SanSebastian

À chacun sa malédiction / Count Your Curses

Lorène Yavo (Belgium)

ENSAV La Cambre (Belgium)

In a town where supernatural beings are part of everyday life, two roommates face a recurring problem: their house spirit was devoured by an unknown creature overnight. They set out to find a replacement spirit and a solution to their pest problem.

Cukr a sůl / Sugar and Salt

Adam Martinec (Czech Rep.)

FAMU - Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (Czech Republic)

A group of friends arrives as they do every year to a remote and secluded place to celebrate their friendship. Now they're arriving for the 36th time, but this year is going to be different to the previous ones. Staña lost his battle with cancer, and for the first time ever they are only five friends. In the blooming spring nature they kill a lamb with their own hands and drink to Staña's memory.

Sirin

Andrey Klychnikov (Russia)

Moscow School of New Cinema (Russia)

On the edge of the Earth, in forsaken lands, people live as if their spoken language has disappeared into oblivion. They live purposeless, routine lives, with no visible manifestations of mutual love and sympathy. A woman invites a man; the man accepts the woman. Their world shudders at the anxious cries of a bird that nobody sees, while in the abandoned house a sheep thief has made his appearance.

© Laurentia Genske and Simon Rittmeier

El manguito

Laurentia Genske (Germany - Cuba)

Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln (Academy of Media Arts Cologne) (Germany)

El Manguito is a small village in the inaccessible woodlands of Sierra Maestra in Cuba. Twelve people live there, cut off from the outside world, without electricity supply and drivable roads. Idael, the head of the familiy, his wife Nelcis, his children, friends and brothers. The film accompanies the family in their everyday life. It takes the audience to an unknown world and shows how deeply rooted the socialist system still is in Cuba.

El verano del león eléctrico

Diego Céspedes (Chile)

Carrera de Cine y Televisión - Universidad de Chile (Chile)

Alonso and his beloved sister Daniela are hidden away in a house far from the city. She is waiting to become the seventh wife of El León, a prophet who (is said) to electrocute you when you touch him. Among deck chairs and whispers, they could be spending their last summer together.

Fragment de drame / A piece of tragedy

Laura Garcia (France)

La Fémis (France)

Emilien, a hypochondriac piano teacher living in a small town of Vercors, is going through a rough period of mourning: six months ago, his loved one died in an accident. Emilien's well-ordered everyday life is suddenly disrupted by the unexpected visits of his deceased beloved girlfriend.

Inconfissoes / Unconfessions

Ana Galizia (Brazil)

Universidade Federal Fluminense (Brazil)

Luiz Roberto Galizia was an important figure in the theatre scene of the ‘70s and ‘80s. He was also my uncle, although I never knew him. This documentary endeavours to recover his life experience, based on old photographs and footage of films in super 8 which Uncle Luiz collected and which I found 30 years after his death.

Nettles

Raven Jackson (USA)

NYU Tisch School of the Arts (USA)

Nettles are stinging plants. In six chapters, this short film explores stinging moments in the lives of different girls and women.

Onde o Verão Vai (episódios da juventude) / Where the Summer Goes (Chapters on Youth)

David Pinheiro Vicente (Portugal)

Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema (Portugal)

It’s summer. A boy and his friends go to the river. Over four episodes, the heat and humidity of the forest kindle desires between them.

Premier amour / First Love

Jules Carrin (Switzerland)

HEAD – Genève Département Cinéma/ cinéma du réel (Switzerland)

This young couple knows vaguely that the love which bonds them can be their way of freeing themselves from the tenacious resentments and suspicions peculiar to this remote region of France, stigmatized as it is by a survival economy. But the social bonds that the adults forge are unexpectedly violent.

The Girl with Two Heads

Betzabé García (UK)

National Film and Television School (United Kingdom)

Anne films herself on her mobile phone as she inspects her physique in the mirror, while her mother, Céline, also studies her body in the mirror. Both have contrasting ideals as to what the ideal female body type should be. Conflict emerges between mother, daughter and her mother's boyfriend when it is revealed that Anne herself uploaded to the Internet a video of herself training topless at the fight club

Tmunat Mishpahti Beshnati Hyud”gimel / Portrait of My Family in my 13th Year

Omri Dekel-Kadosh (Israel)

The Sam Spiegel Film and TV School- Jerusalem (JSFS) (Israel)

Omri is trying to direct a scene recreating the day his dog died. The attempted reenactment becomes complicated when Omri discovers that his father remembers the events differently.

Tracing Addai

Esther Niemeier (Germany)

Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf (Germany)

In his early twenties, Addai leaves his entire life behind and moves to Syria to help victims of the civil war. At first he is assigned kitchen duty together with Ilias. Addai writes to his mother: "Don't worry about me, I'm fine." Two years later Addai's mother receives a letter from prison. Ilias has been sentenced for terrorism by a German court. He wants to meet her and writes: "One thing you have to believe me, we went there with good intentions."

Violeta+Guillermo

Óscar Vincentelli Chirimelli (Spain - Venezuela)

Escuela SUR (Spain)

From the future, Violeta and Guillermo remember a night in 2018 when they danced until dawn.