PERSONALIZED FILM PROMOTION
Film is the fruit of artistic and creative energies
Rotterdam - Berlin - Copenhagen - Cannes - Karlovy Vary - Locarno
Venice - San Sebastian - Antalya - Amsterdam - Cairo ...
Here's our next festivals that we will be attending
Our IFFR 2022 Line-up
Tiger Competition
Eami means ‘forest’ in Ayoreo. It also means ‘world’. The indigenous Ayoreo-Totobiegosode people do not make a distinction: the trees, animals, and plants that have surrounded them for centuries are all that they know. They now live in an area experiencing the fastest deforestation on the planet.
Paraguayan director Paz Encina travelled to Chaco for this film. She immersed herself in Ayoreo-Totobiegosode mythology, and listened to heartrending stories about how the people are being chased off their land. Based on the knowledge she acquired, she made a dreamy, magic-realist film about a little girl called Eami. After her village is destroyed and her community disintegrates, Eami wanders the rainforest. She is the bird-god – she explains in the poetic voice-over, in her own language – looking for whomever may be left. Every now and then, Encina plays snippets of interviews, whilst studying Eami’s immobile face.
Eami will have to live outside the rainforest, just like the coñone (literally: ‘the insensitive’). Encina turns her final wander into an experience for all the senses, with enchanting images and a powerful sound mix. A bird screams. The wind rustles the leaves. Something growls in the distance. Then: machines. Panic. EAMI is an indictment; yet, perhaps even more so, an attempt to record something that will be lost. ‘Remember everything,’ says the lizard/old man who accompanies Eami on her journey. ’Once we leave, we can never come back.’
A story of finding a place to root yourself when life’s obstacles have dispirited you. Chang-su, a former equestrian athlete for the South Korean national team, was forced to give up on his dream early. He finds himself working at a quarry in the rural town of Maniwa in western Japan, where he lives with Minami and her infant daughter. Yamabuki, a teenage girl, begins to stage silent protests that blossom into community action, much to the dismay of her policeman father. The quiet surface of this rural town is gradually peeled off to reveal frustration and loneliness that, once given a voice, begin to connect people.
Shot on grainy 16mm, this quietly radical film paints a portrait of contemporary Japan as a country where silence is preferred over confrontation. But it also shows that friction creates sparks, which lead to dialogue and understanding. Writer-director Yamasaki Juichiro, who brought The Sound of Light (IFFR 2012) to Rotterdam ten years ago, returns once again to his hometown of Maniwa, which has become multicultural with migrant workers comprising a large part of its mining workforce. Here, Yamasaki spotlights how each inhabitant contributes to complicating any attempt to give an easy definition of a townsperson. The playfully ethereal music by Olivier Deparis lifts the film into fairytale territory, making it hard to place despite being unimaginable anywhere else.
Bright Future
Long blue hours characterise summer nights in the sleepy Norwegian port town of Ålesund. Asta is a young journalist working for the local newspaper, where she is expected to report on local sports, historic preservation, and cruise ships. It is only when she stumbles across the strange story of a refugee’s forced deportation, that she finds new meaning in her work and life.
With sharply composed, contemplative images, the story unfolds along with Asta’s social awakening. Again and again, the camera explores the topography of her surroundings. In these quiet long shots, she often only appears as a forlorn figure on the horizon. Everything in this film seems like an externalisation of her inner condition: from the colour scheme to the small details of the everyday life she shares with her girlfriend.
Just as the past manifests itself in the town’s art nouveau facades, Asta’s pensive expression speaks for itself. Through its understated narrative and subtle symbolism, the film opens up a wide interpretive space for viewers. It offers a critical commentary on society in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. We as individuals can decide how far to go for personal commitment and responsibility.
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