Having made ‘Aqabat Jaber, Passing Through’ just before the Intifada, Eyal Sivan returns to a refugee camp the day after the evacuation of the region by the Israeli army. A few kilometers from Jericho and built 50 years ago, Aqabat-Jaber is a refugee camp that is under Palestinian control today. Its 3,000 inhabitants have not however seen their status change. According to the peace treaty, they are still refugees and cannot go back to the villages from which their parents fled. The return home of the refugees, right at the heart of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, will determine the future of the Middle East. This film, which hopes to be analogical, tells the story of the Palestinian refugees, which is similar to that of all refugees, deported populations, displaced persons, that lie at the center of the great conflicts of the 20th century.
Cinematography Nurith Aviv
Editing Sylvie Pontoizeau
Production Armelle Laborie
Sound Rémy Attal
AUDIO: Arabic
SUBTITLE: Romanian, English
08
April,
Monday
Cinema Elvire Popesco - Institutul Francez
6:00 PM
61'
The director will be present for a Q&A after the screening
Goran Dević's documentary could be termed an investigative art film, benefitting from a strong activist approach and revealing the human cost of government corruption and contempt for the ordinary worker. Following a Croatian rolling stock company, the film observes a decade-long story of union members fighting to protect their jobs and for the right of a decent living in the face of unbridled capitalism. The main protagonist is syndicate leader Željko, and the film beings in 2012, after his deputy commits suicide. A great number of workers, including Željko, are laid off, and they are looking for strategies that will give them the best advantage in negotiating with the state, after the 120-year-old factory is on the verge of bankruptcy. Dević’s film talks about labour and abuse, trade unionists and incompetent administrators, dignity and obedience, and traces the universal story of workers' rights, corruption and governments' contempt for ordinary people that has been unfolding for an entire decade. (Carmen Lascoiu)
Cinematography Damian Nenadić
Editing Iva Kraljević
Screenplay Goran Dević, Zvonimir Jurić, Andrej Nikolaidis
Production Hrvoje Osvadić
Sound Design Ivan Zelić
Co-writers Zvonimir Jurić, Andrej Nikolaidis
Producing company Petnaesta umjetnost
AUDIO: Croatian
SUBTITLE: Romanian, English
awards and festivals
Sarajevo film festival 2023
Slobodna zona Beograd 2023 – Special mention
Verzio film festival Budapest 2023
Human right film festival Zagreb 2023
Pula film festival 2023. Rough cut pitch – Best pitch award
First cut lab RE-ACT
08
April,
Monday
Cinema Elvire Popesco - Institutul Francez
8:30 PM
78'
The director will be present for a Q&A after the screening
Goran Dević,
Hrvoje Osvadić
Goran Dević
Goran Dević (b. in Sisak, 1971) studied Archeology and Law. In 2008 he graduated in Film and TV Directing from the Zagreb Academy of Dramatic Arts. His films won awards at festivals such as Pula, Prizren, Prague, Sarajevo, Oberhausen, Leipzig, Zagreb. Retrospectives of his documentaries were held at Arsenal Berlin, MAXXI, Crossing Europe Filmfestival Linz, Beldocs, Zagreb. He founded the production company Petnaesta umjetnost.
Hrvoje Osvadić
In 2000, Hrvoje started working in the film industry. In 2007, he became co-owner and director of 15th Art Production (Petnaesta umjetnost), a company specializing in film and TV production in Zagreb, Croatia. He is the President of the Croatian Producer Association HRUP and is also an EAVE (European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs) producer. From 2024 member of European Film Academy EFA. He is also experienced in the production of international co-productions. He has produced over twenty films, including: “Seventh Heaven” – feature (2023) (also co-writer), “Baby Tooth” – short (2017), “Sunday” – short (2016), and documentary films: “What”s to be Done?” - feature documentary (2023) by Goran Dević, “The Building” - feature documentary (2022) by Goran Dević, “On the Water” - feature documentary (2018) by Goran Dević, “Steel Mill Café” - feature documentary (2017) by Goran Dević.
09
April,
Tuesday
Cinemateca Eforie
6:00 PM
78'
The director will be present for a Q&A after the screening
Goran Dević,
Hrvoje Osvadić
Goran Dević
Goran Dević (b. in Sisak, 1971) studied Archeology and Law. In 2008 he graduated in Film and TV Directing from the Zagreb Academy of Dramatic Arts. His films won awards at festivals such as Pula, Prizren, Prague, Sarajevo, Oberhausen, Leipzig, Zagreb. Retrospectives of his documentaries were held at Arsenal Berlin, MAXXI, Crossing Europe Filmfestival Linz, Beldocs, Zagreb. He founded the production company Petnaesta umjetnost.
Hrvoje Osvadić
In 2000, Hrvoje started working in the film industry. In 2007, he became co-owner and director of 15th Art Production (Petnaesta umjetnost), a company specializing in film and TV production in Zagreb, Croatia. He is the President of the Croatian Producer Association HRUP and is also an EAVE (European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs) producer. From 2024 member of European Film Academy EFA. He is also experienced in the production of international co-productions. He has produced over twenty films, including: “Seventh Heaven” – feature (2023) (also co-writer), “Baby Tooth” – short (2017), “Sunday” – short (2016), and documentary films: “What”s to be Done?” - feature documentary (2023) by Goran Dević, “The Building” - feature documentary (2022) by Goran Dević, “On the Water” - feature documentary (2018) by Goran Dević, “Steel Mill Café” - feature documentary (2017) by Goran Dević.
Incident is the most recent work from filmmaker Bill Morrison, whose decaying film strips as hypnotic visual symphonies made him a key figure of contemporary cinema. Here, the filmmaker inverses his usual modus operandi. Instead of looking beyond the content, towards the very physical matter of the images, Morrison goes now back to what is contained within the frame, this time pushing to the breaking point digital footage from various types of surveillance cameras that capture one of the many fatal police errors that echo the way "law and order" is enforced in the United States. Choosing not to appeal to the rhetoric of any of the ideological or political factions that actively comment on such tragic incidents, Morrison presents with sobriety the different technological viewpoints that are inevitably also human. (Liri Alienor Chapelan)
Editing Bill Morrison
Production Bill Morrison, Jamie Kalven
Sound Bill Morrison
AUDIO: English
SUBTITLE: Romanian
a film adopted by
08
April,
Monday
Cinema Union
6:00 PM
30'
* Competition /
The director will be present for a Q&A after the screening
Natan Castay
Natan Castay
Natan Castay is a young director born in Brussels. He studied Filmmaking at IAD and is interested in both documentary and fiction.
13
April,
Saturday
Cinema Elvire Popesco - Institutul Francez
8:30 PM
30'
* Competition /
Screening followed by a discussion with Mihai Ghiduc - "Mindcraft Stories"
‘Human Not Human’ is the second film from young filmmaker Natan Castay, an essay both personal and philosophically dense, based on Castay’s own recent unemployment causing him to join the army of “digital proletarians” who execute the seemingly absurd tasks that fuel the gigantic machinery of AI – the very same machinery that will soon take over their jobs, as much as the jobs of numerous other workers in all domains and corners of the world. Technology as a witness, technology as master; technology as a tool, technology as an objective, and, of course, film as a technological product – these are the themes that both films in this pairing are preoccupied with. (Liri Alienor Chapelan)
Cinematography Elias Berdah, Pierre Adamczyk
Editing Tabatha Duval
Screenplay Natan Castay
Production Morgane Bienfait
Sound Guillaume Lion, Clément Waleffe, Simon Debuysschere
Music Thaben Niscambuilt
Motion Design Paulin Grenade
Producing company Médiadiffusion
Distributor CBA - Centre de l'audiovisuel à Bruxelles
AUDIO: English, Portuguese, French
SUBTITLE: Romanian, English
a film adopted by
08
April,
Monday
Cinema Union
6:00 PM
38'
* Competition /
The director will be present for a Q&A after the screening
Natan Castay
Natan Castay
Natan Castay is a young director born in Brussels. He studied Filmmaking at IAD and is interested in both documentary and fiction.
13
April,
Saturday
Cinema Elvire Popesco - Institutul Francez
8:30 PM
38'
* Competition /
Screening followed by a discussion with Mihai Ghiduc - "Mindcraft Stories"
‘Anxious in Beirut’ examines the capital city of Lebanon in the context of various political abuses directed at its citizens, a setting where the generation after the Civil War is trying to tell its story. Director Zakaria Jaber captures, much in the manner of a diary, the oppressive atmosphere surrounding the tragedies of his hometown. Beirut is on its knees, having become a place of anxiety and insecurity for the director’s family and friends, and by extension for all the inhabitants of the city. In recent history, this land has witnessed revolution, demonstrations, manifestations, activist movements, explosions, a pandemic, and corruption of the political system; the director's view on this amalgam of misfortunes becomes an extension of his generation’s, a generation waiting, in suspension, for a miracle. In his desire to understand the relationship between an inner and an outer world, the filmmaker presents a story of contrasts, between the general and the personal, the public and the private, the old and the young, death and emigration, the free and the captive, the resilient and the desperate, drawing on a detailed perspective on certain historical events that we, as Europeans, know perhaps only superficially. Ultimately, the filmmaker's endeavor seeks to bring us to a point of awareness: when the young generation's catchphrase is “a plane or a coffin", how can one not be anxious in Beirut? (Carmen Lascoiu)
Cinematography Zakaria Jaber, Ahmad Al Trabolsi, Tariq Keblaoui
In ‘Rejeito,’ Brazilian filmmaker Pedro de Filippis melds together on-site, direct activism, an urgent cause and the cinematic reflection on the subject, this latter element usually arriving only later. Following a state councilor waging a frontal battle against official corruption, the film blossoms into a tonic and moving portrait of a community bent on resisting, defending its dignity and, above all, staying alive. The stakes are huge: faced with the chaotic economic development of a region at the mercy of a multinational mining company, these people are struggling less to keep their own homes from the prospects of unjustified expropriation – but to save millions of Brazilians from a dam that is growing weaker and threatens to collapse and destroy everything in its path. Nor would it be the first time: it has happened before. Given its political preoccupation, de Filippis’ film urges a better grounding in the reality and history of one's own community. Clearly opposed to the anti-social turn of the rapacious capitalist model, Rejeito takes the form of a testimony to the need for action and solidarity. (Victor Morozov)
Cinematography Pedro de Filippis
Editing Luiz Pretti
Screenplay Pedro de Filippis
Production Leonardo Mecchi, Bronte Stahl
Sound Daniel Nunes
Music Paulo Santos, Gustavo Cunha
Producing company Enquadramento Produções
Distributor company More Than
AUDIO: Portuguese
SUBTITLE: Romanian, English
awards and festivals
Festivals & Awards
Cinéma du Réel (France)
Hotdocs (Canada)
FICA - Festival Internacional de Cinema e Vídeo Ambiental (Brazil) -Best Director Award
A bientôt j'espère - Cinéma éphémère (France)
Festival Brésil en Mouvements (France)
CineEco (Portugal) - Prémio da Juventude Longa-metragem em língua portuguesa
Mostra CineBH (Brazil)
Panoramica (Sweden)
Rio de Janeiro Int'l Film Festival (Brazil)
Camden International Film Festival (USA)
Indie Memphis Film Festival (USA)
Terra di Tutti Film Festival (Italy)
Science New Wave Festival (USA)
IDFA - Best of Fests (The Netherlands)
Forumdoc.bh (Brazil)
a film adopted by
08
April,
Monday
Cinemateca Eforie
6:00 PM
75'
* Competition / Screening followed by a Q&A with the Producer
Bronte Stahl
Bronte Stahl
Bronte Stahl (1993) is a filmmaker from Westerly, RI, USA. He graduated from the European itinerant MFA program DocNomads and is an alumnus of the Flaherty Seminar Fellowship, IDFA Project Space, Eurodoc and Points North Fellowship. The films he directs including Puiet (2022), Terril (2019) and Lungs (2017) have premiered at festivals such as Venice Critics Week (Best Short Film), Rotterdam and DocLisboa, respectively. As a producer, he is compelled to elevate emerging international voices in non-fiction cinema. This work has been supported by the Sundance Documentary Fund, DocSociety US, British Film Institute, and LEF Foundation, among others. His first feature as a producer, Rejeito (2023) by Pedro de Filippis, premiered at Cinéma du Réel and screened at HotDocs, Camden, IDFA and many others. Currently he holds a Fulbright scholarship to Romania in the field of filmmaking.
10
April,
Wednesday
Cinema Union
6:00 PM
75'
* Competition /
Screening followed by a discussion with Olga Popescu - "Declic"
A herd of cows is slowly moving along. A grandfather is putting the community's fear of the infamous Bayraktar drones into words. A hulking car is circling the foothills of the mountains, across the hostile plains of the Caucasus. Filmmaker Daniel Kötter is working his way through the tangled threads of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. And he is doing it by cultivating a game of distances that is what makes cinema worth it: here, in close proximity, sitting with the locals at the same table, hidden in the corners of their apartments ; there, at a remove, lost in the vastness of the steppe. Evoking the films of one certain Abbas Kiarostami, Landshaft knows that it's all about the angle you look from – and that the camera lens is capable to both reveal in a provocative manner and to disorient us decidedly. After all, by intervening obliquely in the midst of a political and military conflict, Kötter is primarily on the side of the people caught in the middle: those we rarely listen to. But there's more to it than that: for, as the title may infer, in its interest for almost monumental shots of the surroundings, filmed over and over again, always the very same and still so different as they bend to the whims of the weather, Kötter’s film aspires to reveal an intimate poetics of the landscape. (Victor Morozov)
Cinematography Daniel Kötter
Editing Daniel Kötter
Screenplay Daniel Kötter
Production Daniel Kötter, Jana Cisar, Nune Hovhannisyan
Sound Armen Papyan, Luka Barajevic
Music Armen Papyan, Luka Barajevic
Distributor Syndicado
AUDIO: Armenian
SUBTITLE: Romanian, English
08
April,
Monday
Cinemateca Eforie
8:00 PM
96'
* Competition /
The director will be present for a Q&A after the screening
Daniel Kötter
Daniel Kötter
Daniel Kötter is an international filmmaker and theater director. His works alternate between different media and institutional contexts and combine experimental film techniques with performative and documentary elements. They have been shown worldwide at numerous film and video art festivals, in galleries, theaters, and concert halls. Visual research leads him again and again to the African continent and the Middle East.
09
April,
Tuesday
Cinema Elvire Popesco - Institutul Francez
8:30 PM
96'
* Competition /
The director will be present for a Q&A after the screening