GIEFF Online Screening
Missing Time, The Hill, The Lowland, Sweet Osmanthus Flowering Late, Inhabiting Beirut, Maize Daughters, Mom, Vaychiletik, Azmari - The Fest of Voices, Memories of a Party, Va’d’da. Toll-houses, Light Upon Light, I Am Not, Through Hands of Mine, Land of My Dreams
GIEFF received many impressive films which were very long.
The selection committee and the film festival directors decided to offer the filmmakers to make their selected films available online.
To be able to watch these films you have to have a festival ticket or an online ticket.
The films will be online between May 8 and May 12, 2024.
Missing Time
Switzerland, 2023, 13 min
Location: Switzerland
A Film by: Simon Jäggi
The Federal Asylum Center Basel stands in an urban no-man's land, between the national border, freight traffic axes and the urban forest. Surrounded by concrete walls and barbed wire, from the outside it appears more like a prison than an asylum center. Here, up to 300 people at a time are waiting for their asylum decision. Their future depends on how the authorities judge their case. «Missing Time» takes an in-depth look at this time of uncertainty. It lets the waiting people have their say and gives insight into this dreary and yet hopeful transitional phase with an uncertain outcome.
Website: https://pointdevue.ch/en/projekte/missing-time
Trailer of Film: https://vimeo.com/863530212
Screening: only online
You would like to watch the film online? Please register for online viewing and login.
The Hill
France, 2022, 79 min
Location: Kyrgyzstan
A Film by: Denis Gheerbrant, Lina Tsrimova
It's a hill in the heart of Kyrgyzstan, with black birds, acrid smoke and, day and night, women, men and a few children. A rubbish dump. There's Alexandre, a traumatised former sniper, and his wife Lena, who live in the midst of this chaos; Tajikhan, her body scarred by work and her heart broken by the death of her children; Keyrat, her son, who climbs the hill at night; and Djazira, a luminous teenager. Each of them questions his or her life.
Website: https://www.pivonkaprod.com/la-colline
Screening: only online
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The Lowland
Iran, Islamic Republic of, 2021, 53 min
Location: Iran
A Film by: Aidin Halalzadeh, Sepideh Salarvand
“Lowland” is an intimate portrait of a community of undocumented migrant Afghan children, living and working as garbage collectors in the margins of Tehran. Over the course of five years, Halalzadeh and Salarvand documented their encounters with the children first as ethnographers and volunteer teachers, and later as filmmakers. The film is an assemblage of personal everyday stories and gestures shared by the children of the Lowland, portaying them as powerful individuals rather than mere child workers.
Website: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21068076/
Trailer of Film: https://filmfreeway.com/submissions/24828740
Screening: only online
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Sweet Osmanthus Flowering Late
China, 2023, 146 min
Location: China
A Film by: Shuai Li
"Sweet Osmanthus Flowering Late" by Shuai Li is an ethnographic/ experimental film that envisions social rejuvenation and convalescence in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Filmed in post-COVID Wuhan, where the first coronavirus lockdown was enforced, the film follows the everyday lives of three middle-class Wuhan households. It postulates the existence of a mass dreaming phenomenon that facilitated fatigued Chinese inhabitants to rejuvenate themselves following the traumatic lockdown episode and to coexist with the enduring imprints of the pandemic on their social lives.
Trailer of Film: https://www.youtube.com/@CanagawaPictures
Screening: only online
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Inhabiting Beirut
France, 2023, 46 min
Location: Lebanon
A Film by: Michel Tabet
August 4, 2020: Explosion in Beirut. The association of these words is not surprising. Beirut is a city intimately linked to the war. And yet this explosion is like no other. It embeds all the country's crises. Through testimonies, images, and sounds from residents who experienced the event, the film explores violence as an intimate and inner experience, revealing the impact on the city's inhabitants.
Screening: only online
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Maize Daughters
Argentina, 2023, 87 min
Location: Mexico
A Film by: Alfonso Gastiaburo
An indigenous midwife and an educator transform the process of bringing life to this world into a battle against the gender violence. In the safe house Yach'il Antzetic in the South of Mexico, they care for women from indigenous communities, survivors just like them. In this way they heal old wounds and open up to a new future by raising their children differently.
Website: https://shortsfit.com/portfolio-item/hijas-del-maiz
Trailer of Film: https://vimeo.com/833034082
Screening: only online
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Mom
Mexico, 2022, 80 min
Location: Mexico
A Film by: Xun Sero
As a Tsotsil-Mexican, I, Xun Sero, grew up surrounded by the sanctity of the Virgen de Guadalupe and Mother Earth. As the son of a single mother, I was teased for not having a father and blamed my mother for it. I grew up between adoration and contempt for my mother. "Mama" is a dialogue between mother and son who explore their contradictions, who know and recognise each other, who reflect on natural violence and its reproduction. Being and becoming a family.
Website: https://www.documentalmama.com/en/
Trailer of Film: https://vimeo.com/694265859
Screening: only online
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Vaychiletik
Mexico, 2021, 84 min
Location: Mexico
A Film by: Juan Javier Pérez
Through dreams, the gods revealed to José his vocation to be a musician as well as the responsibility of playing in the sacred festivities of Zinacantán, a Tzotzil Mayan territory in Chiapas. These ceremonies play a central role in preserving collective harmony, and the select few who hold the position of traditional musician are appointed for life. Taking on this responsibility has harsh consequences in José's life and the temptation to quit is getting stronger. But José fears punishment from the gods if he resigns early. „Vaychiletik“ explores this fierce yet beautiful reality born from the dreams of the Mayan people of Mexico.
Website: https://www.vaychiletikdocumental.com/en/
Trailer of Film: https://vimeo.com/516783928
Screening: only online
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Azmari - The Fest of Voices
Japan, 2023, 69 min
Location: Ethiopia, Japan
A Film by: Itsushi Kawase
Azmari are hereditary musical professionals in the Ethiopian highlands who use their music as a form of resistance and social commentary. Through the lens of Solomon Ayanaw, an Azmari in Addis Ababa, the film explores the transformation, authenticity, and inheritance of Azmari culture. Conversations between the filmmaker, anthropologist Itsushi Kawase, and Solomon, his relatives, and the audience shed light on the role of Azmari in reflecting the social situation and feelings of the locals, as well as their improvisational poetry performances that invite audience participation.
Website: http://www.itsushikawase.com/azmari.html
Screening: only online
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Memories of a Party
Colombia, 2023, 25 min
Location: Colombia
A Film by: Anyelin Rodriguez Gomez
"Memorias de una fiesta" (Memories of a Party) by Anyelin Maria Rodriguez Gomez follows the story of Pepe Alzamora, the founder of the Sea Festival of Santa Marta in 1959. Now 92 years old and estranged from the festival he once created, Pepe attempts to reconstruct its memory and revive its cultural value through one final participation. As a sailor, athlete, dreamer, and poet, Pepe reminisces about the Santa Marta of 30 years ago, the sea, and its festival. Amidst his solitary present surrounded by memories in the house of "Los Virreyes," Pepe decides to participate for the last time in the organization of the Sea Festival, hoping to reconnect with its essence and principles.
Screening: only online
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Va’d’da. Toll-houses
Russian Federation, 2023, 62 min
Location: Russia
A Film by: Nikita Dobrynin
"Va’d’da. Toll-houses" by Nikita Dobrynin explores the evolving landscape of Luzhitcy village, where the natural and social fabric of the historical homeland of the Vad’d’a nation undergoes profound changes due to industrial development. As grandiose industrial projects reshape the area, the film dynamically shifts in narrative form, transitioning from ethnographic cinema to social drama, historical cinema, and more. Through these varied perspectives, the film captures the multifaceted impact of industrialization on the Vad’d’a and their enduring history marked by wars, revolutions, and Stalinist regimes.
Screening: only online
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Light Upon Light
Egypt, 2022, 78 min
Location: Denmark, Egypt
A Film by: Christian Suhr, Muhammad Mustapha, Amira Mortada, Hala Lotfy
A friend in Cairo gave Christian Suhr a simple advice: “Stop focusing on the darkness in this world: Look at the light”. He took the advice and together with the Egyptian filmmaker Muhammad Mustapha and the photographer Amira Mortada, he embarked on a research and film project about religious experiences of light. The result a road movie documenting a movement of people who insist on keeping a space for light and love in their lives despite difficult political circumstances. Through a deep focus on people’s experiences, they aimed to reach beyond the surface of religious and political boundaries and into a contemplation of the universal significance of light in human life.
Trailer of Film: https://vimeo.com/680959384
Screening: only online
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I Am Not
Israel, 2022, 96 min
Location: Guatemala, Israel
A Film by: Tomer Heymann
Tomer Heymann’s "I Am Not" is an intimate documentary following the transformative journey of Oren, an outcast teenager adopted from Guatemala by an Israeli family. For a long time unable to find his place in society. Oren faced ridicule for his communication difficulties, while also struggling with repeated misdiagnoses of mental illness. Oren's decision to document his life with a small video camera and combine this with his poignant search for his biological family in his birth country becomes a very emotional exploration of identity and belonging.
Trailer of Film: https://filmfreeway.com/submissions/27156655
Screening: only online in Germany
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Through Hands of Mine
Netherlands, 2022, 72 min
Location: Montenegro
A Film by: Kostana Banovic
“Ruku Mojeju” (Through Hands of Mine ) revolves around a sensory understanding of monastic life. In a convent on a small island, between Montenegro and Albania, fifteen nuns – mostly young women, one of them blind – live their daily lives in a rhythm of work and prayer, and the endlessly undulating movements of nature. In the attempt to understand religion through lived practices, the film focuses on taste, smell, sound, colour, movement and touch. And therefore, the body, or more precisely, the affectivity of the body becomes the subject of the film. The search for an understanding of faith from the outside, leads to the question of how people’s religious convictions shape inside them.
Website: https://www.arttrace.nl/projects/ruku-mojeju-kostana-banovic/
Trailer of Film: https://vimeo.com/686763010
Screening: only online
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Land of My Dreams
India, 2023, 74 min
Location: India
A Film by: Nausheen Khan
“Land of My Dreams” is the story of the women who led a peaceful pro-democracy movement against India’s Citizenship Amendment Act (2019).The women of Shaheen Bagh in New Delhi protested against systemic and social oppression for more than a hundred days, mobilizing resistance across the nation and setting a precedent for a new form of public protest. As a Muslim woman, Nausheen Khan challenges contemporary notions of belonging, patriotism, and identity in India by examining shared human responses to exclusion, polarization, and oppression.
Website: https://www.nausheenkhanfilms.com/
Screening: only online
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