OFFICIAL SELECTION OF FEATURE FILMS 14. PFF

7.6 (Friday) 21:00 Open-air Cinema: “A Quiet Summer”
CLOSE YOUR EYES [Cerrar los ojos, 2023]
dir. Victor Erice, ES/AR, 169’

The famous Spanish actor Julio Arenas disappears during the filming of "Farewell View," the second and never-finished film of his good friend from his youth, director Miguel Garay. Although his body was never found, the police concluded that it was an accident at sea. Decades later, thanks to a sensationalist television show, the mystery surrounding Arenas' disappearance is once again the focus of public attention and, far more intimately, that of the retired Garay. Called for an interview and haunted by memories and old age, Garay calmly decides to return to three things that he seemed to have tried to leave behind: the departure of Arenas, the people from their shared past, as well as the few scenes from the beginning and the end of "Farewell View," carelessly testaments to the two former friends...

"Close Your Eyes" is a rich and inspired poetic film that, in the director's own words, is a gentle ode to identity and memory. The simple elegance of the screenplay and the recognizably measured, multi-layered narrative are further confirmation of the fact that Erice has long reserved a place for himself in the upper ranks of the European directorial pantheon, and at 83 years old, 31 years after his last film, he demonstrates the skill of an old master and the freshness of a talented rookie. The first gives him the right to make a deep film about loss and the past; the second gives him the courage to experiment with the structure to avoid fetishizing the grief and focus on what comes after it—the reaction, the coping, the memories.

At once clear and enigmatic in its denouement, Close Your Eyes also communicates on a metacinematic level. The film-within-a-film procedure is used here not only as a decorative narrative device but also as an essential commentary on the act of filming. Between identity and memories, as Erise points out, for hundreds of years there has been their miraculous mediator: the film, the tireless guardian of the irreversible. "A person is more than a memory of a person," observes one of the protagonists in Close Your Eyes at one point. And the film, it seems, is more than a memory of the film; it often knows more than the one who shot it. The past seems to be always there, especially what is forgotten; not only is it not dead (Faulkner would say), but it is not past either.

"Close Your Eyes" participated in many festivals around the world this year and had its long-announced and eagerly awaited premiere last year at the Cannes Film Festival.

in collaboration with the Embassy of Spain

8.6 (Saturday) 21.00 Open-air Cinema: “A Quiet Summer”
DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD
[Nu aștepta prea mult de la sfârșitul lumiiѕ, 2023]
Radu Jude, RO/LU/FR/HR, 164’

“Don't Expect Too Much from the End of the World” is an experimental black comedy—or rather, an abrasive socio-political satire—with recognizably Judean subversive elements, which does not hide its lavish metafiction from the very first scene: the film opens with a comment that one should look like a conversation (and not just a dialogue!) with “Angela Goes On” (Angela merge mai departe, 1982) by Lucian Bratu, a Romanian film from the waning years of Chaushevism.

Both films follow the monotonous everyday lives of two angels. The taxi driver from Bratu's film (Dorina Lazar) at Radu gives way to an overworked and underpaid production assistant—the devilishly charming Ilinca Manolache—who is in charge of casting a short advertising film about workplace safety, commissioned by an Austrian multinational company. Her task is to find someone who has been permanently disabled while performing their work duties and who, for €1,000, would agree to say on camera that the injury was the result of not wearing protective equipment; in other words, that it was all his fault, not the company's. Through Angela's encounters with several tortured disabled workers, juxtaposed with scenes from Bratu's film and the vulgar tirades that Angela shares on TikTok under her ultra-masculine alter ego Bobita (an alleged friend of Andrew Tate!), Jude deftly and plastically conveys the atmosphere of injustice, inhumanity, and absurdity that defines modern capitalism. And through the double narrative, he is not at all subtle in his assessment that the angels of our neoliberal everyday life are not too different from those highlighted angels of the 80s of the last century. Not only that but the political pathology of communist Romania was not overcome after the fall of Ceausescu; it seemed to be hypertrophy!

Bitterly sarcastic and in the style of Godard, “Don't Expect Too Much from the End of the World” premiered at the Locarno Film Festival (where it won a Special Jury Mention) and then in Toronto, Istanbul, New York, Chicago, Gijon, and many other important festivals around the world.

9.6 (Sunday) 21.00 Open-air Cinema: “A Quiet Summer”
INSIDE THE YELLOW COCOON SHELL
[Bên trong vỏ kén vàng, 2023]
Thiên Ân Phạm, VN / SG / FR / ES, 178’

"There is a freshness in this world, as if you have stepped out of the door of your home and, with the next step, you have entered an unexpected place." So says a review of the Vietnamese film "Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell" which vividly captures hauntingly the dreamlike atmosphere that hangs over this unusually mature debut of 34-year-old Thiên n Phạm, an undoubted spiritual devotee of Virasethakul, Haneke, Kiarostami…

The story begins in Saigon, in the summer of 2018, in the courtyard of a bustling nightclub. While in the background, the guests celebrate Serbia's goal against Costa Rica. In the foreground, Thiên and his friends discuss God and the spiritual. Suddenly, their conversation is rudely interrupted by a brutal car accident. Many run out to see the dead bodies up close, but not Tien. He seemed to have seen things like this many times before, and it seems as if he still doesn't know that he is the film’s main protagonist and that the accident he is witnessing must somehow be connected to him.

He finds out a little later, after an erotic massage session is interrupted by his phone ringing. "God will be looking for me," he tells the masseuse. “God?” “My client,” Thiên explains. In retrospect, the first guess seems better: Thiên is informed that his sister-in-law has died in a car accident and that, in the absence of his long-lost brother, he is tasked with transporting the dead body to their home village and temporarily taking care of his five-year-old nephew Dao, who somehow miraculously survived the accident without a scratch.

And so begins Thiên's long and slow journey through the mystical landscapes of rural Vietnam—to his youth, to former loves and acquaintances, to the past that unexpectedly becomes his present and future. At first, it seems as if Tien is also on a search for his missing brother, but it soon becomes clear that he is just as lost as he is and that what he is actually trying to find absent on this journey is himself.

A hauntingly tender tale of the human soul's unquenchable longing to touch the transcendent and discover the otherworldly, "Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell" abounds in long and elegant shots, with ambient, elliptical narration and specific trance-inducing sound effects. Participant in several film festivals (Karlovi Vary, San Sebastian, Sao Paulo, Tallinn, Melbourne, Jerusalem), the film won the "Golden Camera" at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023.

10.6 (Monday) 21.00 Open-air Cinema: “A Quiet Summer”
TERRESTRIAL VERSES
[Ayeh haye zamini, 2023]
Ali Asgari, Alireza Khatami , IR, 77’

There are films that, at first, may seem as if they have a modest and unobtrusive purpose: to represent local reality. But as the minutes go by—if only through the lens of a camera—they gradually expand their perspective, little by little, moving away from the environment in which they originated. In the end, the viewer can hardly shake off the impression that all those regionalisms and localisms, all those specific legal or political problems that were discussed—all that was seen in the last hour and a half—were actually an evasive attempt to penetrate the deepest, in the universal. "Terrestrial Verses" by the Iranian directors Ali Asgari and Alireza Khatami is a perfect example of such a film.

Structured as a collage of nine short, one-shot vignettes, each in which an average Iranian citizen confronts an unrelenting bureaucrat off-camera in close-up, "Terrestrial Verses" reverberates with the echoes of systemic corruption, the abuse of power, and the price of subservience. In each of the vignettes, the initial problem appears naive and survivable; so, however, as the conversation between the "criminal" and the "judge" lengthens, the problem gradually slips into Kafkaesque absurdity, finally sinking into sarcastic and poignant humor and into the anger and despair of the protagonists.

They, in turn, come from all walks of life in Teheran—from blue-collar workers to artists and retirees—and if they have one thing in common, it's that most of the time they don't see themselves as victims. On the contrary, some of them are resisting the troubles in which they have fallen, each in their own way, determined to steal their meager share of freedom from the petty powers they encounter and to expose, in the process, the hypocrisy that burdens society that they inhabit.

Described as an "insightful social fresco" and a "provocative drama of contemporary absurdity," "Terrestrial Verses" is (in Asgari's words) one long "poetic debate" that illustrates Iran's prosaic present—and through it, it seems, some ill global tomorrow. Or at least what could come—in case we're not careful enough today. Premiered in the "Certain View" program at last year's Cannes Film Festival, "Prosaic Verses" won this year's Grand Prize and Critics' Prize at the Luxembourg Film Festival. He also participated in festivals in Rotterdam, Vancouver, Hamburg, and Zurich.

11.6 (Tuesday) 21.00 Open-air Cinema: “A Quiet Summer”
CITIZEN SAINT
[Mokalake Tsmindani, 2023]
Tinatin Kajrishvili, GE, 100’

In a small, unnamed mining town in Georgia, on top of a rocky hill overlooking a desolate valley, stands a statue of an unusual saint: a crucified miner in overalls and a helmet. Villagers often come to this place to pray, confess, and ask for protection or forgiveness.

But one day, after the statue is taken to a museum to be restored, the crucified miner suddenly disappears from the locked room. When a mysterious stranger, seemingly able to perform miracles, arrives in town soon after, the superstitious residents begin to believe that their saint has come down from the cross and that the village is blessed with its own local messiah. It's not long before the community's joy gives way to collective paranoia: if the stranger really is the crucifix from the hill, doesn't that mean he knows everyone—even the villagers' darkest secrets?

As much religious satire as social allegory, the film by Tinatin Kajrishvili, director of the far more naturalistic “Brides” and “Horizon”, treats faith as a metaphor for our obsession with cultural totems. Through a stark black-and-white palette, wide shots, and unconventional interior angles, Khairishvili uses a minimalist narrative to explore themes of despair, hope, spirituality, and the complexity of the human condition in the world.

Tako Zhordania's contemplative pace, specific photography, and otherworldly choral interludes, juxtaposed against the repetitive, metallic sounds of mining everyday life, discreetly refer to the poetic mysticism of early Tarkovsky and the eschatological fatalism of late Tar. And indeed, this story of faith, this melancholic recollection of some ancient times and customs, unfolds against a rocky, post-apocalyptic landscape, at least on the remains of a once successful civilization that, from a state of former prosperity, carelessly fell into silent ruin. And in such conditions, hope is born with an inherent flaw: just when it seems to heal, it actually destabilizes.

"The Citizen Saint" is a participant in the 2023 Karlovy Vary Film Festival and the winner of several prominent awards, including the Grand Prize at the 16th CinEst (Central and Eastern European Film Festival) in Luxembourg in 2023.