Main Competition
I BLOCK
1.Cinema Mudo (Silent Movie)
Brazylia/Brazil 2020/ reż/dir. Melo Viana /15:00
The “Cinema Mudo” is a social project working with children from a high-risk community. The story shows three children, in the mid-thirties, setting up projector with an empty shoe box. As a background reference, the film uses the images from the transition between silent and spoken cinema.
Melo Viana has a degree in Design at the Catholic University of Paraná and Cinema graduation at the Paraná State University. He worked at the Central Bank of Brazil for thirty-eight years and did a master’s degree in Economic Development in Spain. He is one of the founders of the Green Party of Brazil.
2. I Am a Very Special Being
Dania/Denmark 2018/ reż/dir. Marcus Mandal/ 3:46
40-year-old Christian is diagnosed with autism. He wrote the lyrics for this song about who he is – and he sings it himself. From an interview with Christian: “I think artificial intelligence is really interesting, and Terminator – and recreating dinosaurs. And I’d like to save my mind on a computer so that my mind can be in other persons and in animals and in things – and live there forever”.
Marcus Mandal has achieved worldwide acknowledgement for his documentary films. The TV series “A Royal Family” has been viewed in a total of 150 countries. And “KAREN BLIXEN – Out of This World”, featuring Meryl Streep, is one of the most prize-winning Danish documentary films ever made. Marcus graduated from the Danish School of Journalism and the University of Copenhagen (Political Science). He has worked with TV news as a reporter, anchor, and editor-in-chief.
3. Przetrwamy
Polska/Poland 2020/ reż./dir. Krystyna Kowalczyk, Aleksandra Szachniewicz, Mieczysław Marków, Andrzej Richter, Ryszard Soldat/ 5:00
A stop motion animation film. A story about events that took place in the first half of 2020 – ecological catastrophy and pandemic that took over the world.
Group of seniors from a “FOTO-VIDEO” group at University of Third Age in Szczecin interested in filmmaking and photography.
4. What are we like?
Hiszpania/Spain 2020/ reż./dir. Maria Maymó Puig /9:12
A dinner, three lady friends in their 50s sharing anecdotes gives rise to an entertaining evening with an unexpected outcome.
Maria Maymo Puig. After having worked as a screenwriter and in the production department of short films such as “Always in my heart, Carmen” and “Astrolabi”. “What are we like?” is her debut as a director.
5. Abbreviated Letters
Argentyna/ Argentina 2020/ reż./dir. Eduardo Daniel Santamaría/4:07
The quarantine of the pandemic has brought countless stories in the whole world. “ABBREVIATED LETTERS” is just one of them, and in love, to cope with it, ingenuity and guilt are present.
Eduardo Daniel Santamaría: He has more than 30 years as Theater – TV – Cinema actors. He has had more than 30 works and more than 35 films of different lengths. Currently he has added the profession of narrative and audiovisual script, such as directing short films of different economic magnitude: 2016: “Difficult Times”, 2019: “Cigarette”
II BLOK
1.Pasje naszego Marka
Polska/Poland 2020/ reż./dir. Zbigniew Klimek /19:13
Marek, a person with lots of hobbies. He works socially in Retirees and Disability Pensioners Union. He is part of the team creating “Senior’s Voice” gazette and TV Senior.
Zbigniew Klimek – I’m interested in film since the 70’s. I record family and social gatherings. In the past I was a part of a Federation of Independent Films. My films were in many amateur films overviews and won lots of honorable mentions.
2. Plus and Minus Creation
USA 2020/ reż./dir. James W. Hawk/2:44
A short animation film suitable for all ages that was created with Photoshop and Premiere Pro.
It’s an enchanting look at how our universe was created. It begins before the Big Bang which is the “plus” creation. It continues through the history of our universe and ends with the “minus” of creation, i.e. the death of our sun.
James W. Hawk filmmaker, published author and photographic artist. One film exhibited at an art exhibition in Rome, Italy. Four films were semi-finalists at film festivals. Had films screened at 33 film festivals/venues around the world with 73 films being official selections.
3. Wrath
USA 2018 /reż./dir. Ray Nomoto Robison /6:14
A man learns he is in purgatory. He doesn’t know why till he is instructed to review his sin again and again and again. Forgetting his sin only to remember it again is his punishment to suffer the pain through all eternity.
Ray Nomoto Robison. A Fine Arts major in college Robison decided half way through his freshman year thet film should be his medium. Opting to move to LA he made a 20 year career of producing and directing television commercials before beginning production on his first feature film in 2001. Five years later he saw his first film festival screening (Dances with Films) with the film noir piece “Sixes and the One Eyed King”. Today Robison has over 100 film festival selections under his belt and continues independent filmmaking primarily in Oregon where he makes his home.
4. Cartas de Amor a un Torero
Hiszpania/Spain 2020 /reż./dir. Reyes Caballero/15:00
Spain, years 1936 to 1942, there are several stories that come together in this script, real events from the environment, with fictional stories, hidden loves, female spies, dance and ranchers of more than 50,000 head of cattle! Bullfighters and agricultural power. Mantas factory for the army, the largest industry. Diamond cutters and women with set goals in life.
Reyes Caballero in the Cinema and for 11 years. I study in three countries and receive a scholarship at several film and TV universities. Artistically and technically it is autonomous. She has nine shorts, seven of them at International Festivals Receiving 11 Awards and 128 Selections, 4 Nominations and 2 Semifinalists.
III BLOK
1. Żywot Stanika z Princoka
Polska/Poland 2020/ reż/dir. Henryk Latusek/15:00
The main hero tells a story about his youth, remembering fading traditions. He talks about his family life on loved Silesia.
Henryk Latusek – amateur filmmaker for 50 years. Award winner in lots of domestic and international festivals. For 18 years he is an instructor in AKF “NURT58” in Łaziska Gór
2. Coffee and Love
Francja/France 2020/ reż./dir. Werner Schnater/2:18
Sadomaso-Cat looking for Queer-Mouse.
Werner Schnater. Designer graduate from Braunschweig University of Art, Germany. Painter, screenprinter, comic-author, animation-filmmaker. Exhibitions in Germany and France. Comics published in Germany, France and Spain. Awards for painting and comics. Award from oneminute festival Aarau, Suisse for “P60” animationfilm. Films selected for festivals in Kiew, Vienna, Bukarest, Chicago, Helsinki, Vilnius, Islamabad, Trinidad-Tobago, Budapest, Szczecin, Minsk, Braunschweig and Paris.
3. VIRUSHEAD
Hiszpania/Spain 2020/ reż./dir. Pedro Pablo Dominguez Guasch/4:16
Desolation has flooded our lives. Fear and paranoia suffocate us, while the virus moves among us invisibly.
Pedro Pablo Dominguez Guasch – 1985 – Obsesión, 1986 – Una noche en tu casa, 1988 – Incidente, 1990 – El agua de los floreros (video art), 1991 – Tras el agua, 1991 – Trafic, 1991 – A ras de piel, 1991 – Lo nuevo y lo viejo, 1991 – Entre la duda, 1992 – Trafic 2, 1992 – Ceremonia, 1993 – Pasos, 1993 – La llamada, 1995 – Incidente, 2009 – Un giorno di estate, 2009 – Voilà! Les sales de concerts (TV piloto), 2020 – El hombre que mira el reloj, 2020 – Esperanza
4. The Roulette
Bośnia i Hercegowina/ Bosnia and Herzegovina 2018/ reż./dir. Sejo Bajraktarević/ 12:00
The Roulette is showing truth story about Siege of Sarajevo (1992-1995) one of the longest siege after World War II.
Sejo Bajraktarevic is born on 21 March 1955 in Sarajevo. He also finished elementary and high school in Sarajevo. He made over 200 musics for movies and theaters. He also won Grand Prix in 1998 in Bulgaria and prize for Triton’s tale in Berlin in 2004.
5. Wiosenne nutki
Polska/Poland 2020/reż./dir. Jadwiga Osłońska, Dorota Zjawińska, Monika Orłowska, 3:00
A film impression inspired by Chopin’s music and Polish folklore made by paintbrush.
Created by members of film therapy classes, disabled people and social welfare Home “Legnickie Pole” residents. “Rycerz” Legnickie Pole Film Club is a producer of the film.
IV BLOK
1.Magic Lagoon
Czechy/ Czech Republic 2019/ reż./dir. Stanislav Domanský/ 4:30
It is true that millions of visitors passing through Venice do not know the true beauty of this city. However, there are also those who have to keep returning to Venice and are looking for the magic of unrepeatable beauty in this city on the lagoon.
Stanislav Domanský was born in 1956 small town Vracov in Moravia in the Czech republic. He has been a member of the Photographic Society of America since 2000. Image sans frontiere 1997. Since childhood, he has been interested in artistic endeavors and liked painting and photography. But his passion for creating multimedia programs swayed him on the side of photography. He lives in Kromeriz. He does his work for the enjoyment of others. Makes multimedia projects and makes films. He has made more than forty films.
2.PRAY
Japonia/Japan 2020/ reż./dir. Kazuya Ashizawa/26:35
People of all ages pray – children right through to the elderly. Japanese have been praying this way for the last thousand years.
Kazuya Ashizawa is a documentary filmmaker based in Fukushima, Japan. After early leaving of his civils service, he picked up a camera to fulfill his childhood dream of becoming a filmmaker and started to make documentary short films on his own. He shoots people who are close at hand and he continues to dissminate their way of life to the world.
V BLOK
1.Lesbian & Gays Support the Miners
Walia 2019/ reż./dir. Roger Tiley /15:35
During the 1984/85 miners’ strike, Lesbians and Gays from London visited the Dulias Valley in South Wales to offer financial support to striking miners and their families.
The friendship and solidarity formed continues 35 years on, with LGSM (Lesbians & Gays Support the Miners) still showing the close friendships made. The pits have long gone, but the Dulais Valley communities still thrive, not in financial terms, as jobs are non existent, bar for the coal washery, which employs some 30 men. This is due to close, and the millions of tons of quality anthracite coal will be left underground, possibly forever.
A film was made a few years ago, dramatising the story of LGSM visiting striking miners in the Dulais Valley. This short film is a documentary about real life people who were portrayed by actors in the film.
Roger Tiley began his career in 1978 as an Apprentice Industrial Photographer. Since then he studied under Magnum photographer, David Hurn, on the renowned documentary photography course. Tiley’s still photography has been published and exhibited internationally. Roger has spent a large part of his career lecturing lens based media. He has worked on a number of films, directing and shooting. Pride in our Valley is his first long documentary film made entirely by himself, from directing to the final edit.
2. There’s a Tune in My Soup
Wielka Brytania/ United Kingdom 2020/ reż./dir. Alistair Kerr/6:31
Lumpy is making soup but keeps being disturbed by Bumpy mucking about with musical instruments… How will the soup turnout! A clay animated film.
Alistair Kerr –Film making is fairly new to me and working on very low budgets gives me great satisfaction when festivals include my animations. My set up is very amateur but i am very enthusiastic and passionate about animation and hope I can entertain audiences worldwide
3. Tworzenie
Polska/Poland 2020/ reż./dir. Jarosław Gaszyński/5:00
Creative process is not only music notes, but also an instrument. Music are instruments. Making a guitar is a tough physical and precise work… to make a sound.
Jarosław Gaszyński is a photographer since 1978. He lives in Szczecin.
4. Through Mabel’s Eyes
USA 2020 / reż//dir. Marta Renzi /27:30
A woman walks in to nature for inspiration… and sees the future. She takes time to observe the movement of a feather, whitecaps on water, laundry airing outdoors. Through her eyes we also see the world decades later: noisier, more populous, the landscape cluttered with housing and trash.
Marta Renzi is a choreographer and director of over 2 dozen short films, which have been shown all over the world. Winner of 7 Choreograpic Fellowships and a NY Dance & Performance Award (“Bessie”), Renzi is also a 2013 Bogliasco Fellow and a 2019 Mabel Artist Resident. She lives in Nyack, New York.
SENIOR TOPIC
1. VARGİT ZAMANİ
Turcja/Turkey 2019/ reż./dir. Orhan Tekeoglu/36:06
Vargit Zamani is about a father, whose son – living in Germany – turned ill and wanted to come back and live with the father in a cottage in a mountain area. The father prepares his return, but the son dies and the father regrets that he had no contact with the son, when he was in prison because of drugs.
Orhan Tekeoğlu, script writer & director. He established Medya Ton with Dr Nurdan Tekeoğlu to make the documentary called İFAKAT (the fight of Eastern Blacksea women against the wild nature) with TRT, state TV channel award at the documentary competition. In 2013 he finished his first feature film “I LOVED YOU SO MUCH” after 3 years. The feature was accepted to official programs of Moskow Film Festival, Kyiv IFF Molodist and many others and won best foreign film awards from Canada Film Festival and Portobello Film Festival.
2. Nigdy Dobrze
Polska/Poland 2019/ reż./dir. Paweł Powolny/ 18:03
Who will help if not grandpa? Marta and Michał are expecting a child. They would like to live together. It’s not comfortable to live with parents, too loud with roommates and no money. Grandpa, a former policeman with a gun in the dresser, lives alone since his wife died. How will Wiesław react on his granddaughter idea?
Paweł Powolny Directing graduate on Radio and Television Department at Silesia University in Katowice. Born in 1992 in Warsaw. He is a creator of short feature films, documentaries and advertisements.
3. Mother
Mołdawia/ Moldowa 2020/ reż./dir. Mikhail Rezunets/ 19:09
The family lives in a complicated historical period from a socio-economic point of view, when the younger generations are forced to leave their country in search of a piece of bread abroad. This leads to the disintegration of relations between generations, to the disappearance of the national language and culture. The film reveals the idea that, regardless of events in the country, economic and other cataclysms, people have kept what is most important: the ability – empathy and duty – to maintain and care for future generations.
Mikhail Rezunets – born in 1977. In 2001 he graduated from Comrat State University with a degree in Drama Theater Actor. From 2001 to this day I have been working at the Komrat Musical Drama Theater. In 2016, he starred in one of the main roles in the first Gagauz film “Dyunyurzhuliuk” (Svatavstvo) which was released in 2017. In 2020, as a directorial debut, the short film “Mother”.
4. Któregoś dnia do nas wrócisz
Polska/Poland 2020/ reż./dir. Monika Klawitter/13:45
Film was created during the project “Homo Manekino Sapiens”, a workshops for seniors. The project was an experiment and an opportunity to reflect on human nature. There is a new tenant in Daily Residence House “Senior”. It is a mannequin. Film shows assimilation of humanoid character in a group, a behavior towards it and arouses reflections on human soul and body.
Monika Klawitter. Graduate of Journalism Collage in Warsaw, coulture animator, writer, author of projects about education and animation of culture: “Collage I-II-III”, “Homo ManekinoSapiens I-II-III”. She got an honorable mention in Amateur Reportage contest in Warsaw for directing and writing a film: “Któregoś dnia do nas wrócisz”.
5. FOBOS
Peru 2020/ reż./dir. Mario Rios/ 4:27
Luisa is alone at home during the quarantine and her only link to the world is television, a medium that overexposes her to the constant news about the deaths by a virus that finally ends with her. Fobos states that the overexposure of information from the media can condition people’s minds in such a way that fear ends up poisoning their bodies.
Mario Rios .When I way young I realised that the camera was my best friend at 17 I decided to study cinema. I studied Audiovisual Communication in Peru and then travelled to Argentina to specialize in DoP. There I had the chance to film several short films. Now in 2020 I directed my first project “Fobos”.
6. All my friends are dead
Łotwa/ Latvia 2019/ reż./dir. Nils Skapāns, Anna Zača/6:37
When Anna Zaķis was young, she experienced the upswing of social networks. Once active cultural life has slowed down but the desire for real conversations is still there. She will fight to the end… for a chance to talk with someone.
Nils Skapāns has been working in animation since 1989. He started as a cameraman in hand- drawn animation at the film studio Dauka but switched to puppet animation in 1993. Until 2001, he worked as an animator, screenwriter and director at the film studio Animācijas Brigāde. Since then, he has been working as a freelance author and director making animation films in various mediums.
Anna Zača has studied animation as a critic and theoretician for more than 10 years, along with her work as the head of the Latvian Animation association and the curator of Riga International Film Festival SHORT RIGA. Her first directors experience was a collaboration with Nils Skapāns in a puppet animation “All My Friends Are Dead”, where she did the script, directing, most of the set elements and parts of set design as well as the overall visual concept.
7. Help3
Francja/France 2019/ reż./dir. Janek Tarkowski/15:59
Nicolas, a pensioner fond of his independence, loses his autonomy following a heart attack. This results in his son, Gabriel, imposing on him a robot to assist him in his daily life. But Gabriel may have taken a thoughtless decision…
Janek Tarkowski is a self-taught screenwriter and film director who is fascinated by the study of how the advancement of technology affects society. “Help3” is his first short movie to have been produced.