Best Works in December - January 2023 Program
REQUIEM
"Best Short Film", "Best Director"
Synopsis:
Requiem is set in 1605, against the backdrop of the witch trials. It's a coming of age story, following Evelyn as she engages in a game of cat and mouse against her father, Minister Gilbert, in order to be with Mary, the woman she loves.
Directed by:
Emma Gilbertson
The Muse
"Best Feature Film", "Best Producer" - Ivan Zabolotsky, "Best Supporting Actor" - Sergey Novikov, "Best Color Editing", "Best Editing"
Synopsis:
Once successful novelist Mark is fighting for his sanity struggling to finish his book. Mark explores his difficult relations with his father and the sense of fear as an enemy of creativity. Will Mark sacrifice himself to finish his book on time?
Directed by:
Max Karpylev
JAKOB & MARIA
"Best Director Debut" ,"Best Actor" - David Ketter, "Best Sound Design", "Best Closing Credits"
Synopsis:
Jakob & Maria is a film by Christian Schiesser, partly shot on Super-8 analog film. The film is meant to animate people to think big, to dream big, to have big visions - but also to realize them.
We follow the story of Jakob, a perpetual student, who wanders dreamily through life until one day, with the help of his Super-8 camera, he gets a different view of the world. In a museum, a mysterious woman suddenly speaks to him while he is filming with his Super-8 camera... Who is this woman? Jakob sets out to find her. Her message won't let Jacob go...." Think big, dream big...."

Inspired by many great films, and equally inspired by Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Rule of Success" speech, Christian Schiesser's screenplay has expressed his appreciation to the great cinematic works - and if you listen closely, you can also discover some film quotes.
Official Website
Directed by:
Christian Schiesser
Tom and Luce
"Best Actress" - Bénézech Alix
Synopsis:
A couple in crisis is about to renovate an apartment. The state of the walls is like the state of their relationship.
Official Website
Directed by:
Paule Muxel
Stan by Me
"Best Animation"
Synopsis:
Stan by Me is a geriatric spin on a coming-of-age story about a grumpy, resentful character called Mervin. Despite the overzealous encouragement of Stan, his jolly neighbour, Mervin's aches and pains overshadow every possible joy in life. Worlds apart in temperament; they both cope with aging, loneliness and isolation in their own way, but Mervin soon discovers that not everyone wears their struggle publicly. Everyone needs help and the best way through hard times is together.
Directed by:
Rachel Dixon
Erraiak (Bowels). The echo of the ancestors
"Best Short Documentary"
Synopsis:
ERRAIAKThe scream that comes from the caves. He who listens, feels and sings. A language without words. The one that comes out from the bowels. The echo of our ancestors.But since when is the irrintzi among us? Does it still exist in the 21st century? These and many other questions are what the documentary Erraiak tries to clarify. Exploring various corners of Euskal Herria we have tried to clarify the origin and expansion of irrintzi. What influence does the irrintzi have on the activity of sailors?
Official Website
Directed by:
Ekain Martinez de Lizarduy Stürtze
On the track of Robert van Gulik
"Best Feature Documentary"
Synopsis:
Robert van Gulik (1910-1967) is one of the world’s most popular Dutch writers, but relatively unrecognized in his own country. A diplomat, Chinese specialist and scholar, he became famous with his detective series about Judge Tie, which in many ways, are projections of his own life: a permanent duality between his real life and the hero in his books.
Official Website
Directed by:
Rob Rombout
Haruan: The Snakehead
"Best Experimental Film", "Best Horror"
Synopsis:
Do bad deeds always beget badness?

A dark tale of a magical fish and its flawed human friends.

10-year old Ikan lives with his older sister Salomah and their stepfather Deris. Ikan adores his sister and loves all fish, especially his pet snakehead fish Haruan. Some snakeheads eat their young. Apparently, some humans do too. Like the snakeheads, hungry Deris has no natural predator. Like the snakeheads, Salomah is a survivor. Ikan and Haruan will do anything to save their beloved Salomah. Deris must be stopped, at whatever cost...
Official Website
Directed by:
Razli Dalan
The Dark Action
"Best Cinematography"
Synopsis:
A micro short film by Dustin James Leighton. It's the Greed-Is-Good 1980s and a wrongful death case looks like murder. When the police discover a federal bank examiner dead on a deserted city street on Christmas Eve 1983, there’s no evidence, no leads and no suspects. To find answers, street-smart lawyer Connor J. Devlin, enlists the help of Sloane Monae, a former college volleyball player and an ex-cop turned private detective. As the new duo start pulling the threads of the case, they find themselves equally intrigued with each other.
Official Website
Directed by:
Dustin James Leighton
Rayen
"Best Student Film"
Synopsis:
RAYEN has recently lost her mother and lives alone with her father who prioritizes work over his daughter. The young woman wants to join the group of the most popular in the school so she doesn't feel so alone. She realizes that they are some evil girls who do bullying at school and invites them to a sleepover at her house to play a practical joke on them for the Holy Innocents' Day. she figures out what is supposed to happen at the sleepover and changes her mind to play a prank on them and she gets her revenge.
Directed by:
Yoendris Solis Garcia
Murder on Cairo
"Best Feature Screenplay"
Synopsis:
The story follows Charles O’Bannon, a gambler and common con-man who seeks to atone for his crimes.

Picked up by Lt. Davis, he has to go undercover to seek out the crime boss Richmond and his associates.

But that’s not all that lies with Charlie, his sister Camille is in on the action and helps him fend for himself with small-time loans to bustler his gambling addiction.

Losing the money he raised, Charles is forced to partner with a rival crime boss, Ortega, and repay the loans he took.

Climaxing in the final scene, Charlie pays the ultimate price for his sins.
Written by:
Nate Proczak
The Four Of Us Are Dying
"Best Original Screenplay"
Synopsis:
While on a road trip through the American southwest, a twenty-something fugitive-antihero and her naive, romantically-involved male partner kidnap a random male/female “couple” that the fugitive plans to include in a human sacrifice— that also includes herself and her partner, by incorporating the four of them into a single-living, fusion-based organism— in order to fulfill her lifelong quest to become sexually compatible with the extra terrestrial that abducted her when she was a small child.
Written by:
Jesse Dorian
Salvation
"Best Music Video"
Synopsis:
Rock & Roll "Grindhouse" Music Video
Directed by:
Alexander Sharp
Caperucita Azul (Little Blue Riding Hood)
"Best Dance Video"
Synopsis:
Everything that is written remains forever and it is powerfull. Over centuries, books have filled millions and millions of shelves and have left their mark on many hearts and minds. There are those who have been afraid of them, for not being able to have control over what it was written in them and wanting to avoid those "ideas that shook the foundations of coexistence." For this reason, many books have been burned, destroyed and persecuted, but thanks to the people who fought for them, they have survived to this day as faithful witnesses of history, so that we do not make the same mistakes as our ancestors.
Official Website
Directed by:
Marta Arjona Blasco, and Maite Blasco Pérez
My little big secrets
"Best Composer", "Best Original Score"
Synopsis:
Film “My little big secrets” is a story about a woman who is cheated on by her partner with a younger girl. She is coming back to her childhood home to there find a lost piece of herself that she’s been looking for her whole adult life.
Directed by:
Hanna (Hanka) Antonina Bondarenko
So Far From Hell
"Best Original Soundtrack"
Synopsis:
Si Loin de l'Enfer is a film resulting from the meeting with two descendants of resistance fighters deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, two women from the Pays-Haut in France, on the Belgian and Luxembourg borders.
A biographical journey, between past and present, between lives with such different fates. Crystèle Renaudin, whose grandmother returned from the death camp, punctuates the film with music, her unwavering passion, while Pierre Zani testifies about his mother for the first time in front of a camera.
A journey built over three years, where smiles and lightness rub shoulders with terror and dread, where life comes up against the inconceivable.
A journey where ghosts of the past arise, voices urging us to live.
Official Facebook
Directed by:
Maxime Simone
When Our Eyes Meet
"Best Original Song"
Artist Biography:
Steven Bogdonas…aka Uncle Funky started a new project in 2015 which turned into a whole new musical direction. Over the years studio digital software has become so user friendly that there are now almost no limits for at home music studios. Five years later Steven completed 100 instrumentals under the Uncle Funky name. He finished CD#7 in his original name and is currently working on CD#8. All songs are fully copyrighted, all rights reserved.
Official Website
Composed by:
Steven Bogdonas
Oliver and the Pool
"Best Drama", "Best Young Actor" - Alex Warren
Synopsis:
Oliver –a 13 years old single son from a fractured family—arrives home from the crematory and sits in the chaise long next to the pool, holding his father ashes. In that chaise long Oliver will learn to forgive himself and other, recover his will for pursuing happiness and maybe even fall in love.
Directed by:
Arcadi Palerm Artis
The World Around Us
"Best Photography"
Synopsis:
Forging connections through art for conservation efforts.
Official Website
Photography by:
Christie Goldstein
The Time Is Right
"Best Sci-Fi"
Synopsis:
A game show of the future where contestants travel to the past to try and save a loved one.
Official Website
Directed by:
Diane Carol Harder
If The Shoe Fits
"Best Comedy', "Best Fantasy"
Synopsis:
Whilst taking a shortcut home, an ordinary guy from the 21st century bumps into Cinderella and points out the plot hole.
Directed by:
Barbara Spevack
The Stars My Destination
"Best Action Movie", "Best Costume Design", "Best Makeup"
Synopsis:
A retired Russian-Japanese soldier Eiji Onodera (Keishi Suenaga) was going to his hometown in Japan. But on his way, he was caught and given a new mission by his ex-colleague Captain Vadim Dadikov (Gohnosuke Tokuda). Onodera and his father would never be free unless he completes the secret mission. He and the Master Sergeant Zinaida Zasyekina (Satoko Enmei) go to Hokkaido to monitor an ex-officer of Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, Toshio Honda (Taiyo Sawa). Honda has killed 27 people including his colleagues, and is hiding in a mountain with a mysterious beauty, Risa (Riho Yoshioka)…
Official Facebook
Directed by:
Keishi Suenaga
Finding the Line - An Exploration of Structural Integration
"Best Educational Film"
Synopsis:
Boulder Colorado and Esalen Institute USA 1960's & 1970’s:
Resulting from her studies Dr. Ida Rolf developed a program of postural re-patterning using fascial manipulation and movement education which she called Structural Integration and which is nowadays known in the public at large as ‘rolfing’.
Milano, Prague, Warszaw 2018 - 2022
This movie tells the story of an adventure - an adventure that will take the viewer into Ida Rolf's world of Structural Integration. At the heart of the movie are 8 students and their quest to understand Ida Rolf's philosophy during their 3 year Basic Trainings in Milano, Prague and Warsaw.
The movie also explains the basic ideas behind Structural Integration and discusses the most recent research into fascia.
Directed by:
Aleš Urbanczik, and Grzegorz Oleksa
RACE
"Best Historical Film"
Synopsis:
A film of the "Worst Humanitarian Crisis" in East Asia, the "Rohingya incident".

From Aug 25, 2017, almost 1 million Rohingya people were forced away from their homeland Myanmar and formed the "world largest refugee camp" next to the border in Bangladesh. Tens of thousands of children and women who failed to escape were killed, abused and raped.

Although such ultra-violent act --- described as Genocide: "Ethnic Cleansing" by the UN, was executed, the official records deny such facts and what actually happened was veiled in mystery. Such occurred, because of media manipulation, cover-ups, and most significantly the particular way how "Race" matters for the Myanmar people.

Succeeded to film and collect scenes from the restricted homelands and refugee camps, the documentary shows what actually did happen, is happening, and worsening, inside the darkest shadows of Asia.
Official Website
Directed by:
Sash Nakamoto
TAGBANUA
"Best ECO Work"
Synopsis:
What happens when an already very unknown indigenous people is threatened with extinction and with them their traditions and culture? The future of the Tagbanua is uncertain. They can still make a living from their traditional fishing, agriculture and harvesting edible bird nests. But the question is; for how long? Their way of life no longer fits into the modern world and is increasingly endangered by immigration, discrimination, climate change and destruction of their natural resources.

Despite the odds the Tagbanua try to bring their culture unscathed into the future and find a balance between retaining their traditions and adaptation to new challenges. We only hope that in this process not too much of their traditional way of life is lost.

Over a period of 10 years, the film team follows one of the oldest tribes in the Philippines and documents their traditional way of life. The film shows in a personal perspective how the Tagbanua deal with the challenges of modern times and fight for recognition of their rights. It is a contemporary document which captures the traditional Tagbanua way of life and simultaneously serves as an homage to this admirable indigenous tribe.
Official Website
Directed by:
Silke de Vos
CoronaFAUST
"Best COVID-19 Film"
Synopsis:
Germany is in the first lockdown winter. Clubs and theaters are closed. Social and cultural life has dropped below the freezing point.
Warming up for better times, an independent theater group goes on with rehearsals despite strict restrictions.
Turning for solace to Goethe’s “Faust” all those involved are bringing their anger, fears and worries on the stage.
Directed by:
Nicole Felden
Fix It in Post
"Best Web-Series"
Synopsis:
A group of college filmmakers are trying to compete a classmate's short...with little luck...
Directed by:
Bret Jones
ROTOR
"Best Mobile Film"
Synopsis:
A masseur arrives at his client’s place. It’s been a complicated day, and he is struggling not to spin out of control…
Directed by:
 Malena Perrot
Poly Andrew
"Best LGBTQ+ Film"
Synopsis:
Andrew and Trevor are a happy gay couple, until Andrew's secret girlfriend - who also happens to be Trevor's best friend - shows up, and Andrew is forced to come to terms with his sexual identity.
Official Website
Directed by:
Brad McDermott, and Fred Kuhr
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