE HELP). Her films and videos have received more than 30 million hits on YouTube, won movie festivals, have been broadcast all over the world and seen from universities to international embassies. Lena has been featured in USA Today, Teen Vogue, The New York Times and other magazines. She won Sony Entertainment Television’s South Asian Excellence Award for her contributions to entertainment, and now she’s making movies that appeal to social issues but in an entertaining and engaging way.
For the film The Tiger Hunter, her feature film debut, she used a platform of crowfunding between the communities of South Asia and Muslims

House of others
Rusudan Glurjidze
Georgia.  2016.  103 min.
Cast:  Salome Demuria, Ia Sukhitashvili, Olga Dihovichnaya.

House of others is an exquisite, evocative and elusive tale of abandonment and the psychological scars of war. It’s set in Georgia in the 90s, when the fall of the USSR leaves behind a bloody and devastating civil war in the autonomy of Abkhazia. In a small village in the area, two families have physically survived the conflict and as part of the victorious side the empty houses of the conquered are assigned. In an unreal space, filled with old memories and objects of others, they set out to start a new life in peace. However, they will soon realize the difficulty of their company: war continues in their daily lives because the noise of bullets still wreaks havoc inside.

RUSUDAN  GLURJIDZE

Rusudan Glurjidze was born in Georgia, Tbilisi, on July 1972. From 1989 to 1991 she has been studying French Language & Literature at the Tbilisi State University. From 1990 to 1996 she has been studying Film Directing and Scriptwriting in George Shengelaia’s class at the Georgian State Film & Theatre Institute. Rusudan’s films were successfully screened and mentioned at official selections and special programs at International Film Festivals. Her last project “House of Others” won Script Development Competition in GNFC. Also was chosen among 10 European projects selected by B’EST (The Baltic Bridge East by West) organized by EAVE and MEDIA Mundus and Open Doors Locarno IFF – 2013. Her filmography: Nocturne 1995; Oscar 1995 and House of Others, 2016.

Mother
Kadri Köusaar
Estonia.  2016.  90 min.
Cast:   Tiina Malberg, Andres Tabun, Andres Noormets

Mother, which initially looks like the simple story of a crime, becomes a human tragedy that transcends the “small town” and “little people” mentality to ask timeless questions about morality, sacrifice, personal happiness, and freedom of choice. Elsa is the mother and full-time caretaker of Lauri, a teacher who has been in coma ever since he was killed under somber circumstances. Elsa welcomes visitors to Lauri, friends, students, his girlfriend, his boss and others, who come to bring him up to date with their lives and vent their problems. But as the police investigation into crime progresses, some of its closer ties are called into question. Director Kadri Kõusaar satily sails by script that slowly gathers the truth behind Lauri’s gunfight through the confessions of his visitors to the comatose protagonist. Bathed in the pastel tones of post-soviet life, Mother is a cleverly designed suspense story in a small town where almost everyone is dreaming of something bigger and some are willing to do whatever it takes to get out of there.

KADRI  KÖUSAAR

Born in Estonia in 1980 she is a director and writer, known by Magnus (2007), The Arbiter (2013) and Ema (2016), her work is recognized in international festival circuits as well as in the press professional.
His debut in the media began at age 13 with writing and drawing cartoons and comics for newspapers. Since then he has published numerous articles related to cinema, literature and music, as well as long-running novels “Ego” (2001), “Free rise” (2004) and “Alfa” (2011) in Estonia. He has also worked as a radio-DJ and TV host, and holds a university degree in Spanish language and literature.
His first feature film “Magnus” (2007), about a father trying to help his suicidal son, was the first Estonian film included in the official selection of the Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard, 2007). “Magnus” toured extensively at dozens of film festivals around the world (including Rotterdam, Warsaw, Busan, Thessaloniki, Moscow “Tomorrow”, Seattle, Vancouver) and won top prizes at the Febiofest in Prague and GoEast in Wiesbaden.
Kadri’s second film “The Arbiter” premiered in the official selection “East of The West” at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in 2013. In 2013, Kadri was also selected for the experimental CPH: DOX LAB and filmed a 30-minute feature film “Auster” in Spanish in collaboration with Argentine director Maximiliano Schonfeld. Currently Kadri is preparing his next feature film “Nordic Instinct”.

Free and easy
Jun Geng
China.  2017.  90 min.
Cast:   Xu Gang , Zhang Zhiyong

This film by chinese director Geng Jun is a sneaky and funny look at petty criminals in a small town in northern China. An old industrial city in northwest China, now deserted and covered in snow, is the picturesque backdrop of this absurd history. A soap seller arrives there, a crime happens, and from that moment on, they begin to appear absurd and strange characters who face each other with tragicomic results. Geng Jun shows an impressive domain of the formal elements of cinema and a talent for dealing with social problems from a hilarious point of view even though the underlying theme can be quite serious.

JUN  GENG

Born in 1976, is a Chinese independent filmmaker. His films have shown at festivals in China and internationally, such as Youth, which was entered at the 2009 Rome Film Festival, The Hammer and Sickle Are Sleeping (2016 Tromsø International Film Festival), and Free and Easy, which was entered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Geng Jung is an expert in using of offscreen space and has a predilection for symmetrical compositions. Artistic voices in China are subjected to horrendous amounts of government pressure and influence. At times this can be overwhelming to artists in China. As a result, political and social commentary must be expertly encrypted into the fabric of Chinese art. Nothing can be said directly and what may seem to be a somewhat random film about con-men in an impoverished city is, at its heart, an eloquent and important film. It is a silent scream for revolution and change set against the beautiful cinematic landscape of China.

According to her
Estelle Artus
U.S.A.  2016.  90 min.
Cast:   Irina Abraham, Pascal Yen-Pfister, Pascal Escriout

Just before reaching the summit of glory, Veronica happily leaves her career as a pianist to take care of her son. Despite the pressure of her husband Paul, a French stockbroker, he sets aside the concerts to devote himself completely to his mothering facet. However, without a salary or independence job, Veronica is becoming more dependent on her husband and then arises a feeling of personal dislocation. After meeting Amanda, a promising and seductive young pianist attracted by Paul, he rethought the idea of returning to the stage. The harmony between love, motherhood and musical career seems to be impossible in this obscure account of a young russian woman trying to keep the balance between rich french expatriates in New York.

ESTELLE  ARTUS

Estelle Artus is a French born film director and screenwriter living in New York. She graduated with a PhD from Sorbonne University in Paris where she taught visual arts as Associate Professor. In Paris, Estelle won acclaim for her short films: “Domestic Underground”, “Ring Road”, “I love Korea and Korea loves me”, “Play Again” and “Where it Clicks”. In 2007 Estelle moved to New York and worked for the museum of modern art (MOMA). In 2016 Estelle co-produced and directed her debut feature:  According to Her, which premiered at Cinequest Film Festival. She has been nominated for the NBC Universal Emerging Director Program the same year.

Cold of Kalandar
Mustafa Kara
Turkey.  2016.  130 min.
Cast :   Haydar Sisman, Nuray Yesilaraz, Hanife Kara.

The film is a rural drama about the struggle of a Turkish family against adversity. Mehmet lives with his wife, mother-in-law and children (one of them with disabilities) in a rickety hut in the mountains. Once found some gold stones in the back of the mountains and from then he wanders in the hope of finding again and carrying a nearby mining and thus be able to get his family out of misery. Meanwhile, the time is passing without obtaining results for the despair of his wife. The film was filmed during four seasons, and these are the ones that determine the rhythm and the mood of the protagonists. We could say that it is the struggle of the human against nature.

MUSTAFA  KARA

Mustafa Kara, was born in 1982 and graduated from the Department of Radio and Television at Cumhuriyet University. His debut was with HOPE ISLAND (2007), which was a co-production between Turkey and the UK. In 2009 he founded Karafilm Production with Nermin Aytekin. Kalandar’s Cold (2015) is his second feature, fruit of years of work in many other documentary films and commercials.

Director’s note
“Cold of Kalandar” arises from a “narrative passion”, tells a story away from the artificiality in a sincere, realistic and consistent way. Our main goal is to show small dramas, ordinary stories, family and neighborhood relationships, relationships between nature, animals and humans in a remote mountain village and the interior of the Black Sea region to make modern man feel the meaning of these relationships staying in reality while using the technical and aesthetic potential of the film is an outstanding feature of this film.

The Levelling
Hope Dickson Leach
Great Britain. 2016. 83 min.
Cast:   Ellie Kendrick, David Troughton, Jack Holden

A sober family drama about an unexpected suicide is framed against the devastating Somerset floods. Clover (Ellie Kendrick), the film’s clearheaded young protagonist, comes home to Somerset after learning that her younger brother Harry has killed himself. There she is met by her sullen father, Aubrey (David Troughton), a rude man whose past woes have derailed his life. Quiet and dour, unable to express himself, he finds himself trapped in quiet anger. Recent floods have rendered the main house uninhabitable, and Aubrey lives in a trailer. It is not long before the simmering emotions between father and daughter break out into undisguised war. Clover instinctively blames Aubrey for the death of her brother and is determined to get to the truth.

Hope Dickson Leach

Hope completed her MFA in filmmaking at Columbia University where she made three short films that played at festivals worldwide. While in New York she was assistant to Todd Solondz on his film PALINDROMES. Hope’s award-winning thesis film, THE DAWN CHORUS, was selected for Sundance, Edinburgh, London and many other festivals. Screen International made her a Star of Tomorrow and Filmmaker Magazine named her one of the ’25 New Faces of Independent Film’. Since her return to the UK, she has made further acclaimed short works for Channel 4, Film London, the UK Film Council and the National Theatre of Scotland. Her debut feature THE LEVELLING, produced by Wellington Films as part the iFeatures scheme (funded by BBC Films, the BFI and Creative England) had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2016. At the London Film Festival she was awarded the inaugural IWC Filmmaker Bursary Award in Association with the BFI. She is currently developing several features and is a co-founder of Raising Films – a campaign to make the film industry more parent-friendly. She lives in Scotland with her husband and two sons.

Daguerreotype
Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Japan. 2016. 131 min.
Cast :   Tahar Rahim, Constance Rousseau, Olivier Gourmet

Daguerreotype,  is the story of the assistant to a daguerreotype photographer who falls in love with the photographer’s daughter and how the relationship reflects the combination of love and pain in the form of art.
Stephane, the photographer, lives and works in a beautiful old mansion on the outskirts of Paris with his 22-years-old daughter, Marie, a blonde girl from another world who reminds Stephane of his wife’s dead and melancholy past. Marie poses for daguerreotypes, which often require hours of immobility. The arrival of Jean, the assistant, supposes a breath of fresh air in the life of Marie and soon the attraction between the two appears, giving rise to a thorny conflict. Although the film is set in the present, everything bears an imprint of the past.

KIYOSHI KUROSAWA

Born in Kobe on July 19, 1955, Kiyoshi Kurosawa is not related to director Akira Kurosawa. After studying at Rikkyo University in Tokyo under the guidance of prominent film critic Shigehiko Hasumi, where he began making 8mm films, Kurosawa began directing commercially in the 1980s, working on pink films and low-budget V-Cinema (direct-to-video) productions such as formula yakuza films.

In the early 1990s, Kurosawa won a scholarship to the Sundance Institute and was able to study filmmaking in the United States, although he had been directing for nearly ten years professionally.
Kurosawa first achieved international acclaim with his 1997 crime thriller film Cure. Also that year, he experimented by filming two thrillers back-to-back, Serpent’s Path and Eyes of the Spider, both of which shared the same premise (a father taking revenge for his child’s murder) and lead actor (Show Aikawa) but spun entirely different stories.
Kurosawa followed up Cure with a semi-sequel in 1999 with Charisma, a detective film starring Koji Yakusho.  In 2000, Seance, Kurosawa’s adaptation of the novel Seance on a Wet Afternoon by Mark McShane, premiered on Kansai TV. It also starred Yakusho, as well as Jun Fubuki (the two had appeared together in Charisma as well). In 2001, he directed the horror film Pulse. Kurosawa released Bright Future, starring Tadanobu Asano, Joe Odagiri and Tatsuya Fuji, in 2003. He followed this with another digital feature, Doppelganger, later the same year.