‘God Between Us’ is a film about freedom as much as about the very limits of it. Questioning her own extended family's relationship with the Protestant religion, filmmaker Rebecca Hirneise transforms the space opened by the camera lens into one of encounter and debate. The result can only be contradictory: the discussions venture far, into psychological depths and intimate motivations – or not. Basing itself on one's relationship with God, the film draws concentric circles around the idea of faith, from simple curiosity to obtuse fanaticism directed against the opinions of others. A painting much familiar to Austria’s religious population perfectly describes this diversity of opinion: on the one side we see a wide open gate to a road full of people having fun, culminating in a disastrous fire; and, on the other side, a shy, hidden entrance leading to fulfilment in heaven. The filmmaker tries to find a path between these two alternatives that also suits her own convictions – and, at the same time, seeks to challenge her family members to an introspective gesture so as to reveal more of who they really are. (Victor Morozov)
Cinematography Tilmann Rödiger
Editing Florian Kecht
Screenplay Rebecca Hirneise, Philipp Diettrich
Production Ruth Beckermann
Sound Cristi Iorga
Cast Birgit Arnold, Conny Epple, Volker Epple, Rebecca Hirneise, Anette Kirschner, Reinhold Kirschner, Martha Kirschner, Otto Kirschner, Evmarie Klein, Hartmut Klein, Hanna Moser
Producing company Ruth Beckermann Filmproduktion
Distributor Austrian Films
AUDIO: German
SUBTITLE: Romanian, English
07
April,
Sunday
Cinema Union
6:00 PM
90'
The director will be present for a Q&A after the screening
Rebecca Hirneise
Rebecca Hirneise
Rebecca Hirneise was born and raised in Mühlacker, a small town in southern Germany and has been living and working in Vienna for many years. She studied Media Art at the University for Art and Design in Karlsruhe, as well as Directing and Screenwriting at the Vienna Film Academy. Her background also includes photography and experimental filmmaking.
The war launched on Ukraine has, more than ever before, brought to public attention the concentrationist universe that contemporary Russia is for a large part of its population, to that segment who refuse to sell their freedom of thought and action for a few crumbs from the leaders' table or even just in exchange for a peaceful existence. The protagonist in Agniya Galdanova's film, a queer artist who goes by the name of Gena Marvin, is undoubtedly part of this unruly population – she is, in fact, among its most spectacular representatives. From the provincial town of her birth, built on the site of a former gulag, to the heart of Moscow, the 21-year-old woman displays her body with mad courage, clad in surrealist creations and during imagined apocalyptic situations. Each such public performance, she hopes, will send a shockwave through the social, moral, and even aesthetic landscape of Putinist Russia. The driving force behind Gena's actions is not the desire to provoke, but that to have her existence acknowledged, however contrary it may be to the sensibilities in power. In the artist's eyes, this is worth the risk of the harshest repression. (Liri Alienor Chapelan)
Cinematography Ruslan Fedotov
Editing Vlad Fishez
Production Agniia Galdanova, Igor Myakotin
Sound Andrey Dergachev
Distributor Dogwoof Ltd, Submarine
AUDIO: Russian
SUBTITLE: Romanian, English
07
April,
Sunday
Cinemateca Eforie
5:30 PM
98'
The director will be present for a Q&A after the screening
Agniia Galdanova
Agniia Galdanova
Agniia Galdanova was born in Saint Petersburg in 1987. She studied Journalism and Film Directing. Her passion for non-fiction was stirred in 2016, upon meeting her future mentor Marina Razbezhkina at the DokLeipzig Festival.
14
April,
Sunday
Cinema Elvire Popesco - Institutul Francez
6:00 PM
98'
The director will be present for a Q&A after the screening
Agniia Galdanova
Agniia Galdanova
Agniia Galdanova was born in Saint Petersburg in 1987. She studied Journalism and Film Directing. Her passion for non-fiction was stirred in 2016, upon meeting her future mentor Marina Razbezhkina at the DokLeipzig Festival.
What do you do when you don't have any audiovisual archives to support a film dedicated to what is nothing other than a historical event – in this case, Casablanca’s 1981 popular uprising against rising food prices? But what about when, even worse, the very concept of such an archive is a taboo subject within your own family? Many would resign themselves to it. Like any self-respecting filmmaker, Asmae El Moudir knows that's not an option. For filmmaking is first and foremost about creating images – even in the most literal sense: making them from scratch, touching them before seeing them. On the plus side, the same family is home to a great craftsman: the director's father has transformed the family’s neighbourhood into a splendid diorama that pays close attention to all folds of reality. On the downside, this makes Zahra even angrier, her being the grandmother who was at the origin of the interdiction (repression? traditionalism? delusion?) and now a venerable hag ever so keen and able to terrorise her loved ones. For the filmmaker, ‘The Mother of All Lies’ is both an opportunity to heal certain wounds – the attempt to understand this woman is a passionate one – and to then open even deeper ones, that are particular to this plunge into dizzying intimacy. (Victor Morozov)
Cinematography Hatem Nechi
Editing Asmae El Moudir, with the precious advice of Nadia Ben Rachid
Screenplay Asmae El Moudir
Production Asmae El Moudir
Sound Design Michael Fawzy
Music Nass El Ghiwane
Sound Recordist Abdelaziz Ghasine
Colourist Minal Nabil
Set Design Mohamed El Moudir
First Assistant Director Amina Saadi
Producing company Insightfilms, Fig Leaf Studio
Distributor Autlook Filmsales
AUDIO: Arabic
SUBTITLE: Romanian, English
13
April,
Saturday
Cinemateca Eforie
3:30 PM
97'
14
April,
Sunday
Cinema Elvire Popesco - Institutul Francez
8:30 PM
97'
media gallery (5 images)
Lead for justice
Lead for justice
Ion Gnatiuc
2024, 52'
Republic of Moldova
AUDIO: Romanian
SUBTITLE: English
Republic of Moldova
Lead for justice delves into the personal and professional lives of several representatives of the justice system in the Republic of Moldova. The camera becomes a silent and attentive witness in their lives, managing to capture in a natural manner the way their daily routine unfolds: the journey to work; their interactions and discussions with colleagues and clients, the long and tiring meetings, as well as the challenges that most often remain unnoticed by the general public – sacrificing time spent with family, professional burnout, gaps in the system.
Six screens broadcasting in parallel, from different angles, a single event: the operation to rescue the migrants trapped on a sinking boat. Not so much a thirst for hyper-visibility as an attempt to confront us with the real duration of the situation, to render it to the viewer as stranger, more absurd, more unbearable. By bringing these six perspectives together, filmmaker Jonathan Schörnig turns the weapons that are the surveillance cameras against themselves: the camera's gaze, distant and procedural, becomes the unfalsifiable testimony of an imbalanced clash between the heroism of a few activist organizations and the anti-humanitarian measures taken by state bodies. The recordings here allow us to go beyond experiencing everything "as if we were there": they describe a veritable field of pure action, which has freed itself from any mediation and is reduced to raw facts. Not interested in individual destinies, the film sees in the fate of the collective of 104 souls a kind of bitter summary of the hypocrisy that is subjugating Europe today, culminating in these stranger than fiction images where a ship belonging to the Coast Guards ends up behaving just as if it were the enemy. (Victor Morozov)
Cinematography Jonathan Schörnig, Johannes Filous
Screenplay Adrian Then, Jonathan Schörnig
Production Uwe Nitschke, Adrian Then
Distributor UCM.ONE GmbH
AUDIO: English, German
SUBTITLE: Romanian, English
a film adopted by
14
April,
Sunday
Cinema Union
2:00 PM
93'
Screening followed by a discussion with Anca Matei - "Fundația Consiliul Național Român pentru Refugiați (CNRR)"
Central African Republic, France, Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Germany
It is usually the fictional film that is credited with the greatest ability for depicting the travails of a believer trying to extract, in vain, the meagerest reaction from a distant, mute, and deaf God. Elvis Sabin Ngaïbino's documentary evokes a hint of the darkness and violence of feeling in Bergman’s great films about the silence of God, but, here, the backdrop of a secular Europe where religion persists more as a cultural relic is replaced by a traditional African space, where the faith of the colonizer has merged with various guises of local mysticism into a strange and particularly enduring hybrid. This is the context in which Reine and Rodrigue, parents to three children, struggle on a day-to-day basis not only to make a living but to cope with and hide the disease that is eating away at them both: HIV. In this ordeal, the fiery, almost militant Catholicism they preach and profess is both a form of support – spiritually as well as financially – and the very burden suggested in the title, insofar as their illness remains associated in the minds of most with impurity and sin. Ngaïbino's camera looks at the daily struggle of his two protagonists with a kind of sacred terror, while never ignoring the moments of tenderness between them -- here actually is to be found the divine grace that they both so earnestly seek. (Liri Alienor Chapelan)
Cinematography Elvis Sabin Ngaïbino
Editing Léa Chatauret
Sound Christ Vance Show
Color grading Michael Derrosset
Sound Design Pierre Armand
Mix Fred Bielle
Music Beautemps Chérubin Agboko, Massimo Mariani
Producers Elvis Sabin Ngaïbino, Daniele Incalcaterra, Boris Lojkine (Makongo Films, Central African Republic)
Distributor company Andana Films
AUDIO: Sango, French
SUBTITLE: Romanian, English
awards and festivals
IDFA, Compétition Internationale, 2023
a film adopted by
09
April,
Tuesday
Cinema Union
9:00 PM
80'
14
April,
Sunday
Cinema Union
5:00 PM
80'
Screening followed by a discussion with Alina Dumitriu - "Sens pozitiv"
It is from the depths of the Cold War that comes this ‘Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat’ by Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimonprez, a film in which jazz, geopolitics and emancipation struggles against colonialism are woven together into a dizzying score. The documentary's merit is that it doesn't give artificial primacy to any of the themes; on the contrary – it shows how, in that era of profound social transformations, they were all simultaneously in the limelight, as had it an insidious plan. This is how great artists like Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone and Dizzy Gillespie could become pawns in the global promotion of the powers in Washington, and how, inevitably, their music could turn into an instrument of cultural propaganda. Sandwiched between the CIA and Nikita Khrushchev, the film focuses on the case of Patrice Lumumba: this charismatic young man quickly rises to the top of the newly independent Congolese state, only to begin – with an even greater speed – to annoy the world's great powers. His revolutionary ideas about the pan-African movement, as much as his fierce opposition to imperialist policies lead to an abrupt end to the political utopia. With this fabulous soundtrack, Grimonprez illuminates a scheme where everything is connected – just as he justly unearths everyone's share of responsibility in the grand picture of post-war history. (Victor Morozov)
Editing Rik Chaubet
Screenplay Johan Grimonprez
Production Daan Milius, Rémi Grellety, Katja Draaijer, Frank Hoeve
Sound Design Ranko Pauković
Color grading Blaise Jadoul
Producing company Warboys Films
Distributor company Mediawan Rights, Submarine
AUDIO: English, French, Dutch, Russian
SUBTITLE: Romanian, English
‘Our Body’ is an ambitious documentarian survey of the gynaecology ward in a Parisian hospital. In the hands of the ever so relevant Claire Simon, this investigation is the opposite of intrusive: as various women cross the threshold of the doctor’s office, a space of empathy, of sisterhood even, begins to form all around the camera. Simon’s film is more than a Wisemanian intervention seeking to reveal an institution’s functioning mechanism. Given the inevitable intimacy – few things are more precious and private than one’s own body – the image allows for a multifaceted perspective on femininity today and the ways in which it is defined or reinvents itself in contact with social norms and hard science. From births to gender reassignments, ‘Our Body’ is revelatory, illuminating a dimension of existence where men are at best a comforting presence, an accompaniment, a second-class character. Stepping herself in front of the camera, Claire Simon creates a relationship of equality between her and the female patients. Far from delivering moralising slogans, this is revealed as the minimal condition for the experience of filming to become a lucid form of therapy. (Victor Morozov)
Cinematography Claire Simon
Editing Luc Forveille
Production Kristina Larsen
Sound Flavia Cordey, Nathalie Vidal, Elias Boughedir
The Danish island of Mandø in the Wadden Sea is home to 27 inhabitants. While a storm is threatening their windy and weathered land, Gregers sets out with his dog to conduct research on the area. Gregers is much like a collective image of the islander who, over the course of hundreds of years, has learned to survive in the unfriendly environment, and, despite the threats posed by the weather, refuses to build a life elsewhere and hopes to find a wife to run his farm with. All the while, Mie celebrates his 100th birthday, and Niels, an avid birdwatcher, laments those winged creatures that are no longer visiting the island. Yet tourists continue to flock to the area, and the locals are happy to go about their daily lives on the island, contrary to climate change experts warning about the worsening and concerning weather changes of late. The portrait made to this small universe is enlivened by splendid images of the island’s scenery, unfolding as a place where the sea meets the winds and the skies, all perpetually in motion and in contact with the locals. The film’s idyllic grand picture is packed with comic, yet equally bleak situations, where the only alternative is to adapt to the environment and the response of this ecosystem becomes a consequence of our actions. (Carmen Lascoiu)
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"
Yousef Srouji's film is short, personal, and powerful, using materials that make up the very fabric of his childhood to probe the seemingly eternal conflict between Israel and Palestine. During the second Intifada in the early 2000s, the home-movies shot by Yousef's parents suddenly become politically charged, turning into unsettling documents of a family's efforts to protect their domestic universe from the ever-tightening noose of outside dangers. Yousef's mother becomes a symbol of the individual torn between, on the one hand, her family obligations and her own physical integrity and, on the other, her desire to document, and, possibly, to participate in the uprising of her people. Despite the pleas of the whole family to remain under shelter, the young woman seems unable to let go of her camera and is drawn irrevocably to the windows of the house, which show signs of bombing. Her relationship with her children, where the role of the documentarist sometimes precedes that of her figure as a mother, is a most provocative aspect of a film that is sadly more topical than ever. (Liri Alienor Chapelan)