2012

The year is 1991. Young Misha together with his family and his aunt Roza migrate from the Soviet Union to Israel. Using a home-video camera, the 12-year-old boy documents this journey and more than 20 years later, he recreates in Welcome and... Our Condolences, the emotional state and the reactions generated inside himself by the whole immigration process. Merging original and staged shots, director Leon Prudovsky pushes the account of the traumatic experiences of immigration towards the absurd, as Aunt Roza’s passing away in the aeroplane, during the flight to Israel, triggers a series of tragicomic episodes, which convey the feelings of confusion, helplessness and senselessness experienced by the director at the age of 12. (Andreea Udrea, BIEFF)

The high view of a city at night, fireworks sparkling in the distance, a party that just finished and sounds like a whisper in the empty silence. A meditative voice-over talks about the postmodern generation as of a bunch of kids who wrecked everything in the wake of their huge party. They are waiting and secretly craving for their parents to restore order. But the parents are not returning. Inspired by a quote from David Foster Wallace, comparing cultural to familial stability, AFTER unveils the insecurities and anxieties of the ones who soon have to become “parents” of a new generation while they themselves are still looking for structure and for balance. (Bianca Bănică, BIEFF)

An intimate portrayal of loneliness that comes with old age, THIS IS NOW masterfully captures in black and white images the feeling of isolation and longing felt in old age. Downhearted voice-overs of elders intimately speak to us of the universal difficulties that each person experiences: the physical and psychic need for affection and the recurring memories of dear ones. The stillness of the shots emphasizes a heavily bearing atmosphere, where the layers of gray in the image suffocate the space, hope and finally, the sanity of the soul. (Bianca Bănică, BIEFF)

A sincere confessional, ME, NOBODY AND I is a playful rite of passage into adulthood (or is it manhood?) that is sure to resonate on multiple levels with viewers. Via voice-over, Hurschler recalls and confronts his childhood idols and ideals. By literally becoming the macho wrestler, the mysterious cowboy of the Wild West or the alluring action figure (here David Hasselhoff!), Hurschler figuratively employs their specific genre stylistics to make them come alive. In the process, archetypes of TV and cinema are collaged together as the director’s existential conflict lures the viewer towards its victorious conclusion of self-realization. (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF)

A contemplative experience, the spellbinding MOUNTAIN IN SHADOW offers a poetic view on the relationship between the immensity of the landscape and the insignificance of the human being, through a hypnotic ballet of night-time skiers on a snowy slope. Starting from the white of the snow, the image turns increasingly darker and more stylized, almost black-and-white, as LOIS PATIÑO gradually shifts from mere representation of the mountain to a fascinating display of spectral, dreamlike spaces, transporting the viewer from the physical level to a metaphysical one. Treating the landscape as a tactile experience, by emphasizing texture and undermining spatial relations and materiality, the director creates a visually breath-taking choreography of the sublime.

“There is, in the latest FONSECA film, a kind of melancholy one can find in the haunting harmonies of Fado. THE WAVES has a contemplative, almost esoteric dimension, which links humans and nature, life and death as two sides of the same reality.” (Marie Bergeret, Formatcourt) Through an elliptical narrative, THE WAVES tells the story of two sisters caught in a strange mutually dependent relationship. The sparse storyline is set against the dramatic and beautifully photographed Portuguese coastline- a Portuguese 'paradise lost', rendered even more beautiful by the sense of frailty and loss at its very core. World premiered at Rotterdam IFF 2012