My God Never Dies

The films confronts two different views of the execution of General Ion Antonescu, Romania’s leader during the Second World War. On one side is silent black-and-white footage of the execution as recorded in 1946 by cameraman Ovidiu Gologanl; on the other are scenes from a biographical film shot in 1994 by director Sergiu Nicolaescu.

At the funeral of her grandmother, Yanlin, a young Chinese girl, learns that the deceased was a medium – and was possessed by a spirit named Gong. The film is Yanlin’s personal confessional – she never believed in the existence of miracles, but is now becoming interested in the world of spiritualism and finding out who Gong was in order to understand her grandmother better.

Intercut footage of the camera panning along two sides of Havana Bay. Every few seconds, our act of viewing is disturbed for several seconds as the camera shifts from one side to the other. The rhythm of this panoramic view is determined by the editing. The 12-minute film invites the viewer on an experimentally filmed journey by boat from Old Havana to Casa Blanca.DETAIL:The sound of waves. The camera’s gaze shifts from the dark-blue surface of the water to the shoreline. An abandoned industrial building and lazily floating boats along the shore represent tools for transforming the abandoned bay.

Tabatô – the site of this black-and-white-and-red docudrama – is a small community in the Republic of Guinea-Bissau on the west coast of Africa. What makes this place remarkable is that all the local inhabitants are musicians. Into this small oasis in a world of instability is brought the idea of shooting and the trauma of war. The unpacked mystery of a closed suitcase.From the arrivals hall, a well-dressed native with a turban on his head emerges. The wheels of his suitcase roll across the hardened clay of the open plain. He is alone. A shot rings out... he hits the ground.

This surreal journey through a desolate mountain village, where an unknown danger hangs over the last surviving inhabitants, combines contemplative static shots of nature and animals taken from unusual angles, which are fascinating, yet, at the same time, raise uncertainty as to whether the mysterious landscape can be logically understood.DETAIL:We observe a silent mist-filled forest from whose depths an unrecognisable figure slowly emerges. As it comes nearer, we sense that it is not human, but rather an apparition embodying the incomprehensible magical nature of the location.

Two women separated by continents share the same blood and come from a country where the local climate creates strong winds. The film was shot at several locations in the form of a video installation, whose poetics emerge from the director's staged dreamlike situations. One of the sisters is on a beach and the other in Helsinki in the winter. The exchange of the two women's thoughts winds through the film like an invisible thread, creating an unconscious correspondence about their experiences, set to the sound of the wind.

The director revises a TV report which a local TV station shot with him and his family on the Rosh hashanah holiday in 1974. In the footage which seemed as an expression of interest in the Jewish culture at the time it was created, the author discovers antisemitic and racist tendencies. The title refers to a zoo where domesticated and tame animals can be fed and petted by the visitors.

An open conflict plays out in the Kosacks’ backyard between the pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian soldiers. This short documentary follows the life of the couple, who have refused to leave their home, and their new neighbors on the front line. Only Anatoly’s bees can fly freely from one side to the other.

This experimental film shows natural phenomena in their raw form. Views of the sea are a multifaceted metaphor for birth, loss, madness, and death. Archetypal sequences accompanied by a cacophony of sound blend with the filmmaker’s intimate shots. The mysteries of life are presented in nineteen minutes.

A group of five school-aged youths spend their free time in front of a graffiti-covered wall. In the rough area near the train tracks we observe the process of rap being created. The free way the youths speak and off-the-cuff texts accompanied by music emanating from their mobile phones say a great deal about way they perceive the world.DETAIL:“We’re glad we’ve got each other. We’ll always be together. We are gypsies. We love each other. Bro, you gotta understand, this is no fairy tale. Spit it out. I’m standing here in front of the camera and have no idea what to do.”

Twenty years ago, a family fell apart. Twenty years later, four independent testimonies by various family members reconstruct this sad time. As voiceovers to the film, their memories illustrate fictional visual material while at the same time embodying the hazy picture of how things were. Even 20 years later, the husband and wife laugh when remembering the beginning of their love, and cry when describing their separation. Tone of voice becomes the sole dramatic element in this otherwise impersonal Norwegian documentary.

Hypnotic black-and-white static views of a mountain provide the intense experience of touching by sight. In their consuming concentration, the images are a contemplative experiment in contrasts (the motionlessness of the mountain massif versus the movements of the ant-sized skiers; light versus shadow; black versus white) and a visual touching of the surface texture.The sound of breathing and crunching of snow, minimalist music, the cold metal sound of a ski lift. Dusk falls on the landscape, slicing into the light-sculptured countryside, absorbing the sensations offered to the eyes. The day closes its eyes and through the night slithers a snake of light.