ÉCU – The European Independent Film Festival is thrilled to announce its Official Selection of films that will be showcased at the 14th edition of the festival. ÉCU 2019 will proudly screen 80 films from 30 countries on the 5th, 6th and 7th of April 2019 in Paris, France.
Non European Dramatic Short
Directors Luke Wissell
Country Australia
After a truck driver is killed by a rock thrown from an overpass, teenage schoolgirl Hannah runs from the scene and is hit by a car. Looking after her in a hospital, the parents are torn between protecting their daughter at all costs and doing what is right. What they uncovered cuts to the heart of an even more important crisis within their family.
Directors Carl Bird McLaughlin
Country United States
The sun, it is our star, and it is always burning. Imagine yourself as that ball of fire. Emitting light not just for yourself, but for all to feel.
Directors Roy Zafrani
Country United States
A coincidental meeting between an Israeli boy and a Palestinian boy leads them to discover that reality is different than what they have been told.
Directors Manuel Paz Ochoa
Country United States
In the desperate act to save a young boy’s life, a Doctor helps facilitate an illegal organ donation from a third-world country and is then haunted by its implications.
Directors Louis Minnaar
Country South Africa
Even straight lines are circles in deep, deep space, and the universe is a merry-go-round. Siklus is a film-art story about love, time, space, and everything.
Directors Guy Nattiv
Country United States
In a small supermarket in a blue collar town, a black man smiles at a 10-year-old white boy across the checkout aisle. This innocuous moment sends two gangs into a ruthless war that ends with a shocking backlash.
Directors Lance Heybrock
Country United States
Two men; one of them sensitive and nervous, the other bolstered and confident, engage in a battle of streams and ego in a public restroom.
Director Rodrigo S. Gonzalez
Country Mexico
The story of Timoteo, a chef who only knows what he doesn’t want.
Director Liat Akta
Country Israel
A hard-working family in an Israeli suburb in the seventies. Through the kids’ point of view, we follow the message adults deliver to their children and how that shapes the adults they’ll become.
Director Jhosimar Vasquez
Country United States
Greed, revenge and death all impact one another in this crime drama. Nothing is what is seems in this film written and produced by Maximiliano Hernández and directed by newcomer Jhosimar Vasquez.
Director Bobby Bala
Country United States
Unable to afford the repairs to his old broken ship, a struggling interplanetary transporter becomes stranded with his young daughter on a wretched spaceport as his morality is put to the ultimate test.
European Dramatic Short
Director Rolv Lyssand Bjørø
Country Norway
Tommy saves Even from a apparently violent father and they run away together out in the Norwegian wilderness. There they meet Victoria a confident older girl, who convinces them to follow her down to a forbidden and Mythical Beach. But everything changes when something opens up in the water.
Director Dekel Berenson
Country UK, Nepal
Nestled between a beautiful lake and the Himalayas, Ashmina, 13, lives with her family at the outskirts of Pokhara Nepal, paragliding capital of the world. Forced to skip school, Ashmina helps her family make ends meet by working at the landing field, packing the parachutes of foreign pilots in return of small change.
Director Raphaël Crombez
Country Belgium
Elias and Nora discover that their daughter Léa is the fountain of life in human form. Through mutual contact with water, she can cure anyone of anything. But it’s not without consequence.
Director Vasileios Douskos
Country Greece
A 45-year-old alcoholic writer, is visiting his deceased father’s house to reconcile with a rejection that haunts him.
Director Charlie Reader
Country United Kingdom
A couple voice the deepest doubts they have about their relationship over a pleasant meal at home.
Director Andreea Valean
Country Romania
Dani, a 12 year old boy toils in the busy stop-light traffic selling cold water to support his family. He attempts to pay off all their debts by betting all his money in a game organized by children with cardboard boxes on the streetcar tracks.
Director Marin Troude
Country France
In the night of october 12th 2015, Pablo Carranza falls back into hard drugs, despite his sobriety and battle against his addictions and old demons for many years. Alone in his apartment, eaten by regrets and guilt, he decides to confess himself by leaving a last voice message to his first love.
Director Charlie Manton
Country United Kingdom
A deeply religious teenager struggles to move forward after witnessing his mother commit a sin.
Director Drew Pautz
Country United Kingdom
A conscientious English teacher receives a short story depicting her violent death.
Director Carlota Martínez Pereda
Country Spain
Sara is an overweight teen that lives in the shadow of a clique of cool girls vacationing in her village. After being bullied at the local pool, she has to walk home wearing nothing but her bikini – and this walk will mark her for life.
Director Bruno Brejt
Country Poland
The late 1960s. Moved by a sudden impulse, a man comes to recollect long-lost aspects of his own life. This unleashes an avalanche of memories, along with a wave of primal fears.
Director Claire Fowler
Country United Kingdom
A female Lyft driver navigates the night shift in New York City while waiting to hear life-or-death news from her family in Syria.
Director Federico Untermann
Country Spain
Alicia and Vero are room watchmen in an art gallery and only see each other during shift change. A work of art will test their feelings.
Director Paul Wyett
Country Hungary
Sydney was given up for adoption at birth. Later, she meets someone in London to help her find out who she really is.
Director Dominique Filhol
Country France
1957, New York. A Tibetan monk rents an automatic sequence computer. The monks seek to list all of the names of God, and they hire two Westerners to install and program the machine.
THE TERRIBLE TALE OF HENRIETTA TATE
Director Tom Beckwith Phillips
Country United Kingdom
Enslaved by her captors and battling with amnesia, Bubble Girl, a corporate mascot to a popular drink, is wrongfully imprisoned for theft on a train journey. Thrown into the prisoner’s car, her memory begins to return, and the terrible truth of her past is revealed with spectacular consequences.
Director Yorgos Zois
Country Greece, Croatia
Earth has been abandoned long time now and the human race has found refuge in outer space. Three new archeologists return to Earth to investigate where a mysterious five tone signal is coming from.
Director Aurélien Mathieu
Country France
A little boy forces his mom to break free from a heavy secret so she can finally live fully here and now! During his quest for truth, the child gets help from an imaginary friend in a samurai armor.
Director Solmaz Gholami
Country Germany
Seven Minutes and Thirty One Seconds” is about an 18-year-old girl who is sentenced to death after being raped under the Islamic Republic of Iran criminal law because she cannot prove that she defended herself.
Director Paul Marques Duarte
Country France
Adèle, an english teacher is about to board in Saint-Malo with her class on a ferry to England. But this time she needs to put up with the arrival of a new pupil who is about to disrupt the crossing and push the professor to reevaluate herself…
Student Film
Director Chih-Yuan Lu
Country Taiwan
We follow the main protagonist Lin Hsian’s dream before his death. He incarnates himself as a young actor Lin-Wu who plays a role of a detective called Wu, who’s investigating the reason behind the death of a 13-year-old teenage star.
Director Viktoria Szemeredy
Country Hungary
A 12-year-old girl leaves a reformatory to join her elder sister and her grandmother in a remote village. She is desperate to get back to her mother, and turns to social media to get in touch with her. But a child in need of care and attention is an easy prey for a criminal lurking behind a false profile.
Director Antonis Glaros
Country Greece
Menis Nolakis, an army officer, is trapped in a dark box. Soon he realizeS that it is his coffin, on his funeral day. He will inevitably come face to face with all the important people of his life for the final encounter… and the twists and turns are just around the corner of Hades.
Director Benjamin Leichtenstern
Country Germany
Bavaria 1866. Alois has lost his will to live, marked by the brutal fights of the war, and shuts himself away from the outside world into the cold mountains. When the deserted Friedrich steals his life’s savings, Alois’ spirits are revived.
Director Artjom Baranov
Country Germany
Elli has a heart disease. She urgently needs a transplant, or she’ll die. There is no hope in finding one, but a heart specialist has a new idea: transplanting the heart of a genetically modified pig. Elli’s mother wants to risk trying, but Elli, being vegan, says no.
Director Philip Louis Piaget Rodriguez
Country Denmark
Deep in the harsh countryside, where life fades with every breath, a boy tormented with grief battles an inescapable beast.
Director Alice Seabright
Country United Kingdom
Ed teaches Sex Education in schools, a job he usually loves. But today, it’s the last thing he wants to do.
Director Elena Brodach
Country Russia
Alexandra, a French architect working on a significant project in Moscow, is an intelligent, driven and independent career woman. But when her life’s desire turns to having a child, and with her biological clock ticking, she is suddenly faced with a serious choice: does she have the time to wait for love or must she take responsibility to have a child alone?
Director Melissa Roukoz
Country Lebanon
On his bulldozer, the old Bchara, surrounded by weapons and bloodshed remains a man of great convictions by only burying the dead bodies left by the war.
Director Daria Locher
Country Switzerland
Shot on the hunt, the short film deals with the dynamics of a group and its consequences. The roles of the hunters and the filmmaker are mixed up and the individual perspectives on the events are influenced by each other.
Director Walt Bladt
Country Belgium
After selling his cattle, Linus’s loneliness takes over and slowly his reality turns into a nightmare.
Director Joon Ho Moon
Country France
A divorced woman, Clodette, stops by a small isolated gas station on her way to Paris. Clodette comes across a Syrian woman who begs her for some coins and ignores her. Suddenly, the Syrian woman violently tries to wrestle Clodette, who escapes the gas station driving away. After she drove few miles away from the gas station, Clodette finds out why she was attacked by the Syrian woman.
Arab Special Selection
Director Nadim Hobeika
Country Lebanon
Saleem and Raya meet at Raya’s place. Saleem enters the toilet and somehow gets stuck. Between the inside and the outside, trials and disappointments, laughter and hope, memories and screams, are all being shared at the doorstep.
Director Farah Shaer
Country Lebanon, USA
Batoul, an apprentice prayer surrogate, doubts the reason why her mentor asked her to have an off day from work. This doubt leads her back to the office and down a path with unexpected consequences.
Director Carlos Haidamous
Country Lebanon
Desperate to see her parent’s face, a young girl learns dream control in an attempt to meet them for the first time.
Director Tara Sehata
Country UK, Egypt
After her mother’s death, Maya, an ordinary Egyptian girl, sets out to become a Superhero vigilante.
Director Tala Nahas
Country UK
All of time is shrouded in the mystery of the Jinn, the unseen veiled figures with the power to possess humans. Whilst looking for answers about the death of her father, photographer Valerie is unknowingly drawn in to the most unholy of love triangles.
European Music Video
Director Jorik Dozy, Sil van der Woerd
Country Indonesia, Netherlands
The symbolic story of a man arriving on a perfect Earth, who encounters his nemesis in the form of ocean pollution.
CELLO
Director Alberto Nacci
Country Italy
The relationship between a Swiss musician, Alessandra Doninelli, and her musical instrument, the cello.
GAME LOVER
Director Roman Przylipiak
Country Poland
Young woman after quarrel with a man comes out on the balcony to light a cigarette. He wonders how to solve this conflict. She makes a decision and returns to the man waiting in the room at the table.
INDOCHINE – STATION 13
Director Bouha Kazmi
Country Indochine
“Station 13” depicts the representation of what initially appears to be ordinary men persecuted by society, and who are later revealed to be angels.
KNOTS
Director Zak Emerson
Country UK
Music Video for Ben Chatwin’s “Knots” directed by Zak Emerson (Merman).
STRANGE JEALOUSY – CRØM-LUS
Director Georgios Cherouvim
Country UK
Inspired by nature and the behavior of slime mold, a set of artificial agents react to the performance of the singer in an attempt to reconstruct the image and motion of the live action footage.
Director Savvas Stavrou
Country UK
Two wrestlers in love, and the toxic masculinity that tears them apart.
European Comedy Film
Director Carlus Fábrega
Country Spain
Joint custody is the little story of a brief encounter between Carlos and Carmen to exchange their dear Pablito, whose custody they share. Carlos hasn’t gotten over the breakup yet, and he tries to use Pablo to reconnect with Carmen, although the differences between them are already insurmountable.
Directors Anaïs Tellenne, Zoran Boukherma
Country France
Even though Marie-Pierre is very self-confident, she has an unhealthy jealousy. It’s been months since she last satisfied her husband, Jean-Louis, and although he is a docile man, she is convinced that he will eventually cheat on her.
Director Giacomo Boeri
Country Italy
August is a man about 50 years old. Home alone, he finds his teenage son’s forgotten cell phone, and that’s when he decides to join a game – involving mainly trying to find ways to take a picture of himself.
European Experimental Film
Director Dianne Lucille Campbell
Country UK
Through the inter species gaze we observe one of the most ancient and highly honored dog breeds, the Saluki. Guiding us in love, preparing us in death and transforming us in life.
Director Elli Vuorinen
Country Finland
Still Lives is an experimental stop motion animation starring traditional figurines from folk art from various times and places.
Director Roman Przylipiak
Country Poland
Young woman after quarrel with a man comes out on the balcony to light a cigarette. He wonders how to solve this conflict. She makes a decision and returns to the man waiting in the room at the table.
European Animated Film
Director EunJu Ara Choi
Country UK
Documentary animation based on the anonymous online testimony of a Korean prostitute, who explores her body and reflect on prejudices.
Director Kiana Naghshineh
Country Germany
Three perceptions of only one truth – hers, his and ours.
Director Lucia Bulgheroni
Country UK
Inanimate is a classic stop motion film about Katrine, who realises the fakeness in her world & how she’s a mere puppet herself.
Directors Ben Steer
Country UK
Told entirely using projected animation onto polystyrene film sets, Mamoon follows the story of a mother and her infant child who are forced to leave their home when mysterious, dark figures shadows the light in which they exist.
Non European Documentary
Director Sophie Hexter
Country Australia
Renee Kelly is a prodigious rock drummer, who’s also completely blind. Moving between past reflections and future dreams, Renee’s story reveals a passionate and determined artist, set to a bold musical score.
A WORK IN PROGRESS: ALBERT MILGROM’S CINEMA JOURNEY
Director Philip Harder
Country USA
At age 96 Al Milgrom, a lifelong film fanatic, professor and entrepreneur, has been working for over 60 years filming around world at times and places which were restricted to the public.
Director Zak Emerson
Country UK
Women of the Gulag, features six women in their eighties and nineties as they tell their stories while going about their daily lives in remote Urals villages, in break-away Sukhumi, or in Moscow suburbs.
Non European Dramatic Feature
Director Ben Hackworth
Country Australia
Hidden from the world at a crumbling estate in lush tropical Far North Queensland, Celeste anxiously reaches out to Jack, her late husband’s son, inviting him to return to the languid, sprawling family home for her much-anticipated recital. Jack’s reappearance after a long absence stirs up unsettling memories, pulling them both into a mutually precarious orbit.
Directors Maja Zdanowski
Country Canada
Redemption, violence and faith define a young black man, a reckless white nationalist and a pair of traveling vacationers during a random encounter within Northern Idaho, in this suspenseful drama by Maja Zdanowski. First time director Maja Zdanowski wastes no time taking us deep into the unpredictable and intense realities of race and religion in America.
Director Hiro Kano
Country Japan
The talented detective Matsui is investigating a serial stalker, who has a new victim – a third female. When the thread of the case connects Matsui with deep scars from his past, tragedy ensues.
European Documentary
Director Luigi Abanto Varese
Country Spain
Meeting with the famous Spanish photographer, Cristina Garcia Rodero, member of the Magnum Photos Agency. A conversation rescued from the box of all those visual memories that come to mind while processing my photos in the solitude of the Dark Room
Director Kiana Naghshineh
Country Austria
“No Lies” is a short-documentary about quality journalism and fake news.
Director Inna Blokhina
Country Russia
Nine extraordinary women from the four corners of the globe share a profound love for the Sea
Directors Carol Cassier
Country France
The controversial story of radical feminist artist Casey Jenkins: her rise to internet fame, and the shame after a particular performance.
European Dramatic Feature
Director Alberto Sciamma
Country UK
A road movie that follows a mother and her son through an absurd journey out of their home in Europe into the unknown-and back again.
Director Martijn Hullegie
Country Netherlands
An awkward reunion dinner between three flawed brothers who all have a hidden agenda descends into chaos when the woman they all love announces her pregnancy without revealing the father’s identity.
Director Riccardo Salvetti
Country Italy
A man, a woman, and their families. The fastest and most systematic genocide in history. He is Hutu, she is Tutsi. He must kill. She must die. A fate like so many others in that bloody spring….But this time there is a slight difference: When you reopen your eyes, you are in their place and the choice is only yours now.
Directors Caspar Seale
Country UK, South Africa
Redemption, violence and faith define a young black man, a reckless white nationalist and a pair of traveling vacationers during a random encounter within Northern Idaho, in this suspenseful drama by Maja Zdanowski. First time director Maja Zdanowski wastes no time taking us deep into the unpredictable and intense realities of race and religion in America.
English