08-05-2024 GIEFF-Films
Student Film Festival
Toang, With my Thoughts on the Sea, Year After Year, Ten by Ten, Oh These Beloved Hands, As Long As There's Us, A Letter To Lanka, Water Notebook, The Last Gap, Ashes Living in Cracks and Hollows, Ruins of a Childhood Memory, Such Madwomen!, Everything Seems Illuminated, Fire Under the Ashes, One of Us Now,
Toang
Netherlands, 2022, 37 min
Location: Indonesia
A Film by: Rizky Maulana
"Toang" offers an intimate glimpse into the life of Edi Sutaryadi, a rice paddy farmer in Indramayu, Indonesia. Directed by Rizky Maulana Yanuar, this film sheds light on the challenges faced by Indonesian farmers amidst the cycle of debt and environmental degradation brought about by the Green Revolution. Driven by Yanuar's deep personal connection to the issue of climate change in his homeland, "Toang" underscores the urgent need to address the impacts of climate change on agricultural practices in Indonesia and elsewhere, highlighting the vulnerability of communities like Edi's.
Trailer of Film: https://youtu.be/uViC4zIPKS0
Screening: 8.05.2024 13:30
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With my Thoughts on the Sea
Germany, 2023, 20 min
Location: Italy
A Film by: Fabiana Fragale
"With My Thoughts on the Sea" by Fabiana Fragale portrays Nedo, one of the last independent fishermen in Piombino, as he reflects on the sea, the tides and the changing world while sailing. As Fragale captures his everyday life on the boat, Nedo shares stories and anecdotes drawn from his rich experience as a fisherman, offering insights into navigating the uncertainties of the unpredictable and powerful sea.
Screening: 8.05.2024 14:20
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Year After Year
United States, 2022, 24 min
Location: United States
A Film by: Shuting Li
"Year after Year" offers a poignant glimpse into the lives of elderly Chinese immigrants in Chinatown, New York City amidst the challenges of the pandemic. Through the lens of a Manhattan senior center, the documentary chronicles the participation of these seniors in the production of "Written in the Walls," a historical play recounting the struggles of Chinese immigrants detained on Angel Island in the early 20th century.
Website: https://disabilitycovidchronicles.nyu.edu/traveling-with-a-suitcase-creating-community-during-covid-in-a-chinatown-senior-center/
Screening: 8.05.2024 14:50
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Ten by Ten
United Kingdom, 2021, 30 min
Location: Korea
A Film by: Jami L. Bennett
After living in Asia for over fifteen years, Jessica was longing for the burgers and barbecue of her native Tennessee. With the help of her husband Dongseop, Jessica opened an American-style diner out of her home on Jeju Island, South Korea in 2018. After being featured on one of the country’s most popular television shows, the couple must adapt to their newfound TV fame, the crowds of new customers it brings, and all this amidst the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic. Exploring themes of food, home, identity, and celebrity, Ten by Ten is an intimate portrait of Jessica’s journey through these events as she learns to navigate the blurred boundaries between private life and public persona.
Website: https://www.jamilbennett.com/film/tenbyten
Trailer of Film: https://vimeo.com/683126491
Screening: 8.05.2024 15:25
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Oh These Beloved Hands
Sweden, 2022, 25 min
Location: Sweden
A Film by: Rachel Runesson
"Oh These Beloved Hands" delves into the intergenerational impact of grief in a family in southern Sweden, 80 years after a tragic accident. The film follows an ageing woman as she mourns the father she never knew, while her son and granddaughter join her in exploring the reverberations of grief. Nominated for best biographical film at the Toronto International Women Film Festival in 2023, the film explores the connections between memory, grief, and storytelling through the ageing self. It highlights how grief becomes a deeply social process, grounded in the act of telling one's experiences.
Screening: 8.05.2024 16:20
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As Long As There's Us
China, 2023, 20 min
Location: China, United States
A Film by: Guanyizhuo Yao
In the liminal space of dreams and memories, 'As Long as There's Us' offers a nostalgic and meditative immersion into the collective memory and environmental shaping of a socialist oil complex in northeastern China. Director Guanyizhuo Yao's personal reflections on growing up in Heilongjiang, considered the "Far East" of China, prompt questions about the portrayal of marginalized places and people in mainstream narratives. Born and raised in an oil town, Yao's work focuses on the lives affected by global extractivism, using memories and dreams to tell their stories of these long-neglected localities, offering an alternative portrayal to the collective mythology of the larger nation.
Trailer of Film: https://vimeo.com/825641572
Screening: 8.05.2024 16:55
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A Letter To Lanka
Norway, 2023, 28 min
Location: Sri Lanka
A Film by: Ilakkiya Mariya Simon
"A Letter to Lanka" by Ilakkiya Maria Simon navigates between memories of the civil war and the present political turmoil, offering a poetic and personal journey of the filmmaker's reconnection to land, soil, and people. The documentary invites audiences to contemplate existential questions of belonging in a chaotic world: What does it mean to be at home in the world? What keeps people together, and what can tear them apart?
Screening: 8.05.2024 17:25
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Water Notebook
Chile, 2022, 15 min
Location: Chile
A Film by: Felipe Rodriguez Cerda
"Water Notebook" by anthropologist, filmmaker, and writer Felipe Rodriguez Cerda unveils the writings of an individual exiled to the Patagonian archipelago during the Chilean military dictatorship. The notebook, discovered 35 years later, chronicles his encounters with the inhabitants of the Guaitecas Islands and their way of life intricately connected to the sea.
Website: https://notariadedudas.com/2022/11/27/cuaderno-de-agua-pelicula/
Trailer of Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe6KBtfB9uY
Screening: 8.05.2024 18:05
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The Last Gap
Germany, 2022, 37 min
Location: Germany
A Film by: Sofia Leikam
"The Last Gap" (Die letzte Lücke) tells the story of Ute Delimat, who is still coming to terms with the suffering of her mother, who was deported during World War II from her home in Poland by the Germans at the age of 13 and forced to work in the district of Göttingen. Ute Delimat searches for new information at former sites of forced labour and in one of the most extensive archives on the victims of National Socialism in order to close a final gap in her mother's biography. In the process, the picture of a post-war Germany in which the fate of forced labourers was suppressed for decades becomes increasingly clear.
Screening: 8.05.2024 18:25
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Ashes Living in Cracks and Hollows
Not Specified, 2023, 29 min
Location: Japan
A Film by: Haruka Fukao
"Ashes Living in Cracks and Hollows" by Haruka Fukao follows a Japanese couple coping with the loss of two children, documenting their journey of scattering the ashes and grappling with grief. The film delves into how the couple views this act as an embodiment of life and death's inseparability within nature's cycle, prompting existential inquiries. Additionally, it sheds light on their resistance against societal norms, as scattering ashes is an unconventional practice in Japan. Fukao's master's film explores the couple's rationale behind choosing this alternative method and their philosophical approach to mourning.
Website: https://munin.uit.no/handle/10037/29665
Screening: 8.05.2024 20:00
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Ruins of a Childhood Memory
Chile, 2023, 7 min
Location: Chile
A Film by: Ignacio Rodriguez
“Ruins of a childhood memory" is an autoethnographic journey to where the filmmaker Ignacio Rodriguez spent his childhood, between the Atacama Desert and the Pacific Ocean. The film is an attempt to address the question of how we remember the times and places we no longer inhabit, and how we engage with those personal memories regarding history, geography and architectural ruins.
Screening: 8.05.2024 20:40
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Such Madwomen!
India, 2023, 16 min
Location: India
A Film by: Payal Chauhan
Payal Chauhan aims to explore the freedom of expression for women in both private and public spheres in a village in Uttar Pradesh, India. In a patriarchal society, it's uncommon for women to sit outside or take a leisurely walk. The film follows Geeta, Usha, and Lucy, who spend their days working and eagerly await the evening, when they can go out and escape in their imaginative world temporarily. Payal Chauhan takes a simple yet effective approach by joining the women on their evening walks through the village outskirts, passing farms, streams, and railway tracks. This is the only time and place where the women feel truly free from their duties as mothers, homemakers, and villagers.
Screening: 8.05.2024 21:00
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Everything Seems Illuminated
United States, 2022, 14 min
Location: United States
A Film by: Kumar Mayank
"Everything Seems Illuminated" by Kumar Mayank is a portrait of a twenty-year-old Hare Krishna monk in Austin, Texas, who seeks to spread enlightenment by selling spiritual books and trying to live a life with zero material yearnings. The documentary explores his daily routine, aiming to capture his perspective, origins, and actions within the materialistic world around him. Through his journey, the film sheds light on the commonalities of human pursuit of spiritual fulfillment across various religions, despite individual weaknesses and practical obstacles.
Screening: 8.05.2024 21:40
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Fire Under the Ashes
Germany, 2023, 65 min
Location: Germany
A Film by: Pauline-Sophie Prückner, Louis Seibert
"Fire Under the Ashes" is a film that delves into the life of activist refugees and their fight for a humane asylum system in Thuringia, Germany, and Europe. The essayistic film explores unseen and unforeseen perspectives on migration, through a kaleidoscope of political actions and shared memories, experiences and future dreams. A cinematic approach to life in political and personal exile.
Screening: 8.05.2024 22:05
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One of Us Now
Germany, 2022, 30 min
Location: Israel
A Film by: Maya Steinberg
"One of Us Now" by Maya Steinberg explores the filmmaker's secular Israeli identity juxtaposed with her father's late religious awakening. While her father does not appear in the film, Steinberg delves into his faith and her own lack of understanding by spending a season in Mount Meron, a holy site of Jewish mysticism. As both director and subject, she is confronted with how her queerness and her gender might be barriers to belonging, or offer untrodden paths to euphoria. The journey leads her to surprising discoveries about women in religious communities, and herself.
Screening: 8.05.2024 23:20
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