2022 edition

BY NICOLA MAY, 2021 (IN THE UNITED STATES)

“CAUGHT (CAER) is a collaborative documentary using both observational and fictional filmmaking methods to express the struggles for recognition and justice of transgender women from South America working in the sex industry in New York City. The film is a collaboration between Nicola Mai and the Transgrediendo Intercultural Collective, a grassroots organization advocating for the rights of transgender migrant women from South America in Queens, New York. It is also a tribute to the work and legacy of Lorena Borjas, the mother of transgender women living in Queens, who was one of the first victims of COVID-19 in New York City in March 2020.”

CAER (CAUGHT) has been selected in several international festivals such as: the Jean Rouch Festival (2022), Outfest Fusion LGBTQ People of Color Film Festival 2021; Sheffield DocFest 2021 (UK competition).

ROMAIN MALAGNOUX TRIO

Accompanied by Sergio Barrenechea (percussions, voice) and Lasso (Peule flute, kaleme n’ goni, percussions).

For more information : https://lesfrontieresimaginaires.com/

BY DZHOVANI GOSPODINOV, 2020 (IN BULGARIA)

In keeping with an age-old Slavic pagan tradition – Kukeri – Vladi and his men transform themselves into giant, phantasmagorical beasts with costumes created from goat hair. These elaborate adornments are meant to ward off evil spirits for the coming year. A testament to the unique life and work of Vladi and her goats, Merak immerses us in a quiet Bulgarian community where the men are lovingly devoted to the Kukeri. Hauntingly beautiful, the film documents a methodical practice in the service of an ethereal world.

Dzhovani Gospodinov is a Bulgarian filmmaker who grew up in Luxembourg. His documentary practice explores performance and anthropological observation by focusing on the coexistence of humans and animals.

Merak has toured several festivals, including the 2021 Athens International Film and Video Festival, the 45th Norwegian Short Film Festival, the 12th Luxembourg City Film Festival, and the Odense International Film Festival.

BY WILMARC VAL, 2021 (HAITI)

When a Haitian voodoo priestess – called a Mambo – dies, it is up to her children to celebrate the deity she served. The time has come for the director’s mother, who is the daughter of the deceased priestess, to return to her native land to conduct the ritual in honor of her late mother. Between audio testimonies recorded on a cassette, capturing dances, and documentary study, Brave paints a portrait without artifice of a woman, mother of a family, but also daughter of another woman. A portrait of uprootedness, of the maternal bond, and of the duality between influences and traditions.

Wilmarc Val, the director, has always been interested in cinema and the role of images in the construction of a personal narrative. He draws on themes of time, origins and the invisible.

Brave has been presented at numerous festivals, such as the International Documentary Film Festival of the Amazon Caribbean, the Festival dei Popoli, and Cinébanlieue.

BY THE ASSOCIATION OF KICHWA WOMEN MIDWIVES OF THE UPPER NAPO AMUPAKIN, 2019 (ÉQUATEUR)

Alongside the new generations of AMUPAKIN, we meet the Kichwa women leaders of Alto Nappo and are graciously invited to observe their midwifery practices. These indigenous women’s knowledge of medicine and shamanism, so often challenged by colonial beliefs, has benefited expectant mothers in their community and beyond for centuries, and they play a prominent role in Mothers of the Rainforest. As a collective effort of resistance by the Kichwas of the Amazon, this film is a beautiful statement of identity and shared ritual forms.

The film was directed by Patricia Bermúdez of AMUPAKIN, the association of Kichwa midwives of Alto Napo, which is dedicated to the preservation of indigenous knowledge and traditional practices for the well-being of mothers and children.

BY MAIJA BLÅFIELD, 2019 (SOUTH KOREA)

A true filmic mise en abyme, this film, narrated by North Koreans living in South Korea, bears witness to the imaginations developed by these individuals about the West while they were still living in North Korea and illegally viewing films from abroad. These testimonies richly illustrate the porosity that develops between reality and fiction in the thinking of individuals living under a regime of censorship. A favorite of the FIFEQ.

Finnish director Maija Blåfield is interested in contemporary art, and her films, including Saving the World and Golden Age, have been shown in various galleries and museums. She has her own film production company, Häivekuva.

The Fantastic has been screened at over 40 festivals, including Hot Docs and Vision du Réel, and has won 10 awards.

BY JAVIER FERNÁNDEZ VÁZQUEZ, 2019 (EQUATORIAL GUINEA)

1904. Ësáasi Eweera, a last chief of the Bubi people of Equatorial Guinea, dies three days after being detained by Spanish colonial guards. This moving film bears witness to the Spanish colonial past in Equatorial Guinea by placing archival footage in dialogue with indigenous oral histories and poignant testimonials. The new form of narration used in this work allows for a reflection on memory, the use of archives and colonial violence.

Javier Fernández Vázquez is a filmmaker, anthropologist and researcher in visual culture. He is particularly interested in issues related to memory and colonialism. A Storm was coming is his first solo feature film.

A Storm was coming has been presented at the Berlinale, the Festival Europe around Europe, DocLisboa, the International Film Festival of Cartagena, DokuFest, and many others.

BY MARY MENIE MARK, 2020 (CANADA)

An elder reflects on the changing ways of her people and questions the individualism that she sees as characteristic of modernity. Inniun ueshkat mak anutshish is a sharing of memories between mother and daughter, through old photos and stories that transpire in the fabric of the screen. With revealing subtlety, the film comments on the nuanced changes in Innu social life through the materiality of the contemporary home.

Director Mary Mark was born in Pakuashipi and is an active member of her community, working in the field of maternal and child health. Inniun ueshkat mak anutshish is her first film, produced in collaboration with Wapikoni Mobile.

This film has been shown at festivals such as the Montreal International Film Festival, the 27th Red National International, imagineNATIVE, and the 46th American Indian Film Festival.

BY KAILA BOLTON, 2020 (CANADA)

Therese, in her home buried with objects, carries out a work of decluttering, which is as much material as therapeutic. It is easy to get attached to this protagonist, who presents her intimacy and opens up about her life with lightness and humor. Refreshing, this short film offers a frank and warm look at marginality and mental disorders.

Director Kaila Bolton completed a Master’s degree in Visual Anthropology at the University of Aarhus in Denmark after obtaining a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology at McGill University.

This engaging short film has been screened at several festivals including the FIN Atlantic International Film Festival in Halifax, Ethnofest: Athens Ethnographic Film Festival in Athens, Charlottetown Film Festival and Her International Film Festival in Ireland.

BY VIV LI, 2021 (CHINA AND BELGIUM)

Viv Li, who lives abroad for her studies, visits her family in her native China. There she spends simple moments, often marked by boredom. This film, which reflects the increasing alienation of the director from her family and her home environment as much as that of the Euro-American population from China, is striking for its intimacy, its lightness, but also for its humor.

Viv Li, the director and protagonist of this short film, had a career in comedy in the UK and China before turning to film production.

The film I Don’t Feel at Home Anywhere Anymore, which she made as part of her Master’s degree, has been screened at 9 festivals around the world including the IDFA in Amsterdam, the Beijing International Short Film Festival and the Encounters International Documentary Film Festival in Cape Town.

BY ARIEL ST-LOUIS LAMOUREUX, 2022

An intimate encounter of Franco-Quebecois, Innu and Zapotec women through the lens of their respective textile craft practices. This film, characterized by a great gentleness, weaves a multicultural dialogue about tradition, manual work and the female experience.

The director of Entremailles, Ariel St-Louis Lamoureux, completed a Master’s degree in film at the Université de Montréal. She co-directed the documentary Lights Above Water in 2016 before directing Interwoven.

BY CRISTINA HANES, ARYA ROTHE, ISABELLA RINALDI, 2020

A Rifle and a Bag is a beautifully observed film about Somi and her husband who, after a decade of fighting with the Naxalites – a communist guerrilla group fighting for the rights of India’s indigenous communities – deserted the movement and surrendered to the police. Since then, the couple has struggled to forge a new identity, as individuals and as a family, and to navigate the Indian bureaucracy. This beautiful ethnographic film presents their story, Somi’s story, in a touching, motherly and deeply human way.

The film is a production of the NoCut Film Collective, founded in 2016 by Christina Hanes, Arya Rothe, and Isabella Rinaldi, who envision filmmaking as a collaborative, cross-cultural endeavor.

This ethnographic film has been screened at fourteen international festivals, including Visions du Réel of Nyon, the International Film Festival Rotterdam and DokuBaku in Azerbaijan.

BY MYLEINE GUIARD-SCHMID, 2021

“You will give birth in pain”. Why? Are there no other ways? Other stories? Birth should not always rhyme with suffering. Histoires d’entrejambes transmits a new imaginary: that of women who reclaim their bodies and their work. Through a soft and pastel aesthetic, this stop motion documentary offers us another vision of childbirth. A vision that puts women back at the center of the process; their concerns, their desires and their pleasure becoming the catalysts of a moment that should finally belong to them.

Graduated from INA as a camera operator, self-taught director Myleine Guiard-Schmid undertook an internship in animation cinema at Graphoui workshops in Brussels. Between 2018 and 2020, she worked from her studio in Burgundy on her first documentary short film project in animation.

Histoires d’entrejambes was presented at IDFA, Escales documentaires, the professional meetings of the États généraux du film documentaire de Lussas and the Montreal Feminist Film Festival, among others.

BY SARRA EL-ABED, 2020 (IN TUNISIA)

Tunis, November 2019. On the eve of the presidential elections, a group of women are gathered in a hair salon. A feminine sanctuary, the salon becomes a public square reflecting the country’s political turmoil. With an intimate, humorous and touching look, this short film brings together the expectations, beliefs and convictions of these women, for whom the elections present important issues

The director, Sarra El Abed, completed her studies in directing at UQAM in 2018, recipient of the Best Fiction Award. Y’a pas d’heure pour les femmes is her 4th film and first short documentary.

The film was notably presented in Clermont-Ferrand, Dok Leipzig and Palm Springs in competition, and won several awards, including the Best Canadian Short Film Award at Hot Docs and the FIPRESCI Award at Regard.

BY ALISI TELENGUT, 2020 (CANADA, GERMANY)

A tribute to Mongolian and Siberian animistic beliefs, The Fourfold is a splendid immersion in the indigenous myths surrounding the Ovoos, shamanic cairns used for offerings to non-human materialities. The film honors indigenous Mongolian and Siberian perspectives in a breathtaking blast of color and lilting textures.

Alisi Telengut is a Canadian filmmaker of Mongolian origin. Her work has received international recognition and has been screened at festivals such as Sundance (USA), TIFF (Canada) and the Canadian Cultural Centre of the Canadian Embassy (France).

The Fourfold has been selected for several international festivals, such as Sundance, ImagineNATIVE Film and Medias Arts Festival, FIFA, and Sjón International Anthropological Film Festival. The film was also nominated for Best Animated Short at the Canadian Screen Awards and won the Iris Award for Best Animated Short at the 22nd Prix du cinéma québécois.

BY DAVID MARINO, 2020 (COSTA RICA)

A sensory immersion in the heart of lush nature, Talamanca documents the daily life of Justo, a Bribri farmer, father and adventurer – an indigenous people located in the Cordillera de Talamanca in Costa Rica. From this poetic and intimate short film, reality takes on another dimension, where the silences and moments of life become strikingly beautiful and sensitive, while offering a reflection on environmental conservation.

Davide Marino is an anthropologist and filmmaker who captures the wonders of the real and the everyday through the cinematic tool. He produced this film as part of his doctoral research in visual anthropology at the University of Manchester’s Granada Centre.

Talamanca has been screened in numerous festivals since 2020, such as the Screen Culture International Film Festival, the Beyond Film Festival Climate Change, and the Mimesis Documentary Festival, and has won 4 awards including a special mention at the Muestra de Antropología Audiovisual de Madrid.

BY JOKE OLTHAAR, 2021 (SLOVENIA)

With his splendid visual shots, Berg allows the filmic experience of the sublime. We find ourselves immersed in the Slovenian mountains, which are presented to us through the prism of the expedition adventures and subjectivities of three hikers. Berg, as director Joke Olthaar says, is not a film to watch, but to experience, and one is easily swept away by the beauty and immensity of the landscape.

Joke Olthaar, who loves hiking in the mountains, has directed several plays about nature, a subject that fascinates her. The Dutchwoman has directed a musical documentary Here is Harry Merry, which was a big hit at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam.

Berg has been featured in 11 festivals around the world, including the International Film Festival in Rotterdam, FIDBA in Argentina, the Ulju Mountain Film Festival in South Korea, and many others.

BY LO THIVOLLE ET OUHAIB MORTADA, 2020 (IN MAROC)

In Oujda, Morocco, there is a forest populated by migrants. In this forest, an ethnographer tries to meet them, but in the darkness of the forest, he meets only his own shadows. An intriguing and deeply reflective film ethnographic essay, La Forêt is a poetic short film that explores the impossibility of filming the Other and, as such, the ethics of anthropology and the act of filming reality.

Thivolle Lo, a filmmaker based in France, has directed more than 14 films in his career, including La nuit illumine la nuit (2017) and J’ai des ombres (2010).

La Forêt was screened at the 22nd Festival des Cinémas Différents et Expérimentaux in Paris in 2020.

BY ISABELLE INGOLD AND VIVIANNE PERELMUTER, 2020 (IRAN)

This disturbing and extremely touching film recounts the loneliness, anguish and lost hopes of a 20-year-old asylum seeker, Shahin, who emigrated from Iran to England. Her asylum story, juxtaposed with images from security cameras in different parts of the world, is transmitted through fragments of text messages and telephone conversations with her family, as well as through the re-enactment, played by Shahin himself-even the questionnaire of his immigration officer.

Filmmakers Isabelle Ingold and Vivianne Perelmuter studied at the French film school La Fémis and have directed and written various films since their graduation. They directed the film Elsewhere Everywhere in collaboration with the protagonist Shahin Parsa, who took the direction of this film as an opportunity to reclaim his migration experience.

The film has toured thirteen film festivals, including the Rotterdam International Film Festival, FIFF Namur and the Créteil International Women’s Film Festival.

BY THE BEDOUIN COMMUNITY OF SATEH AL-BAHAR/WAPIKONIE MOBILE, 2021 (PALESTINE)

A day – from dawn to dusk – in the lives of the inhabitants of the Bedouin community of Sateh al-Bahar in the occupied West Bank. The Bedouin community of Sateh al-Bahar has 18 families and 83 inhabitants. The name of the community is based on the fact that it is below sea level. Through this incursion without words within this community, the joyful rhythm of everyday life is revealed through vivid and poetic images.

BY LA ESCUELA DE CINE Y COMUNICACIÓN MAPUCE DEL AYJA REWE BUDI, 2021 (CHILE)

BY LUKE GLEESON, 2021 (IN CANADA)

Between 1960 and 1961, the province of British Columbia, then led by Premier W.A.C. Bennett, underwent a series of nationalizations to create provincial “Crown corporations”. This initiative included the creation of what is now known as BC Hydro. In 1968, BC Hydro completed the construction of the W.A.C BennettDam Dam and began flooding the Rocky Mountain Trench in northern British Columbia, Canada. The resulting flooding has had a significant impact on the SayKeh Dene people who have lived in this area since time immemorial. DƏNE Y’INJETL is narrated, from the perspective of the Tsay Keh Dene Nation and its members, of the events that took place before and after the flood. Considered by many critics to be a vain provincial project, the development of the dam was advanced and completed earlier than expected, without worrying about the impacts that would result and that the natural environment and Tsay Keh Dene would soon face.

DƏNE Y’INJETL | The Scattering of Man has been selected at several international festivals such as: Rencontres internationales du documentaire à Montréal, RIDM (2021); DOXA Documentary Film Festival (2022), Trento Film Festival (2022).