INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILMS

19|19

Alemanha | Germany | 80’56’’ | 2019

Realizadora | Director:

Produção | Producer:

Synopsis

Julie and Vincent are in love. Madly in love. After waiting for her all day, Vincent finally has Julie all to himself. But Julie’s cell phone keeps ringing and ringing. Passion, sex and jealousy. What really happens behind closed doors?

Biography

Marina Ziolkowski is a French-American filmmaker. Marina was selected for her experimental videos in 2014 by EROIN, a label dedicated to emerging female filmmakers.

In 2018 she directed her short film But You Look So Good in Los Angeles. It won the audience award at the Paris Champs Elysées Festival.

A Rapariga que Vem às Quintas | The Girl Who Comes on Thursdays | Xoves de Comadres

Espanha | Spain | 19’00’’ | 2020

Director: Noemi Chantada

Producer: Alexandre Cancelo

Synopsis

Her world was already like an empty anthill, a dry swarm to which a cricket has come to sneak

Biography

Noemi Chantada (Vigo, 1982) holds a degree in Image from the EISV. In 2016, she founded Islandia Producciones company, to develop other projects, starting with the documentary short film, her first feature:

A Mulher Invisível (2017). Then she co-directed the documentary Sorrisos Transformadores with her partner Oscar Pardo and this year she presented her first

fiction work The Girl Who Comes On Thursdays.

Assia | Assia

Marrocos/França | Morocco/France | 11’48’’ | 2018

Director: Malika Zairi
Producer: Malika Zairi

Synopsis

Assia is a young 15-year-old girl who has a triple culture: French, Moroccan and Portuguese. As part of civic education work, she must define the notion of “living together” without using writing. Through her work, Assia will explain her discomfort, an injustice of which she and her family were victims during the attacks of November 2015 in Paris.

Biography

Malika Zairi, 45 years old, is a moroccan-french director born in Paris. After working for over 15 years as a social worker, helping children and families, she decided to follow her passion for film. She has thus far made 4 independent films, which have been selected in many festivals.

Até Amanhã | See You Tomorrow | À Demain

França | France | 18’47’’ | 2019

Director: Pauline Mabille

Producer: Didier Fraisse

Synopsis

This day should have been an ordinary one for a married couple, a taxi driver, a nurse, a casting director, and three childhood friends. Their daily lives intertwine in the streets of Paris. They have nothing in common and yet their destinies will be linked at the end of the day.

Biography

Pauline Mabille, self taught, she wrote and directed her first short film Right here or over there in 2015, which won several prizes internationally. In 2019, a producer gave her the chance to write and direct See you tomorrow, and as a Parisian girl, this story was really close to her heart. It is currently in circulation in numerous festivals, with several awards already to its credit. She is now writing her first feature film.

Comprometida | Comitted | Yom Ragil

Israel | COUNTRY | 20’00’’ | 2018
Director: Lee Gilat
Producer: Aviv Ben Shlush, Ori Burg, Roei Zioni

Synopsis

Leah forces her younger sister Batya to confront their father’s mental illness for the first time.

Biography

Lee Gilat is a screenwriter for many successful Israeli TV series.

Also a screenplay editor, Lee worked on the films Footnote by director Joseph Cedar and The Good Words by director Shemi Zarhin. Lee teaches a screenplay class at the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem and is one of the founders of the Women in Film and Television Forum in Israel.

Da Cor do Céu Sem Nuvens | On the Colour of a Cloudless Sky

Brasil | Brazil | 16’04’’ | 2019

Director: Helena Guerra
Producer: Giovanni Pirelli, Helena Guerra

Synopsis

A modern fable telling the story of Simone, a mannequin that works at a fashion store in São Paulo’s city centre.

While rehearsing for an important speech, she observes the women passing in front of her display throughout the day, pondering on the human condition and what it means to be a woman today

Biography

Helena Guerra (São Paulo 1989) graduated in cinema from FAAP, 2008. Founder and co-director of the cultural space Marieta, which is located in downtown São Paulo, and partner, director and executive producer, of Irmãos Guerra Filmes

In 2017, her script On the colour of a cloudless sky was contemplated and produced by the Public Notice for Support to the Short MINC.

Diagonal | Diagonal | DIAGONALE

Suíça | Switzerland | 05’41’’| 2019

Director: Anne Thorens

Producer: Anne Thorens

Synopsis

A young couple is already in the heat of the action when she asks him for a condom. He doesn’t have one, but that doesn’t seem to put a curb on his enthusiasm.

Biography

Anne Thorens began her career at an early age with the Broadway Company. Versatile, she does not stop at the play, and works on her writing for different scenarios, including two selections at the Aubagne International Film Festival, a SIRAR Award in 2018 and a selection in the prestigious Valence Writing Festival in 2019. She just completed her first film directing with Diagonale, while already preparing the next one.

Dois Corpos numa Praia | Two Bodies on a Beach | Kaksi Ruumista Rannalla

Finlândia | Finland | 20’00’’| 2019

Director: Anna Paavilainen

Producer: Misha Jaari, Mark Lwoff

Synopsis

A woman wakes up on a beach wrapped in plastic, half-naked and in high heels. “Not again”, she sighs and decides to find out who is behind this. She persuades an older woman who has been pushed to the margins of society to accompany her on her revenge trip.

During their journey through classical cinematic landscapes, the two women have to face their own lusts, conflicts between generations, and their fragile ideologies.

Biography

Anna Paavilainen is a Finnish director, writer and actor. Her breakthrough performance as an actor was in Zaida Bergroth’s The Good Son (2011), of which Paavilainen was nominated with The Jussi Prize. After several prestigious theatre, film and TV roles, Paavilainen moved to Sweden to study at Stockholms Filmskola. PLAY RAPE, a monologue play written, directed and performed by Paavilainen, was received with generous reviews and extensive attention in the media. The play has been translated into several languages.

Em Alerta | On the Lookout | Qui Vive

Bélgica | Belgium | 19’41’’ | 2019

Director: Anaïs Dubois

Producer: Laurent Denis

Synopsis

August 1914. Germany invades Belgium and terrorizes the population. Despite being pregnant, Louise is taking care of the farm, her young boy and the crops. While the front rumbles a few kilometers away from her home, a man turns up at the farm in the middle of the night

Biography

Anaïs Dubois, at the age of 15, was bitten by the movie bug and decided to devote her studies to cinema. Leaving the Institut des Arts de Diffusion armed with a diploma, Anaïs cuts her teeth in the professional world on movie sets. From location manager to assistant director, she works on multiple projects and also starts to develop her own. A World War I enthusiast, thanks to her first short film, On the lookout, she takes us into the middle of the Belgian countryside at a heart-wrenching moment.

Linda Menina | Good Girl | Kiltti Tyttoö

Finlândia | Finland | 11’56’’ | 2019

Director: Merja Maijanen

Producer: Merja Maijanen

Synopsis

After being awarded for being a good girl, a naive little girl learns what it really means to be one.

Biography

Merja Maijanen studied her Bachelor Degree in Media in 2003. After graduating she worked in film festivals, film centres and started a company with her mother; a cinema with a movie themed cafe. She has two Master’s Degrees; MA in Screenwriting from Salford University and MA in Directing from KinoEyes European Movie Masters’ program. Currently Merja is working in a Finnish production company and writing her first feature film.

Marisol

EUA | USA | 14’44’’| 2019

Director: Zoé Salicrup

Producer: Lauren Sowa, Tim Eliot

Synopsis

When a young mother takes a risk to provide for her daughter, a stranger turns her transgression into a nightmare.

Biography

Zoé Salicrup, born and raised in Puerto Rico, is a narrative and commercial film director. Her short film GABI competed in numerous festivals such as Tribeca Film Festival, Palm Springs International Shortfest, and Clermont Ferrand International Short Film Festival. Zoé is also an HBO/DGA Directing Fellowship Finalist, a Cinefestival/ Sundance Latino Screenwriters Project Fellow, and a Sundance Women’s Financing Intensive Project Fellow.

Nesta Terra Somos Temporariamente Fantasmas | In This Land we’re Briefly Ghosts | DI MYAY MHER THA YE KANA Phit Kae Tal

Mianmar | Myammar | 16’01’’ | 2019

Director: Chen-Wen Lo

Producer: Chen-Wen Lo

Synopsis

Myanmar, 2013. A 12-year-old Burmese child soldier, imprisoned for deserting battle, is forced to either kill her older brother, a fellow deserter, or die alongside him. Based on actual events.

Biography

Chen-Wen Lo is a Taiwan-born writer, director and producer based in New York City. A graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Chen-Wen explores in her audio-visual work the impact of history on human emotions and the relationship between displacement, desire and resistance. Her short films have screened at festivals worldwide, including Busan, Taipei Golden Horse, Palm Springs, among others.

O Bezerro | Mommy’s Calf

Synopsis

1980. 1980. Vitya, a small boy, lives in a village near Ural mountains. His life changes when he is told a five-days old calf will forget about his mother in a few days.

He then decides to return the calf to his mother by all means

Biography

Viktoria Runtsova graduated from Schepkin Theater University in 2012. She has worked in theater, films and tv series as an actress. In 2016 she graduated from Svobodnoe Kino film school, with a Filmmakers Course of Dmitry Kupovyh. From 2018 to 2019 she did a course on film direction at the film school Industria.

O Mentor | A Mentor

Hungary | 29’00’’| 2018
Director: Szonja Szabó
Producer: Edina Kenesei, Ági Pataki

Synopsis

Sarah é uma adolescente solitária cheia de paixão escondida e amarga. Partilha os seus sentimentos apenas com o Mentor que conheceu na Internet. O Mentor apoia a rapariga desesperada sempre que recorre a ele à procura de ajuda, embora nunca se tenham encontrado pessoalmente. Esta é a razão pela qual a rapariga confia cegamente no seu Mentor e cumpre todas as tarefas que lhe são atribuídas por ele.

Biography

Szonja Szabó was born in 1983, Budapest, and studied at the Hungarian Film Academy (class of Tamás Almási, 2007) and is a freelance filmmaker.

Ondulações | Ripples

Reino Unido | UK | 05’23’’ | 2017 Director: Aleksandra Czenczek Producer: Adriana Kulig

Synopsis

Maggie, a young woman with a generous body, arrives at a swimming pool. She loves swimming and being in the water; that is the only place where she can feel relaxed, light and free, far from the judging looks of other people. Today’s swim though, unexpectedly for her, is not as usual.

Biography

Cinema and Audiovisual Arts in France. Based in London since 2004, in 2016 she completed the Directing Series at the National Film and Television School and took part in BFI funded Filmonomics Program for female Writers and Directors. Most recent short Last Day of Summer received Young Artist Academy Award in LA for Best Performance (also known as “kiddies Oscars”) and Afrodite Award for Best International Film in Rome. It has also
been screened at the Oscar Qualifying at the In The Palace Film Festival in Varna.

O Verão dos 12 | The Summer of 12

Taiwan | 25’00’’| 2019
Director: Kuan-Ling Kuo
Producer: Yu-Zhen Wu

Synopsis
On just another day training in the pool for the young members of the swimming team, the cusp of early puberty threatens to turn innocent friendship and camaraderie into something much more.

Sixth-grader Yu-Hsuan has a closely guarded secret, but this tide of feelings inside is brewing into a storm…

Biography

Kuan-Ling Kuo, a graduate student in Shih-Hsin University’s Department of Radio, Television & Film, was born in 1991 in Tainan, Taiwan. The Summer of 12 is her graduate work

Reflexos Cheios de Vida | ReflecDons Full of Life

Bulgaria | 26’34’’ | 2017 Director: Marieta Petchanska Producer: Denis Mujovic

Synopsis

Kim is a teenage girl who is eager to have fun and experiment in love affairs. In her quest for real love, she finds a door to a different reality.

Biography

Marieta Petchanska graduated film studies and started her career in Spain. Her first student film called Amores Condicionales was selected at Valencia Short Film Festival in 2005. She has made documentaries and experimental videos in Spain, Cuba, Mexico and North America. She has worked for many years as a documentarist and DJ for the Latin Grammy Awarded Rapper Mala Rodriguez. The visual art of Marieta Petchanska is accompanying the shows of the artist on the World Wide music scene.

Sala de Estar | Living Room

Japão | Japan | 16’24’’ | 2019
Director: Jessica Barclay Lawton Producer: Jessica Barclay Lawton

Synopsis

Masayuki lives with his elderly mother and spends his nights wandering the streets, drinking and gambling. He amasses enough gambled winnings to finance her foreseeable future, before his final departure. When the time comes, Masayuki confronts oblivion with the help of a mysterious stranger

Biography

Jessica Lawton premiered IN 2016 her Screen Australia funded web-series ‘Movement at Tribeca Film Festival. Her short films combined have screened at over 50 festivals worldwide. Most recently she was awarded the “Creators Fund” through Creative Victoria to develop her debut hybrid feature film The Sweetness.

Selma Depois da Chuva | Selma After the Rain

Brasil | Brazil | 11’38’’| 2020
Director: Loli Menezes
Producer: Loli Menezes, Ana Paula Mendes Sinopse

Selma is a trans woman who built her life away from the family. One day she gets a call to go to her elderly mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s and needs treatment. In this encounter, lost in confused memories, the two women remember forgotten pains and desires and revisit lost guilt and affection

Loli Menezes, filmmaker, producer and videomaker, Loli studied cinema and video at the University Sul de Santa Catarina. Her debut short, O corredor, won 10 awards at national festivals. With the short Selma after the Rain, she toured 12 countries and won 6 awards. She is a founding partner of Vinil Filmes, one of the most active producers in Santa Catarina. She is currently finishing her first feature film Tio Tommy and developing her first feature film Sangue de Groselha.

Sincronização | SynchronizaDon

Polónia | Poland | 19’54’’| 2019
Director: Anna Kasińska
Producer: Anna Kasińska, Joanna Ruta Baranowska

Synopsis

In 2084, when the male sex is near extinction, four women wait for their menstrual cycles to synchronize. They all want to become mothers and there can only be one donor. When the day comes, the donor finally appears at their doorstep. During dinner he suffers an accident and seems to be dead.

Biography

Anna Kasińska (born 1985) director, screenwriter, performer and former producer based in Warsaw, Poland. She graduated in Culture Studies from Warsaw University and studied Film and TV Production Organization at Lodz Film School. For several years she worked as a producer and associate director for numerous short- and full-length features and documentaries. Her first short film Synchronization as writer/director has been screened at numerous films festivals around the world.

Terroir

EUA | USA | 06’58’’ | 2019 Director: Dawn Westlake Producer: Dawn Westlake

Synopsis

A palavra francesa “terroir” é utilizada em muitas línguas e culturas para descrever os fatores de solo e clima que conferem ao vinho o seu carácter. Metaforicamente, podemos olhar para a nossa educação humana e o carácter resultante de várias culturas mundiais como “terroir”. Factualmente, todos nós somos originários de mulheres, mas é rara a cultura que respeita ou honra esta verdade. Porque pervertem o vaso da vida à sua própria abnegação?

Biography

Dawn Westlake is president of Ron de Cana Prods, Inc. in Los Angeles. She has made 22 films since 2000 which have won 82 awards, including honours from Canon USA, Inc. and JVC-Tokyo. Dawn is also an actress,writer and producer, and has judged film festivals in the USA, France, Italy and Portugal.

Synopsis

The life of Ibrahim, a short tempered conservative Arabic censor, is turned upside down when his colleague Waleed discovers a compromising photo that could ruin his reputation. A race against the clock begins. The photo has to disappear. At all costs.

Biography

Marie-Amélie Steul, born in Athens in 1986. After completing a BA in Applied Foreign Languages in 2007 she went to study film production at the prestigious University of Television and Film Munich. She graduated in 2012 after having produced several short films. Her graduation film Die Letzte Grenze was longlisted for the Best Short Fiction at the Academy Awards 2014. Since graduation she has been working as an assistant director. Handarbeit is her directorial debut. She is currently working on the script of the feature film version.

Trair | Cheating

Turquia | Turkey | 07’49’’ | 2019

Director: Mihriban Tandogan Produção | Producer: Mihriban Tandogan

Synopsis

A young woman is reflecting about her romantic relationship with her married lover while she is in beauty parlour, getting her body hair removed. There, she will encounter an unexpected guest.

Biography

Mihriban Tandogan graduated from the Communication Faculty of Anadolu University, and directed her first short film Waves in 2017. Cheating is her second short. In this process, the director founded her film company WATCHMYMOVIES, aiming to publish videos without censorship and enhancing her film ideas and topics. She also shoots pornographic films.

Synopsis

Cristian, a young rapper from a marginal neighborhood of Bogotá, earns his living by singing rap on a city bus with his friend John. He dreams of traveling to Ecuador to participate in a music contest and leave everything behind. One day, his daily routine is disrupted by the unexpected presence of his little sister, Jackeline, who did not attend school and followed him in secret.

Biography

Annalisa Vozza, was born in Italy, and directed and produced several documentaries and short films in different regions of the world. In 2009, she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to pursue a MFA degree in Writing/Directing Fiction in New York. In 2011, she received the Directors Guild of America “Best Woman Student Filmmaker” Jury Award for her thesis short film Alex.

Vaca | Cow

Synopsis

Marga is trapped in a routine life working in a slaughterhouse. Then, one day, a cow looks straight at her

Biography

Marta Bayarri is an actress, writer and director based in Barcelona, Spain. She got her start as a director with the short Una nit (2014). She followed it up with Fugit (2016), which was released to wide acclaim, achieving the Candidacy for the Goya Awards 2018. Vaca (2018) is her latest film, with a great international acceptance, 90 Official Selections in 19 countries, and received a nomination
at the HBO Ibero-American Short Film Award at the Miami Film Festival 2019.