Short Films Evening 1

Director: Milcho Manchevski
USA, 1:30 min.
https://cinesquare.net/#/movie/1497/_thursday

Life Is Elsewhere. Masses moving across the sweltering concrete, to the glass towers and into the subway mouths, eyes glued to the little screens, inhaling the images from halfway around the globe, oblivious to the life at their own feet. When our reality is the megalopolis, the real or the virtual (internet) environment of hyper sensations, THURSDAY reminds us of the importance of focusing our "absent perceptions" on the real, the essential, the meaningful.

This short experimental film by Manchevski, which is a continuation of his fascination with this film form since his student days, was shot in New York in 2013 and premiered at the Venice Film Festival’s "Venice 70 - Future Reloaded" program as part of the celebration of its 70th edition.

Director: Javier Marco Rico
Spain, 10 min.
https://cinesquare.net/#/movie/1498/-one

Far out at sea, a cell phone floating inside an air-tight bag starts to ring. The call that Emilio will receive culminates in a feeling of discomfort and fear, and what begins as an innocent little mystery is revealed as something profound, compassionate and very human.

The film won best short film awards at Rio de Janeiro Curta Cinema and Brussels Short Film Festival.

Director: Mikkel Storm Glomstein
Norway, 16 min.
https://cinesquare.net/#/movie/1499/-being-more-like-bagsy

BEING MORE LIKE BAGSY - named after Oslo Waste Disposal Agency's waste sorting robot “Bagsy” - is a short film about a woman who is unemployed, who doesn't feel she has any function for the people around her, until an encounter with the Waste Disposal Agency seems to offer her an unexpected way to be useful again. Disturbingly sarcastic and a bit bizarre view of the current social, technological and environmental problems of an automated and dehumanized reality.

BEING MORE LIKE BAGSY is Mikkel Storm Glomstein’s debut short. He is an activist and politician turned filmmaker and his dark comedy won the Bronze Egg at the Kustendorf Film & Music Festival in Serbia.

Director: Julius Christian Telmer
Denmark / USA, 14 min.
https://cinesquare.net/#/movie/1500/_thieves

A desperate man is walking on the dark side of his life, and the moment he meets a pickpocket stealing from a pregnant woman, he will have to reexamine his conscience. A story of a tragic redemption told through purely visual means and subtle, naturalistic acting.

Director: Filip Twardowski
Poland, 4 min.
https://cinesquare.net/#/movie/1501/_remindme

Is it our imagination, dreams and memories which make something to be real? In pursuit of lost happiness, Szymon travels to the world of his imagination and memories. When a child loses an essential part of a child’s soul, in what alchemy would life and memory create what it is to be(come) real? A poetics of the painful effort of dreams to epitomize the image of memory.

Director: Charles Williams
Australia, 13 min.
https://cinesquare.net/#/movie/1502/-all-these-creatures

An adolescent boy attempts to untangle his memories of a mysterious infestation, the unraveling of his father, and the little creatures inside us all. Cruel, profound and touching existential drama about the intimate dive into the mystical landscapes of childhood to the layers which form the inner self, as well as about our relationship to our parents and the parts of them which (potentially) live in ourselves.

The film has won more than 60 international awards, including the Palme d'Or for Best Short Film at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival and the "Small Golden Camera 300" at the 2018 International Cinematographers' Film Festival – ‘Manaki Brothers’.

Director: Kate Voet
Belgium, 13 min.
https://cinesquare.net/#/movie/1503/-night-song

Over the course of a lengthy night, Alba and Max meet after a brief and crude separation, rediscovering each other while uncovering their motivations and desires against the backdrop of an anonymous, foreign city. They find themselves balancing on the thin line between solitude and establishing a connection, facing the frailness of their own memories. Intuitive, visually seductive love poem woven from those unconscious, mysterious, irrational motifs that oftentimes determine the ambivalent moments of our own intimacy.

Director: Sophie Linnenbaum
Germany, 15 min.
https://cinesquare.net/#/movie/1504/-pinky-promise

It's never wrong to do the right thing. Is it?

Lobsters, cakes and broken promises. Sara and her parents are celebrating in a restaurant. Not wanting to eat the lobster on her plate, Sara hides it beneath the table. But every action has its consequences, so when her father finds out, the bill could be quite horrible and bizzare. A relentless satire blurring the fine line between the right and the wrong (and how they can be true at the same time), as well as about the paradoxicality of moral rigidity.

Director: Dekel Berenson
Nepal / Israel / United Kingdom, 15 min.
https://cinesquare.net/#/movie/1505/_ashmina

Nestled between a beautiful lake and the Himalayas, Ashmina, 13, lives with her family at the outskirts of Pokhara Nepal, paragliding capital of the world. Forced to skip school, Ashmina helps her family make ends meet by working at the landing field in return of small change. This quiet, compassionate storytelling reveals a powerful voice raising up a reflection on the current social, gender and moral imbalances of relations in the globalized world.

The film won several prizes, including Best Short Film award at the 59th Krakow Film Festival and Best Live Action Short at the 36th Jerusalem Film Festival,

Director: Elin Övergaard
Sweden, 15 min.
https://cinesquare.net/#/movie/1506/-who-talks

In a small Swedish town, a new refugee home for children is planned to be built. The city council invites the citizens for a public council meeting and a discussion. But, whose voice should be heard? Who has the right to talk? Whose opinion actually matters? And what happens when no one listens? The film raises the questions about the slow polarization of the Swedish society in the course of the big immigration wave, as well as of the absence of dialogue and the real need to hear the other.

The film received the Dragon award for Best Swedish Short on the Göteborg Film Festival where it had its premiere. WHO TALKS was then nominated for a Palme d’Or for Best Short Film at Cannes Film Festival 2019.

Director: Ario Motevaghe
Iran, 7 min.
https://cinesquare.net/#/movie/1507/-weekend

Moniri and Kheradmand family are in the park for a picnic. But after finishing their meal, it is revealed that they are here for something else.

Humans love watching, if they come across a spectacular scene. Even more so, when the observation of certain forms of violence is a traditionally rooted practice in the shadow of the law or beliefs. WEEKEND is a film that depicts a part of Iran's "society of spectacle" (but also many other societies in the world, in the past and today) which consider observing certain forms of violence as entertaining, desirable and even necessary – including for children.