ÉCU 2011 – The 6th Annual European Independent Film Festival was taking place from April 1st to April 3rd 2011 and was screening 77 films from 26 countries competing for 20 awards, with 8 World Premieres and 5 European Premieres. 60 filmmakers were making their way to Paris to be on hand for their screenings and to participate in the meet-the-director sessions where they can interact with their films audience.
European Dramatic Feature
Director: Gabriella Cserhati, Fabien Lartigue
Country: France
Essay on the lack of communication within couple relationships in
small spaces
Director: Nicolas Alberny, Jean Mach
Country: France
It tells the story of the first virtual state that a globally composed collective of hundreds of people founded on the Internet.
Director: Ari Bafalouka
Country: Greece
Dimitri, a 23-year-old swimmer dives into the dark water of a swimming pool after
winning the European championships. As his body floats on the water, memories
come to mind reminding him of his relationship with Elsa, an environmental activist
who mysteriously disappeared.
Director: Sebelin Laurent, Massine Pierre
Country: France
After a little journey into the universe of Romarik’s mind, Venus feel that this guy could create The Ultimate Band and conquer the world. She has a plan… He records an album with Satan System. Venus casts a spell on it…
Director: Antoinette Beumer
Country: Netherlands
After giving birth to her first child, a happily-married woman sees her picture-perfect life spiral out of control.
Director: Laurent Nègre
Country: Switzerland, Canada, France
After being unceremoniously sacked by his boss, Saadi, a young illegal Moroccan worker becomes a victim of mistaken identity and lands himself in midst of a controversy.
Director: Terry McMahon
Country: Ireland
After killing a woman in a hit and run, a sociopath from the elite of society decides to abdicate social responsibilities and play games with three comfortable couples, revealing ugly truths about everyone involved in the process.
European Dramatic Short
Director: Abdelatif Hwidar
Country: Spain
Ildefonso is an old septuagenarian recluse lying in the old bed in his house.Suddenly, a window starts to shake and brings him out of his immobility and hisinternal passivity…
Director: Tornike Bziava
Country: Georgia
The story of a Soviet military serviceman and a male Georgian dancer. An anti-violence film about the awakening of human instinct in an invader.
Director: Asier Altuna
Country: Spain
A shepherd, lost in the city, searches for his flock. His call attracts the attention of some people, who decide to follow him.
Director: Rob Sorrenti
Country: United Kingdom
Exploring the idea that love isn’t always enough when it comes to getting clean and the inevitable sacrifice that comes with sobriety. Alice and Marcus are young and in love.
Director: Miguel Ángel Jiménez
Country: Spain
A hard story about two comrades who share a lot of bad memories, a lot of bad conscience and mountains and mountains of cigarettes.
Director: Tony López, David Sanz
Country: Spain
He arrives in a discotheque confused and without so much conviction. Suddenly, he sees Irene. He realizes that while he observes her he experiences unique and indescribable feelings. The young guy will predict a succession of events which will gradually become true, intriguing each time more Irene.
Director: Stuart Napier
Country: United Kingdom
Two young brothers, both in temporary foster care, look forward to a picnic with Mum but the unexpected arrival of Mums new boyfriend Greg, has unforeseen and dramatic consequences. What do the boys recognize in Greg that Mum cannot? Does the family need protecting from this stranger?
Director: Andreas Schaap
Country: Germany
What if fortune could be planned? If you were able to fulfill any of you desires. Provided you were prepared to suffer? The students Lenny and Daniel try to find an answer to these questions, following the absurd theory that you only have to expose yourself to accidents in order to gain happiness. But unfortunately this theory needs a steady rise of victims.
Director: Chema Garcia Ibarra
Country: Spain
The experiment was a success: protomatter exists.
Director: Erick Love Lundqvist
Country: Sweden
With the help of recorded city sounds a blind man pretends to be somewhere else. An old man get inspired by his skills and join him to escape the reality.
Director: Jan Bolender
Country: Germany
Marie is a consultant: flexibility, efficiency, and pressure dictate her life. This is how she begins to suffer from loneliness and immerses herself even more in work, but one day, she meets Emilia…
It’s about a man going from early childhood to old age in the time it takes to freshen up.
Director: Maksym Firsenko
Country: Ukraine
There is a law in Ukraine that exempts veterans of World War II from all public transportation costs. However, occasionally the drivers of private companies insist that they pay regardless… and this act goes unpunished.
Director: Katja Benrath, Florian Hirschmann, Susanne Kellermann
Country: Austria
A young woman strays trough a children’s room, in search of something uneasy to grasp. It makes her anxious, nervous, but she hopes that here it materializes. A man, also seeking something, wanders through the house. A little girl plays with a doll.
Director: Josep Bedmar, María Trénor Country: Spain
Four different people, in four different places and eras, read, touch and enjoy the same book.
Director: Nour Wazzi
Country: United Kingdom
A veiled Arab woman, steeped in tradition, journeys to London to visit her estranged daughter only to find her living with a black boyfriend.
European Documentary
Director: Michelle Coomber
Country: United Kingdom
‘Buriganga’ is an intimate portrayal of five lives that coalesce around the Buriganga river in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Featuring nighttime fire-breathers, an ancient floating hotel and a beautiful political exile, the film captures the rhythms of this incredible waterway.
Director: Alina Mrowińska
Country: Poland
This is the story of Magda Prokopowicz who suffers from breast cancer. Despite her
bad luck, she experiences a miracle and becomes pregnant. This new addition to his life gives him strength to fight.
Director: Carles de la Encarnación, Arantza Diez
Country: Spain
A veiled Arab woman, steeped in tradition, journeys to London to visit her estranged daughter only to find her living with a black boyfriend..
Director: Stefano Levi
Country: Germany
Most of the world’s blind people live in remote, impoverished areas. The majority of doctors able to cure them work in cities. Dr. Sanduk Ruit from Nepal, and his American partner, Dr. Geoff Tabin, have made perfecting a portable low cost surgery to restore sight their life’s work. They trek to Nepal’s remote Northeast, carrying an entire hospital on porter’s backs. Their mission is to bring the needlessly blind out of the darkness.
Problema: who are we in 21st century?
Director: Ralf Schmerberg
Country: Germany
One bright day in the early 21st Century, there was a gathering of human beings unlike any before.
Director: Marios Piperides
Country: Cyprus
The local cinema in the village of Panayia that once used to be the vibrant centre of the village, has been closed for more than 30 years. This documentary follows the journey of two retired local men, and life-long friends, trying to reopen the cinema, in the hope of bringing people back to the village centre and reliving the good old times of their youth.
Animation
Director: Stefanie Katja Ernst
Country: Germany
Impressions of urban social life between men and women. The sexual male drive and the aggressive abuse stands in contrast to the beatitudes, that are spoken by a woman appearing in red fog between several episodes. Finally that woman is included in the story and experiences her own instincts and real holy pleasure.
Director: Cláudio Jordão, Nelson Martins
Country: Portugal
S. had the gift of feeling the life of nature through her body.
Director: Quentin Baillieux
Country: France
A young boy whose father is absent. An afternoon spent monitoring the washing machine.
A daydream that turns into an initiatory journey…
Director: Laen Sanches
Country: France
If Walt Disney had a bad acid trip, it might have looked like this. We will have warned you.
Director: Damian Nenow
Country: Poland
Demons with the power to push people into the abyss of blind hate, fury and rage slumber deep in the human soul.
Music Video
Embrace
Country: Germany
Colder
Country: United Kingdom
Corrupted Scene Behind the Stage
Country: Spain
Dance with the Geeks
Country: Austria
Poltergeist
Country: United Kingdom
Pink Lady
Country: Germany
Todor and Petru
Country: France
Sleep
Country: Iceland
Wait For Me
Country: United States
The Enemy
Country: Belgium
Experimental Film
Director: Roses Urquhart, Lucia Zoro
Country: United Kingdom
A short satire on corporate culture, Circularity Thinking brings hula hooping to the boardroom. Glossy, aspirational and astounding in hula-hooping virtuosity, this hilarious short film will delight anyone who has spent time in an office.
Director: Maria B. Pavlou, Alexander Decommere
Country: Greece
When our access to life after death becomes a matter of corporate and
government, a fighter rises to defend our right to eternal life
and it is destined to succeed. As long as we trust him.
Director: James McAleer
Country: United Kingdom
Through the course of a day in a city inhabited by insects, we see a violent and symbiotic caste system emerge, as our protagonist tries to make his way to his mate before nightfall, and the invasion of the army ants.
Director: Jonathan Sagall
Country: Germany
Two women reunite in London, where they go over the details of a life-changing event which occurred when they were teenagers in Jerusalem.
Non-European Dramatic Feature
Director: Barry J. Hershey Country: United States
Director’s cut of ‘The Empty Mirror’, a journey into the darkest recesses of the mind of Adolf Hitler.
Director: Hesham Issawi
Country: Egypt, UAE
A powerful account of life in contemporary Cairo, this raw drama about a pair of star-crossed lovers shines a powerful spotlight upon the social and cultural taboos that riddle the city’s diverse population. Heralding a bold new shift for contemporary Egyptian cinema, ‘Cairo Exit’ is a gritty and uncompromising work from a major new cinematic talent, Hesham Issawi.
Non-European Dramatic Short
Director: Yuri Alves
Country: United States
In a not so distant future, plants refuse to grow, and life as we know it ceases to exist. A forsaken survivor miraculously resists death, roaming past the decaying corpses and vestiges of our bygone world. Sustained by the memory of his lost lover he embarks on a mission to plant three seeds – which he is convinced have the power to restart life on this planet.
Director: Kamal John Iskander
Country: United States
An unexpected guest drops in during an underworld poker game in this dark comedy neo-noir.
Director: Moe Charif
Country: United States
The heart wrenching drama of an only child, Chloe Hammond, who seeks a better life away from her drug addicted mother. The 11-year old soon finds herself in a situation that gets progressively worse.
Director: Marwan A. Abderrazzaq
Country: United States
5 friends, playing poker, discuss how each would kill their wife.
Director: Alistair Johnson
Country: Canada
Based on a scene from the 1934 film Imitation Of Life this film illustrates the central absurdity of racism. It does this using a uniquely powerful device, reversing the polarity of Euro/African racism. This system claimed to divide White from Black but that is a conceit and the distinction was between White and non-White.
Director: Gabriel Tupinambá
Country: Brazil
“Depois” tells the story of two survivors after the end of the world – and one who didn’t know the world had ended.
Non-European Documentary
Director: Seth Swirsky
Country: United States
Fans and friends of the Beatles discuss their experiences of `The Fab Four’, from eating beans on toast with Ringo Starr to playing Scrabble with George Harrison.
How Do You Tell Somebody That You’re HIV+?
Director: Hima B.
Country: United States
This short documentary follows a day in the life of
Haneefa, a young African American woman who struggles to
disclose her HIV+ status to her daughter’s father. As Haneefa
travels to refill her AIDS medication, she reflects upon her
dependency on Medicaid to sustain her life.
Director: Faramarz Beheshti
Country: New Zealand
About the start of women rugby in Iran, which coincided with the election of Ahmadinejad as president of Iran..
Director: Nir Toib
Country: Israel
The incredible story of the Yatza Affair an affair in which Brigadier General Res Yitzhak Yaacov was charged with severe espionage against the State of Israel For the first time in a feature film the long arm of the Secret Kingdom of the Israeli defense system which is unleashed on anyone it considers an enemy is revealed.
Student Film
Director: Markus Pajtler
Country: Germany
Adam is 26 years old and wants to become an assassin. Meanwhile he is trying to execute his first job he meets Eve, a suicide jumper. This fateful encounter turns his life upside down.
Director: Kasper Syhler
Country: Israel
A man blames himself for the death of his girlfriend, which makes him go into emotional isolation. He lives in his own little mental bubble, from which he can’t see out of. A woman then comes as sent from above, and he can see her through the wall of the bubble. But the bubble has to burst, for him to reach her… to reach her world… to find himself.
Director: Boyoung Bonnie Kim
Country: United Kingdom
Chloe’s world falls apart as her family vanishes…one by one. Chloe is a troubled young girl. She has been under treatment, which requires mixtures of medication and numerous psychotherapy sessions. Her family is all she has. She feels they are the only people who genuinely care about her. She is desperate to get well in the belief that they all can be perfectly happy only when she is cured. However, Chloe soon finds herself in a terrifying situation where her family starts to act strangely and vanishes one by one. Deeply distressed and frightened, Chloe is visited by her painful memories that reveal the disturbing truth.
Director: Dan Van Wert
Country: United States
When Olivia Browning’s husband, Hugh, is ravaged by Alzheimer’s Disease, she must make a decisive choice regarding his future, as she attempts to reconstruct the past.
Director: Bhargav Chatterjee Country: Australia
A surreal look at memory, nostalgia, and relationships.
Director: Ted Marcus
Country: United States
A high-stakes drama of redemption and death, set during the chaos and brutality of the medieval Inquisition.
Director: Tom Bailey (III)
Country: United Kingdom
Ford is caught in a process of change. As his body rebels against his will and begins to wither, he becomes aware of a growth inside of himself from which he will bloom anew.
Director: Guilhad Emilio Schenker
Country: Israel
Gioza, one of the female ‘White Torture’ prison guards, falls into an obsessive love with Nick, the prisoner under her supervision, without him knowing of her existence. When Nick is facing the prison’s ‘final procedure’, Gioza must choose between her love to Nick and obedience to prison rules.
Director: Leïla Kilani
Country: United Kingdom
A factory worker (Soufia Issami) believes that she and her best friend are being groomed for criminal activities by a pair of more privileged women.
Director: Gala Goliani
Country: Serbia/Montenegro
Young woman Sonja has everything in abundance: a house, a successful career and beauty. However, this does not prevent the emergence of an existential crisis. Sonja wants a child and she decides to take matters into her own hands.
Director: Anthony Powell
Country: United Kingdom
Tom is a struggling sushi apprentice, abused by his manageress, ridiculed by vile customers, he’ll do anything to become a sushi master like his teacher Ryu.
Director: Reshad Kulenovic
Country: United States
Suddenly a moment from the past, a shard of memory can surge, overwhelming the senses. Crystal snowflakes land precariously on pale birch trees, civilians shudder from the cold, soldiers in heavy jackets give orders.
Director: Victoria Mather
Country: United Kingdom
Stanleys life runs like clockwork…until an encounter with a mysterious girl turns his world upside down.
Director: Liran Hutmacher
Country: France
Depicts the unspoken words at various stages in the relationships of three couples. The couples correspond to machines, metaphors for their inner world, demonstrating how something as abstract as feelings behave like a mechanism.
Who’s Afraid Of The Water Sprite?
Director: William McGregor
Country: United Kingdom
Unfolds the intertwined fates of a young girl, a blacksmith and a malevolent water sprite.
English