The 10th annual European Independent Film Festival takes place April 10th to 12th at Cinema Les 7 Parnassiens, 75014 Paris and in Cinema Le Lincoln, 75008 Paris.
Animated Films
Director: Manon Lazzari
Country: France
In a family headed by a tyrannical father, the younger daughter will regain her freedom on her birthday
Director: David Jansen
Country: Germany
Däwit is rescued from his violent father and grows up far away from his family among wolves. Embarking on a mysterious journey to find his own identity, he encounters great hardship but ultimately finds peace in forgiveness.
Directors: Mohammed Zare-Shalale Kheiri
Country: Iran
There once was a girl who was made up of junk.She looked really dirty,and she smelled like a skunk.She was always unhappy or in one of her slumps-perhaps ’cause she spent so much time down in the dumps.
Director: Bexie Bush
Country: United Kingdom
Cup of tea? Come and take a seat in Lyn’s cosy front room, hear her story of wartime love and watch as her belongings come alive with the hope, fear and humour of one spirited lady.
Director: Lala Severi
Country: Uruguay
An employee whose hours pass by coordinating files at an archive is surprised to receive a blank paper, this will bring him the possibility to make an unexpected change.
Director: Daisy Jacobs
Country: United Kingdom
This is the stark and darkly humorous tale of two brothers struggling to care for their elderly mother. Richard flees as soon as anything practical needs to be done while the Nick is left to carry the burden.
Director: Rachel Moore
Country: Canada
In ‘Up in a Plane’ a granddaughter’s grief is transformed by her imagination into a Canadian adventure of love and joy that bikes, flies, and dances all the way from the prairies of the early 1900’s to Europe in WW2, to the present, and beyond.
Arab Selection
Director: Mohammed Alsalman
Country: Saudi Arabia
A person wakes up in the fog of confusion between decisions and affiliations, obedience and disobedience.
Director: Malak Quota
Country: United Arab Emirates
Abandoned and locked in a room, two young sisters live their life indulging in fantasies and struggling through reality.
Director: Fidae Sbaai
Country: Morocco
A prison warden offers a chance to his prisoner, an enigma. If he solves it, he finds back his freedom.
Comedy Film
Directors: Thomas Baerten and Wim Geudens
Country: Belgium-Netherlands
The brothers ‘De Smet’ created a system to live their lives as singles in the most comfortable way. When a new woman moves into their street, their synergy turns out to be a house of cards.
Directors: Codey Wilson and Burleigh Smith
Country: Australia
Jemimah wants Tilly to have puppies. At any cost.
Director: Sophie-Clémentine Dubois
Country: Belgium
The DANDELION, or How to save a restaurant with a hedgehog, a singing fish and a little bit of imagination…
Director: Olly Williams
Country: United Kingdom
A getaway driver waiting outside a bank robbery has three nerve shredding minutes to get through before his crew returns. The Fly is a story of karmic revenge. A cat and mouse game where nobody is really sure who is playing the cat, and who should be attending anger management sessions.
Documentaries
GAZI TO GEZI – A STONES THROW AWAY
Director: Ross Domoney
Country: United Kingdom
An exploration of the poetry of a nationwide revolt in Istanbul, Europe’s largest city.
Director: Carles Cardelùs
Country: Yamen-Spain-USA
This is the story of how Socotra is emerging from isolation.
Dramatic Feature Films
Director: Duncan Ward
Country: United Kingdom
A film about filmmaking and the struggles involved in the creative process: artistic, technical, financial and personal. Director Duncan Ward sets out to make a biopic about controversial artist Ernst Hellmann, notorious for his misogyny, his tortured female nudes, hell raising lifestyle, and mysterious demise
Director: Thierry Sebban
Country: France
Alex is a divorced father, a stressed part, this is his daily work, work, work. Tonight he hurries, he has a meeting with a young woman … on the internet. But this encounter one night will plunge into a downward spiral and disrupt forever the course of his life.
Director: Martin Makariev
Country: Bulgaria–United Kingdom
The events surrounding the unsolved police case in which guests of a mountain hut come face to face with terror, when the mysterious force that stalks them in the dark, violently knocks on the door of their consciousness.
THE KIDS FROM THE MARX AND ENGELS STREET
Director: Nikola Vukcevic
Country: Montenegro
Story about two brothers: in the same night, older brother (30), is going to kill a man for a first time, and his younger (16) brother is going to make love for the first time. What seems to be easy – it is not at all at Balkans.
Dramatic Shorts
Director: Sam Jack Gilmore and Felix Jude West
Country: United Kingdom
Robert a chief superintendent helps Mike, a veteran officier, to build his false defense before going in front of civil jury. But day by day it is more evident that Mike is incriminated.
Director: Ian Bonhôte
Country: United Kingdom
Fast, dangerous and unsettling, ALLEY CATS is a tense urban thriller set against the backdrop of an underground activity, which is at the cutting edge of urban subculture.
Director: Tomek Bagiński
Country: Poland
On a remote planet a Master watches his Apprentice carry out tests with nanotechnology as she tries to prove herself worthy of advancement.
Director: Sébastien Pins
Country: Belgium
A beekeeper shares his worries about the future of his apiary school. A passion of gold and fire which definitely helps our environment to keep on living.
Director: Peter Rautek
Country: Austria
A woman in her mid twenties is trapped in a miserable existence as a sex worker in a small Czech village. Her inner conflict bubbles up to the surface when she decides to take her chance for a better future and runs
Director: Scott Jae and Justyna Mikina
Country: United Kingdom
On November 1st 2013, the body of Anastazja Solintear was discovered at the abandoned St. Augustine’s Hospital, near Canterbury, Kent. This film features the actual audio recording she made before she died.
Director: Pirjo Honkasalo
Country: Finland
A fourteen-year-old boy in a stifling Helsinki slum takes some unwise life lessons from his soon-to-be-incarcerated older brother.
Director: Remedios Crespo
Country: Spain
Europe, near future. The workers of a stickpin factory gather urgently to avoid the impending plant closing. The differences between the workers and the top management are not the expected ones.
Director: Brigitte Drodtloff
Country: Germany
He is a silent man. He walks the streets, watching, looking for the right place. He finds it. In the middle of a market. He sets up a stand. But instead of selling his goods, the silent man gives them away for free. The other sellers watch. They feel provoked. The situation escalates. They lose control. But in the end… there is hope
Director: Alice von Gwinner
Country: Germany
”Don’t just live on earth, be a part of it.” That’s the slogan of the latest invention of the Idyll company. There works Anja in an open plan office and escapes to find her own idyll in life.
Director: Ingo Putze
Country: Germany
Solo Finale is a story of a relationship gone awry. Depicted through poetic, surreal pictures, where the physics of the world we know do not always apply, it is an allegory of the polarity of love.
Director: Alan Friel
Country: Ireland
A mentally ill mother kidnaps her daughter and goes in search of a ‘happy family life’.
Director: Martti Helde
Country: Estonia
If you’ve been hit, one day you’ll hit back. If you aren’t loved, you won’t love anyone, either.
Director: Guillaume Levil
Country: France
Story about two brothers: in the same night, older brother (30), is going to kill a man for a first time, and his younger (16) brother is going to make love for the first time. What seems to be easy – it is not at all at Balkans.
Director: Hakan Can
Country: Germany
The young and loving Seneca enters a barber’s shop to ask for the hand of Father Equien’s daughter. But the old man doubts about the lovers ability to love and demands a dangerous trial to prove their love.
Director: Manu Gòmez
Country: Spain-Portugal
Austria. It’s the end of the XIXth Century. His name is Alois. He waits in fearful agony for the dramatic birth of his child. He is ignorant of the dark future that the birth would bring to humanity. History always has a beginning
Director: Ben Steiner
Country: United Kingdom
Frank’s had enough. A spirit medium whose unique and grotesque method of channeling the dead is putting his own life at risk, he wants out. But others, in this world and the next, have plans of their own.
Director: Andrew Richardson
Country: United Kingdom
Using the motif of physical communication, we follow the relationship of a young couple from the very beginning, as over time their ideas, expectations and fears grow causing misunderstanding and pain.
Experimental Films
Director: Uri Kranot
Country: Denmark
“Black tape” explores the theme of domination.
In an entangled tango, all are victims. They dance, occupying the frame and the space between brushstrokes.
Director: George Drivas
Country: Greece
KEPLER is a newly discovered planet with supposedly, same air and ground conditions like earth.
Director: Jevan Chowdhury
Country: United Kingdom
Yerevan is one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities. The history of it’s people simply measured in millennia. “Moving Yerevan” is an emotive response to the meeting of 47 dancers and the metropolis.
MY NAME IS FRANCO AND I LIKE DARK CHOCOLATE
Director: Silvia De Gennaro
Country: Italy
2033: the social networks have made the Internet the place of the collective unconscious. Confused identities are lost in a shapeless global identity. The protagonist decides to disconnect from the network to find himself.
Director: Pablo Diartinez
Country: Belgium
“Out of reach” (Rain night) is the first instalment in a series of short films, From the pages of Album. The series adapts poetry to the screen by means of a musically animated collage of motion graphics, texts and silent live action scenes.
Music Videos
Director: Javier Longobardo
Country: Spain
The repetition of these soothing tones feels like being in the never ending tube of a gentle but giant wave. Swirling synths wrap themselves around vocals, and vocals wrap themselves around beats and bass.
Director: Ken Duken
Country: Germany
The video with its traditional and elegant music is very simple but profound: sand, wind and the majestic light play a central role in the video.
HEAVEN TOO CHOOSE
Directors: Martynas Norvaišas and Kamilė Milašiūtė
Country: Lithuania
Director: Robin Rippmann
Country: United Kingdom
Entomophobia is the first music video for the London based band In Violet. It centres around the fear of insects and features tons of creepy crawlies, out to spook unsuspecting humans.
Director: Manuel Pascual
Country: Spain
Last day in Nikola Tesla’s life where he fights against his ghosts, passions and fears.
Director: Armel Gourvennec
Country: France
Are you one of those ? Do you remember the fifties ? No ?
So please stop it and go for a ride !
Director: Bouha Kazmi
Country: United Kingdom
A mysterious masked stranger and a boy form the centrepiece of a gathering of elderly society women who yearn for their youth and the exquisite command of their lure.
Director: Javier Longobardo
Country: Spain
Experimental pop music band whose music is characterized by soft vocals, electronic beats glitch beats and effects and a variety of traditional and unconventional instruments. Mum was formed in 1997
Non-European Documentaries
Directors: Barak Heymann and Nitzan Ofrir
Country: Israel
Two girls meet through digital educational project in Israel. Samar’s father comes from the (Palestinian) Occupied Territories. Linor’s family was evacuated from a Jewish settlement. Only 67 kilometers apart, yet an ideological gulf stand between them.
The girls meet and an instant bond is struck. Nevertheless, reality overpowers the friendship
Director: Trent Dion Soto
Country: United States
On February 19, 2014 Artist Trent Dion Soto embarked on a journey, to walk in the shoes of the homeless on downtown Los Angeles’ Skid Row. Living for 30 days with only a toothbrush and a GoPro camera, with little to no outside contact.
Director: Mary Anne Rothberg
Country: United States
John Till moved to New York with nothing. With help from friends he met through skateboarding, he built a pickle business.
IT’S MY BIRTHDAY AND I’LL FLY IF I WANT TO
Director: Javier Longobardo
Country: Spain
A short documentary detailing the transformative journey one woman undertakes when she grants herself permission to indulge and enjoy life. Culminating in the gift that she has commissioned to commemorate her 50th birthday, a milestone she once believed she would never reach, let alone celebrate it in style.
Director: Richard Ledes
Country: United States
When the lights go out during hurricane Sandy, Dan falls and butt-dials his ex-girlfriend. Her name also happens to be Sandy. He takes it as a sign to visit her. Mimicking the hurricane’s capacity to cross boundaries, interviews with firefighters who lost their homes during Sandy are intercut with this romantic comedy. The resulting clash of genres creates unexpected juxtapositions that illuminate both the global and local dimensions of the storm.
Director: Gracie Otto
Country: Australia
The most famous person you have never heard of.
Director: Hind Shoufani
Country: Syrian Arab Republic-Lebanon
This documentary is an archival film tracing 70 years of my father’s Palestinian refugee-hood, from the Galilee in 1948, to Princeton university in the 60’s, to Beirut in the 70’s and to the current war in Syria today. My father wrote over 25 books on politics and history, and led the revolution in 1983 against Arafat. He was a Revolutionary Council member and a military organizer for the Palestinians. The film is a video art retrospective of his very dramatic political and personal life, in several countries
Non-European Dramatic Features
Director: Stephen David Brooks
Country: United States
FLYTRAP mixes sci-fi with dark humor to tell the story of a reserved English Astronomer who becomes ensnared by the mysterious Mary Ann and her creepy and dangerous comrades.
Director: Nick Matthews
Country: Australia
In the land of the blind, the one eyed girl is queen. Travis is a psychiatrist haunted by the recent death of a patient. On the brink of a nervous breakdown, he meets a mysterious girl named Grace, who invites him to a meeting at a city church run by charismatic leader, Father Jay. In search of answers Travis is led deeper and deeper into the hidden world of an isolated cult where he’s given one last chance to redeem himself.
Directors: John Adams,Toby Poser
Country: United States
A fashion shoot in the desert goes horribly wrong when two hardup rockers try their luck at robbing it.
Non-European Dramatic Shorts
Director: Daniel Lecanda
Country: Mexico
An obsessive-compulsive man is obligated to go through an experiential therapy on a woman in order to cure his arachnophobia.
Director: Christopher Peters
Country: New Zealand
‘127’ is the story of a young man trapped between his vicious, cult like gang, the police and his childhood priest..
Director: Tony Fabro
Country: United States
A troubled boy’s alcoholic ‘father’ orders a prostitute to initiate him into ‘manhood,’ only to reveal himself as more broken than the boy ever imagined.
Director: Tannaz Hazemi
Country: United States
10 year old Elsa takes matters into her own hands when Child Services plans a visit that could separate her from her 5 year old brother.
Director: Lee Whittaker
Country: United States
A little Latina girl attempts to escape the rigors and misfortunes of living on skid row Los Angeles through the power of her mystical imagination while simultaneously trying to protect the bond with her addict mother.
Director: Yuri Alves
Country: Portugal-United States
Dane thought he left his personal demons and his drug addiction behind him, but his first day out of prison challenges both his promise to go clean and his very survival.
Director: D. Jeremy Bolton
Country: United States
A 13-year-old girl accidentally sends a text message for a school friend to a complete stranger – a man in his 30s. This innocent mistake sets into motion a series of misunderstandings that ends up ruining the man’s long-term relationship while, at the same time, starting a first ever romance for this shy girl.
Director: Alan Arrivée
Country: United States
After ten months on the road, Russell has finally called his brother Nate and asked him to come get him. When Nate arrives at a dinner to pick him up, however, Russell’s not so sure. He’s been playing a peg game in restaurants for months and can’t get a decent score. Something happened to the two brothers a long time ago, and he just can’t win. Now he’s about to find out that the promise the two boys made to keep it a secret has been broken.
Student Films
Directors: Christina Hardings
Country: United Kingdom
Sometimes looking at things for the last time can help you see things for the first time.
Director: Chadi Abdul-Karim
Country: Denmark
“Exit Neverland” follows the three youngsters Said, Daniel and Osman during one of their usual days in an urban neighborhood. Their day is filled with boredom, restlessness and too much spare time. However, on this particular day, one of the boys steal from a local, mentally challenged resident in the ghetto, where the three friends have grown up together. Even though the three kids are only looking for some fun in order to pass the time, their actions lead to unexpected consequences.
Director: Anne Chlosta
Country: Germany
Arne discovers his recently deceased brother`s best-kept secret: He was a pedophile. Unable to deal with the situation, Arne hides his discovery from his family. This seems to work out just fine, until Arne comes face to face with one of his brother`s victims.
Director: Zofia Pregowska
Country: Poland
Krystyna, who is almost 90, lives alone in a small flat surrounded by books and tens of copybooks which she incessantly fills with the poems that come to her mind. There would be nothing strange about it if not for the fact that Krystyna is almost entirely blind. Thanks to the help of others she can communicates her vision of the world, which does not cease to delight her. In the meantime, she is preparing for an important journey to a declamation contest where she hopes to share her poems with the audience.
Director: Tasos Giapoutzis
Country: United Kingdom
A young South Asian woman lives away from home, in London, with her husband and in-laws. The film depicts her struggle to undergo sex-selective abortion against her will.
Directors: Andy Wijckelsma and Oliver Minet
Country: France
The story of a woman who can no longer escape from an infernal party.
Director: Heewook SA
Country: RepublIc of Korea
A young girl gets into a taxi. The taxi driver is a single father, raising his high school student daughter. On the way to her destination, the girl screams verbal abuse into her phone. He realizes that her destination is his apartment. He comes to a violent conclusion.
Director: Fateme Ahmadi
Country: United Kingdom
A magic teardrop-keeper tells Louly the stories of seven women from Iran, who have been dealing with compulsory dress codes for two hundred years.
Director: Anna Romanova
Country: Russia
Sometimes people around are so annoying. Questions, jeremiads, fumbles, chatters… You want to escape to the place where nobody is present.
Director: Davur Djurhuus
Country: United Kingdom
A group of Londoners will forever be affected by the actions of one man…
THE EMOTIONAL DIMENSIONS OF THE JAMES RIVER
Director: Michelle Marquez
Country: United States
This experimental film provides an emotional roller coaster experience that was musically and visually designed based on a neuroscience research project that correlates a mathematical parameter (fractal dimension) of sounds and images with the selective triggering of emotional states. Enlighten yourself by looking at the world from your personal point of view while dreaming inside your curiosity.
Director: JieYu Lee
Country: China
Since the beginning of time, women’s status has been unbearable lower than men’s. Try as they might, women never transcend the role of a mere being to entertain the appetite and lust of men.
Director: Florence Sobieski
Country: France
Esther, a young and solitary woman, starts spying on Antoine, her new next-door neighbor. When another young woman moves in with him, Esther’s growing obsession over the couple paradoxically leads her to confront her uneasy relationship to her own body.
English