Tuesday, November 25, 2014

16th Madurai Film Festival : International Films

16th Madurai Film Festival 2014: International films

Documentaries

2) The Starfish Throwers
Dir: Jesse Roesler; 83 min; English; USA; 2014
A five-star chef, a twelve year old girl, and a retired schoolteacher discover how their individual efforts to feed the poor ignite a movement in the fight against hunger.
6) The Backstage of tradition
Dir: Sarah Yona Zweig; 46:49 min; English; Germany
Sreehari is a young actor in the Kutiyattam tradition, the last remnant of Indian drama. Backstage, in the secular theatre constructed by his parents outside the temple walls, Sreehari witnesses the paradox of tradition – in order to keep a tradition alive, one has to change it.
7) Bintou
Dir: Simone Catharina Gaul; 64 min; French; Germany
Bintou is from Burkina Faso. She dreams of becoming a famous dressmaker. Her life turns upside down when she has to take responsibility for her daughter who has been living in a children’s home.
8) La parka
Dir: Gabriel Serra; 29 min; Spanish; Mexico; 2013
Efrain, known as the Reaper, has worked at a slaughterhouse for 25 years. We will discover his deep relationship with death and his struggle to live.
16) The Safest Nuclear Power Station in the World
Dir: Helena Hufnagel; 28 min; German; Austria, Germany; 2012
Life in and around a nuclear power plant in Zwentendorf, Austria, which has never been operational.
46) A Tres Pesos
Dir: Rosalie Hubl; 19:59 min; Spanish; Mexico; 2013
The film narrates an ordinary day in the subway of Mexico City. It is a portrait of this mega-city and the loneliness of the 21st century.

Short films

54) A Promised Rose Garden
Dir: Lisa Violetta Gab; 33 min; Vietnamese, German; Germany; 2014
Two Vietnamese couples in Berlin search for support, comfort and above all, a home. Fierce fights about territory between the cigarette dealers unsettle their lives.
55) At the Door
Dir: Miriam Bliese; 5 min; German; Germany; 2013
A man comes to pick up his son at his ex-wife’s house. This Saturday the son takes longer to come, and the man and woman start to talk again.
59) Beat, Beat, Beat
Dir: Christin Freitag; 29:50 min; German; Germany; 2013
Late summer in Berli. Friends ridicule outsider Jakob. Friend Fabian confronts his friends, perhaps too late.
60) Border Patrol
Dir: Peter Baumann; 14:43 min; German; Germany; 2013
A young border policeman is anxious to finish work so that he can watch the football game against Austria. Then he discovers a suicide victim.
61A) Brother
Dir: Jarek Duda; 28 min; German; Germany; 2014
A young man wants to get out of the class of the socially deprived. He longs for social recognition and wants loyalty.
62) Faint
Dir: Natalie Plaskura; 5:58 min; No dialogue; Germany; 2014
Time stands still, the moments are everlasting. The nameless characters turn into numb figures, surfacing and disappearing like mental tatters.
63) Devil May Care
Dir: Volker Heymann; 2:10 min; English; Germany; 2014
An ironical musical clip about how the US is only too willing to solve political conflicts by military means, while global warming is being driven further on.
66) Not Funny!
Dir: Katharina Woll; 43 seconds; German; Germany; 2014; Social Spot
Homophobia is not fuuny. Everything else is!
67) Omul (Human)
Dir: Brigitte Drodtloff; 10:50 min; Romanian; Germany; 2014
He is a silent man, he walks the streets watching. He gives away goods for free.
72) Side Effects
Dir: Dustin Loose; 8:30 min; German; Germany; 2014
An ambitious scientist feels pretty close to finding a cure for malaria. But the subsidies get cancelled and his last chance is his former lover who is now in charge of the budget at one of the leading pharmaceutical companies.
77) The Heat
Dir: Bartosz Kruhlik; 23:30 min; Polish; Poland; 2013
Disturbing dark drama, young  male sexuality and a devastating attack.
78a) Bear Mountain
Dir: Vagenak Balayan; 22 min; Armenian; Armenia; 2014
Before her a death of old age, Anush orders her husband to cremate her and scatter her ashes,  and not to bury her as is the custom.
79) We are outside playing in the garden
Dir: Friederike Hoppe; 10 min; German; Germany; 2013
This is a surreal film, which is both light and disturbing. The indoor garden is a place where people can apply to go on holidays from their everyday life.
82) A Good Story
Dir: Martin-Christopher Bode; 20 min; German; Germany; 2013
When Helga Landowsky discovers a broken jug in an antique store near the German-Polish border she has to get it. The antiquarian will only give it to her when she tells her story with the jug.
83) The Last Will
Dir: Dustin Loose; 20:40 min; German; Germany; 2014
To fulfill the last wish of his mother, Jakob Adler needs to meet his biological father who is an inmate at a forensic psychiatric hospital.
86) Coming Out
Dir: Gina Wenzel; 9:21 min; German; Germany; 2014
A satirical drama about the “coming out” of a young girl to her family, where nothing goes as planned.
91) Life: Patented
Dir: Arne v. Nostitz-Rieneck; 1:35 min; No dialogue; Germany; 2014
Human life, birth and procreation has a very different meaning ruled by corporations.
98) In Between
Dir: Jannis Lenz; 24:30 min; German; Austria; 2014
Max has been studying in Frankfurt for some time when a family event brings him back home to Vienna’s outskirts. A short meeting with old friends turns into an all-nighter: drinking beer in the skate park, etc. – a night between youthful memories and hardcore grown-up stuff.
105) Call Her Lotte!
Dir: Annakathrin Wetzel; 15 min; Germany; 2014
A film about the friendship between Jewish and German girls during the Nazi dictatorship.
96) With Best Regards
Dir: Bernhard Wenger; 4:20; German; Austria; 2013
Again the admired Mr. Dreamy parks in front of the CafĂ©. And again the shy waitress doesn’t dare to go out and talk to him. But her friend has an idea of who she can get to know this guy.
101) Ants Pact
Dir: Benjamin Martins; 20 min; German; Germany; 2014
Paul is 16 years old and earns his money working the street. Fleeting encounters shape his daily routine. However, a gang of teenagers who attack him shake the boundaries he has built between reality and his imagination.
75) Taweez – The Talisman Writer
Dir: Alik Hakim; 20 min; Pashto; Afghanistan, Germany; 2014
An old talisman-writer who earns his money with prophecy and has already lost hope for acknowledgement in life but he suddenly finds himself as a messiah as a result of rumours in his village.

Animation/experiment/music video/children’s films

21) Catcher
Dir: Fabian Koppenhofer; 5 min; Germany; 2014
The catcher stands on a precipice trying to prevent children from falling in the abyss. At the end he has to go on his own way.
22) Hermes & Aphrodite
Dir: Gregor Zootzky; 9:55 min; Germany; 2013
What happens if you do not know if you are a boy or a girl. The story of a child who begins to discover his true identity in puberty.
23) Torturing
Dir: Rebacca Blocher; 4:03 min; Germany; 2013
This film is based on a poem by Etta Streicher. It is concerned with not speaking out, keeping your feet still or actually biting the bullet and achieving inner freedom.
26) Me Tube: August Sings Carmen Habanera
Dir: Daniel Moshel; 4 min; English; Germany; 2014
George Bizet’s Habanera from ‘Carmen’ has been reinterpreted for MeTube and enhanced with electronic sounds.
29) Wasser
Dir: Leonardor Re; 9:56 min; English; Germany; 2014; Experimental
The film explores stages of a man’s apathy. Unable to see or perceive his wife, he associates her missing with water.  Based on a true story.
32) Plug and Play
Dir: Michael Frei; 6 min; Black and white; English; Germany; 2013; Animation
Anthropoid creatures with plugs in place of heads are up to mischief. The film is entirely finger drawn using an integrated touchpad of a laptop.
36) Vigia
Dir: Barelli Marcel; 8 min; Italian; Switzerland; 2013; Animation
About the extinction of bees, as told to the director by his grandfather.
30) Deja – Moo/ Der Notfall
Dir: Stefan Muller; 9:59 min; German; Germany; 2014; Animation
It could have been a nice Saturday… were it not for a mad cow, a hysteric mother and two ambulance men.
28) Ganz Weit Im Osten
Dir: Kal Stanicke; 3:31 min; German; Germany; 2014
An ordinary day in Dr. Lipschitz support group for broken dreamers.
31) The Stowaway
Dir: Maria Brendle; 20 min; German; Germany; 2013; Children’s film

After running away from an orphanage, 8 year old Emma hides in the perfect hiding place of a blind woman’s apartment. Evelyn is not oblivious to the strange noises in her apartment. She learns to see the world through the eyes of a child. 

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