Competitive sections
O FRÍO / THE COLD
PABLO DOPAZO – 2024 / SPAIN (GALICIA)
O FRÍO / THE COLD
PABLO DOPAZO – 2024 / SPAIN (GALICIA)
Chema works in a food market in a small town in north-western Spain. His day starts early; he carries orders, hauls crates of ice and fish, transports packets of seafood. After a hard day’s work, he returns home. But this afternoon he receives a call that disrupts his normal life; it’s the past coming back.
LEMON TREE / LEMON TREE
RACHEL WALDEN – 2023 / EEUU
LEMON TREE / LEMON TREE
RACHEL WALDEN – 2023 / EEUU
At a Halloween carnival, a young father steals a magician’s rabbit to impress his ten year old son. The thrill of the petty theft quickly dissolves into reality when the young boy is tasked with getting himself, his father, and his new pet home safe.
L’ÉTÉ DES CHALEURS / THE SUMMER OF HEAT
MARIE-PIER DUPUIS – 2023 / CANADA
L’ÉTÉ DES CHALEURS / THE SUMMER OF HEAT
MARIE-PIER DUPUIS – 2023 / CANADA
A hot summer day. A half-unpacked house. A mother who needs room to breathe, and a child who needs space to exist. As the afternoon heat turns oppressive, time seems to move entirely differently for each person.
3 MWh
MARIE-MAGDALENA KOCHOVÁ – 2024 / CZECH REPUBLIC
3 MWh
MARIE-MAGDALENA KOCHOVÁ – 2024 / CZECH REPUBLIC
A nuclear power plant worker obsessed with counting has set a maximum limit on how much electricity he wants to consume. The energy that should have lasted him for the rest of his life is slowly running out, forcing him to decide on its final use. 3 MWh is a film poem about degrowth and shows what it would look like if man stopped putting themselves at the centre of nature.
IF YOU ARE HAPPY / IF YOU ARE HAPPY
PHOEBE ARNSTEIN – 2023 / UNITED KINGDOM
IF YOU ARE HAPPY / IF YOU ARE HAPPY
PHOEBE ARNSTEIN – 2023 / UNITED KINGDOM
A woman struggles with the pressures of motherhood and uses a childish game at a local baby group to vent her fury, sparking an unexpected chain reaction.
EL SOLDAO / EL SOLDAO
ALEJANDRO CABRERA – 2023 / SPAIN
EL SOLDAO / EL SOLDAO
ALEJANDRO CABRERA – 2023 / SPAIN
A portrait of Francisco, an Andalusian emigrant, who returns to his hometown in Córdoba every year. This time, he finds the family home empty since his mother passed away. An intimate and personal story that explores rural depopulation while attempting to discover how places that now only exist within us shape who we are.
AVEC L’HUMANITÉ QUI CONVIENT / WITH ALL DUE HUMANITY
KACPER CHECINSKI – 2023 / FRANCE
AVEC L’HUMANITÉ QUI CONVIENT / WITH ALL DUE HUMANITY
KACPER CHECINSKI – 2023 / FRANCE
En una oficina de desempleo en plena reestructuración, Hélène, la subdirectora, recibe un correo electrónico alarmante de una desempleada desesperada. Esta última amenaza con quitarse la vida en las instalaciones de la agencia. Con la ayuda de su equipo, Hélène intentará desentrañar los disfuncionamientos internos que originaron el problema para impedir lo irreparable. El tiempo apremia.
PREOPERATIONAL MODEL / PREOPERATIONAL MODEL
PHILIP ULLMAN – 2024 / PAÍSES BAIXOS
PREOPERATIONAL MODEL / PREOPERATIONAL MODEL
PHILIP ULLMAN – 2024 / PAÍSES BAIXOS
In Preoperational Model, anthropomorphic princess Sophie and her maid Jessica prepare for a new day in the royal court. Sophie’s struggle to play her role propels the two protagonists forward and backward in time, through worlds and identities to find a way to live together.
ET SI LE SOLEIL PLONGEAIT DANS L’OCÉAN DE NUES / IF THE SUN DROWNED INTO AN OCEAN OF CLOUDS
WISSAM CHARAF – 2023 / FRANCE, LEBANON
ET SI LE SOLEIL PLONGEAIT DANS L’OCÉAN DE NUES / IF THE SUN DROWNED INTO AN OCEAN OF CLOUDS
WISSAM CHARAF – 2023 / FRANCE, LEBANON
Beirut, Lebanon. On the waterfront’s construction site, security agent Raed must prevent passing-by walkers from accessing the seaside. Yet as the horizon becomes each day more stifled by the construction, Raed makes peculiar encounters — mere dreams, or symbols of his desires?
FRIALDAD / COLDNESS
ANDREA SÁNCHEZ – 2024 / SPAIN, ANDORRA
FRIALDAD / COLDNESS
ANDREA SÁNCHEZ – 2024 / SPAIN, ANDORRA
Can a country that is also a huge vacation resort become the ideal setting for a horror story? When the avenues empty out and the commercial fervor subsides, something stirs in the depths of Andorra.
OBRAZA / RESENTMENT
GLEB OSATINSKI – 2024 / LITHUANIA, UNITED STATES
OBRAZA / RESENTMENT
GLEB OSATINSKI – 2024 / LITHUANIA, UNITED STATES
Like any teenager, 17-year-old Yasha is rebelling against authority, but in 1990’s Soviet Ukraine some of the opposing forces are more dangerous than others. When Yasha hits his breaking point, raw impulses propel him to the precipice of irreparable harm.
UN TROU DANS LA POITRINE / A CRAB IN THE POOL
ALEXANDRA MYOTTE, JEAN-SÉBASTIEN HAMEL – 2023 / CANADA
UN TROU DANS LA POITRINE / A CRAB IN THE POOL
ALEXANDRA MYOTTE, JEAN-SÉBASTIEN HAMEL – 2023 / CANADA
In a run-down neighbourhood, Zoe and her little brother Theo are left to fend for themselves. A young adolescent, Zoe is a ball of anger haunted by an intimate terror. Theo, still a child, flees reality into a fantastical world. During a scorching summer day, the two children will have to burst the abscess of their relationship so as not to lose each other.
IN THE GARDEN OF TULIPS / IN THE GARDEN OF TULIPS
JULIA ELIHU – 2023 / UNITED STATES
IN THE GARDEN OF TULIPS / IN THE GARDEN OF TULIPS
JULIA ELIHU – 2023 / UNITED STATES
At the height of the Iran-Iraq war, Caroline takes a final car ride with her father to the Iranian countryside.
RUÍDO DA PELE / UNFAMILIAR SKIN
GUSTAVO MILAN – 2023 / BRAZIL
RUÍDO DA PELE / UNFAMILIAR SKIN
GUSTAVO MILAN – 2023 / BRAZIL
During easter holiday, the intimate relationship between a 12-year-old boy and his mother comes to an end when the boy experiences his first sexual awakening.
HABITAR / HABITAR
ANXOS FAZÁNS – 2023 / SPAIN (GALICIA)
HABITAR / HABITAR
ANXOS FAZÁNS – 2023 / SPAIN (GALICIA)
What is home? Can a body become a shelter? This film tries to answer these questions about the construction of our identities through the intimate portraits of transgender and non-binary people from Galicia.
SAAB / SAAB
LIISBETH KALA – 2023 / ESTONIA
SAAB / SAAB
LIISBETH KALA – 2023 / ESTONIA
Saab investigates the aesthetics of boredom and states of slowness in the context of everyday poetics. What is it like to capture feelings and states of being on camera? What happens when so little is said and so much is felt?
THE MIRACLE / THE MIRACLE
NIENKE DEUTZ – 2023 / BELGIUM, FRANCE, NETHERLANDS
THE MIRACLE / THE MIRACLE
NIENKE DEUTZ – 2023 / BELGIUM, FRANCE, NETHERLANDS
The Miracle, a place where the sun always shines, with endless opportunities to relax and food in abundance. But how do you relate to a place that constantly confronts you with the things you don’t have?
HABLO DĖSNIS / HUBBLE’S LAW
ARNAS BALČIŪNAS – 2023 / LITHUANIA
HABLO DĖSNIS / HUBBLE’S LAW
ARNAS BALČIŪNAS – 2023 / LITHUANIA
A mute guy struggles to fit in at a construction site. Tensions rise among the workers when a colleague gets badly injured.
FAIRE UN ENFANT / MAKING BABIES
ERICK KAMALA – 2023 / CANADA
FAIRE UN ENFANT / MAKING BABIES
ERICK KAMALA – 2023 / CANADA
After many years together, a couple decides to have a baby. Throughout their relentless efforts, the partners try to maintain their love and unity. Making Babies is a minimalist comedy drama that takes a bittersweet look at a couple’s life, with its doubts, its challenges and its resilience.
AUNQUE ES DE NOCHE / EVENT THOUGHT IT’S NIGHT
GUILLERMO GARCÍA LÓPEZ – 2023 / SPAIN, FRANCE
AUNQUE ES DE NOCHE / EVENT THOUGHT IT’S NIGHT
GUILLERMO GARCÍA LÓPEZ – 2023 / SPAIN, FRANCE
La Cañada, Europe’s largest slum on the outskirts of Madrid, has been without electricity for over a year. In the firelight, among Roma legends of a possible future, Toni, a 13-year-old boy, discovers that his best friend Nasser is leaving forever.
SCIARABALLA / SCIARABALLA
MINO CAPUANO – 2023 / ITALY
SCIARABALLA / SCIARABALLA
MINO CAPUANO – 2023 / ITALY
Dario, recently retired, suffers from inexplicable crying fits. One day he decides to visit his son Mimmo, who has just started working away from home. Mimmo, embarrassed by the unexpected intrusion, avoids the meeting. Dario then spends the day with Clara and Mirco, Mimmo’s roommates. At the end of the day, father and son meet and discuss their common fear of the future.
CROSS MY HEART AND HOPE TO DIE / CROSS MY HEART AND HOPE TO DIE
SAM MANACSA – 2023 / PHILIPPINES
CROSS MY HEART AND HOPE TO DIE / CROSS MY HEART AND HOPE TO DIE
SAM MANACSA – 2023 / PHILIPPINES
Mila struggles as she remains unpaid at work and a love interest becomes a source of comfort through his constant phone calls. But a promise of hope may also lead to tragedy and sad love songs.
IL COMPLEANNO DI ENRICO / THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
FRANCESCO SOSSAI – 2023 / FRANCE, GERMANY
IL COMPLEANNO DI ENRICO / THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
FRANCESCO SOSSAI – 2023 / FRANCE, GERMANY
December 1999. I remember that, amidst the Millennium Bug anxiety, I went to the birthday of Enrico, a kid who lived with his family in an old and isolated farmhouse.
WANDER TO WONDER / WANDER TO WONDER
NINA GANTZ – 2023 / NETHERLANDS, FRANCE, BELGIUM
WANDER TO WONDER / WANDER TO WONDER
NINA GANTZ – 2023 / NETHERLANDS, FRANCE, BELGIUM
Mary, Billybud and Fumbleton are three miniature, human actors who perform in an eighties kids TV series called Wander to Wonder. After the creator of the series has died, they are left alone in the studio. With their slowly decaying costumes and growing hunger, they continue to make increasingly strange episodes for their fans.
PLATÓNICO, PLATÓNICA / PLATONIST
XACIO BAÑO – 2024 / SPAIN (GALICIA)
PLATÓNICO, PLATÓNICA / PLATONIST
XACIO BAÑO – 2024 / SPAIN (GALICIA)
Our relationship with the creation of images starts with love: for a moment, for a person, for a landscape, for an emotional state. With their multiplication, the reasons why we make them more and more diffuse. To be rather than to be. We are at a historical and evolutionary crossroads. Today we can no longer trust our eyes. With the advent of Artificial Intelligence, we must begin to doubt everything. “Platonist” is an audiovisual essay about images, love, and its truth. Because without love there is no image.
SCHLAFSAND / EYE BOOGER
ELIAS BÖTTICHER – 2024 / SWITZERLAND
SCHLAFSAND / EYE BOOGER
ELIAS BÖTTICHER – 2024 / SWITZERLAND
A journey from a dying Swiss glacier to the city, deep into an open-cast mine where the coal excavators rattle incessantly.
KEYHOLE / KEYHOLE
JURI KRUTII – 2023 / ESTONIA
KEYHOLE / KEYHOLE
JURI KRUTII – 2023 / ESTONIA
As young Anastassia matures and begins making decisions for herself, the wishes of her passionate mother are left behind. Amongst such disagreements, a more serious issue rises to change everything. The story shines a light on two distant memories of the same traumatic experience, and one family’s journey through a loving relationship to an unexpected tragedy, with the hope that they must create for themselves to guide them forward through grief.
LA GRANDE ARCHE / THE GREAT ARC
CAMILLE AUTHOUART – 2023 / FRANCE
LA GRANDE ARCHE / THE GREAT ARC
CAMILLE AUTHOUART – 2023 / FRANCE
With nearly 70 monumental works of art scattered throughout the district, La Défense, Paris, is Europe’s largest open-air museum. Sitting between the legs of the gigantic Red Spider, I wonder how I didn’t notice them before.
2720 / 2720
BASIL DA CUNHA – 2023 / PORTUGAL, SWITZERLAND
2720 / 2720
BASIL DA CUNHA – 2023 / PORTUGAL, SWITZERLAND
A clandestine neighbourhood in Lisbon wakes up to the news of a violent police raid, which took place the night before. Camila, a 7-year-old girl, goes to search of her brother. She’s worried. Her brother is missing. At the same time, Jysone is in a hurry: after 6 years in jail and 5 weeks free, Jysone has finally found work and knows he can’t be late. He is looking for someone who can give him a ride as he walks through the alleys of the neighbourhood, where he comes across friends and acquaintances, which delay him even more. The fate of our two protagonists will end up intersecting in the worst possible way.
