23rd Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival
First Feature
director: Bentley Brown
original title: Awwal Filim
country: Saudi Arabia
year: 2018
running time: 14 min.
synopsis
Saudi Arabian cinema only recently emerged from thirty-five years of being an underground phenomenon. Before it was legalized, Bentley Brown used his childhood home movie camera to record filmmakers working in the town of Jeddah. The film’s melancholy mood is underscored by the voiceover of the women who form most of the film crew.
biography
Bentley Brown’s (1987) films have been shown at festivals such as the Berlinale or Rotterdam. He taught film and interactive media at Saudi Arabia’s first university-level programme for women.
more about film
| director: | Bentley Brown |
| producer: | Mai Alshaibani |
| editing: | Bentley Brown |
other films in the section
What happens to women who mysteriously disappear? Are they ever seen again? Do state authorities investigate as they should, or are the only ones truly searching for the women the ones they left behind? A compilation film that reveals several periods in history during which scores of women disappeared without a trace under various circumstances.
Into Thin Air
Cristina Motta
Argentina / 2018 / 15 min.
section: Short Joy
World Premiere
Dawson City in Canada’s Yukon Territory abounds in goldmines and lack of sunshine. This portrait of the town is an audiovisual collage on the search for the sun and gold, history, and the everyday realities of its inhabitants. The atmosphere of cold, snowy Canada infuses the film with a dark mood reminiscent of Twin Peaks.
Optimism
Deborah Stratman
Canada, United States / 2018 / 15 min.
section: Short Joy
East European Premiere
There’s a helpline just for gay farmers. Through authentic recordings and reconstructed situations, the film offers a glimpse into the issue of British gay men from rural areas. For farmers it’s difficult enough to admit their orientation to themselves, let alone to their not-so-gay-friendly surroundings.
Landline
Matt Houghton
United Kingdom / 2017 / 12 min.
section: Short Joy
East European Premiere
The only things they left behind were their personal belongings. They speak volumes about what kind of people they were. What they liked. Who was close to them. What hobbies they had. A film without words. Footage of objects belonging to people who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of the island of Lampedusa in 2013 and 2015 - people whose lives were extinguished for good.
Mum, I'm Sorry
Martina Melilli
Italy / 2017 / 17 min.
section: Short Joy
International Premiere
After a dam flooded a village in northern Iran, one island remained. There’s a grave on it. On a hill above the new lake, an old woman looks out at it. An intimate look at the daily routine of an Iranian woman who has survived modestly for twelve years alone in a house at the base of the mountain. She waits for permission to visit the island.
Lotus
Mohammadreza Vatandoust
Iran / 2018 / 13 min.
section: Short Joy
European Premiere
Using simple animation with outline figures and objects against a dark background that evokes nightmares, an anonymous 16-year-old youth, a repeat offender at a correctional facility for juveniles, recounts his criminal past caused by traumatic experiences with domestic abuse within his family.
The Holiday Inn-Side
Charby Ibrahim
Australia / 2018 / 20 min.
section: Short Joy
European Premiere
During the day, Oxana paints frames as a man; at night, she puts on her female skin. Oxana is a transsexual living in Moldova, where even expressions of tolerance towards sexual minorities can be dangerous. This short film is an intimate look at gender and at the social isolation of people denied to right to their own identity.
In the Frame
Ion Gnatiuc, Artiom Zavadovsky
France, Germany, Romania, Moldova / 2018 / 17 min.
section: Short Joy
Central European Premiere
During the Soviet era, Ukraine was a difficult place for members of the LGBT community, and even today the country remains less than welcoming to sexual minorities. Working with archival interviews of women from the past thirteen years, the film brings together two eras and thus contributes to a discussion of today’s situation.
The Wonderful Years
Galina Yarmanova, Svitlana Shymko
Ukraine / 2018 / 9 min.
section: Short Joy
International Premiere
Reality disappears before our eyes – all that remains is what’s preserved in our memories, the retelling of which allows us to bring it back to life. Camera in hand, the experimental filmmaker explores this abstract process in a stylized documentary with young boys in military uniforms and stories of war.
The Remembered Film
Isabelle Tollenaere
Belgium / 2018 / 18 min.
section: Short Joy
Central European Premiere
An essay filmed against the backdrop of lyrical images of feather plucking or drawing with chalk presents the clerical orders of Islamic women and how they rein in their impure desires. As a subversive element of Islamic fundamentalism, the director recites a poem by Iranian feminist writer Forough Farrokhzad.
I Have Sinned a Rapturous Sin
Maryam Tafakory
United Kingdom, Iran / 2018 / 8 min.
section: Short Joy
Czech Premiere
This documentary combines interviews with participants in ethnographic research led by the filmmaker personally with footage of his own personal reflections and insights. The recordings, gathered during the three years prior to the end of the authoritarian regime of Zimbabwean president Mugabe, is accompanied by 8mm footage of Rhodesia.
Research / Souvenir (Dialogues)
Roger Horn
Zimbabwe, South Africa / 2018 / 18 min.
section: Short Joy
Central European Premiere
The film’s creator, in the role of an earthling walking the streets of Paris, asks the eternal question: Are we alone in the universe? While attempting to find the truth and therefore quiet the constant musings, the filmmaker holds interviews with astrophysicist Nicolas Prantzos, science historian Florence Raulin Cerceau, and sociologist Pierre Lagrange.
The Hypothesis
Bruno Saboia
France / 2018 / 20 min.
section: Short Joy
World Premiere
