Synopsis

Chechnya, February 1944. A wolf kills one of the sheep,which are owned by two poor brothers. They then start hunting the animal. They run, jump and sneak through the lonely snow-covered countryside. Biting cold, danger and toil everywhere. People do not live in this winterly realm, they survive; sometimes by mere chance: While they are away hunting the wolf, the two brothers evade the deportation of their entire village by Soviet authorities, accompanied by many casualties. Again, they follow a trail - only instead of a wolf’s trail, they now follow one of footsteps and blood. The hostile mountains and dangerous nature, which seem to hold no love for men, suddenly appear in a different light: It is man himself who holds the least love for his fellow human beings.

The film will be presented within the frame of SHORT FILM COMPETITION 2 together with the following productions:

Maria’s Episode (Marijina epizoda)
SRB/CAN 2014 | 25 min.
Language: Serbian w. Engl. ST
Director: Sanja Živković
After having lived in exile for many years, Maria visits her grandmother in Serbia. However, the old woman confuses her granddaughter with a fictive character from her favourite soap opera. A touching family story between reality and TV fiction.

8 Months (8 Ay)
TUR/FRA 2013 | 20 min.
Language: Turkish w. Engl. ST
Director: Hüseyin Aydın Gürsoy
The weekly call of his son, who has to serve in the army for another eight months, determines an old man’s life. A touching story about war, far from any front.

Soft Rain (Lágy eső)
HUN/BEL 2013 | 29 min.
Language: Hungarian w. Engl. ST
Director: Dénes Nagy
The orphan Dani gets adopted by a pig farmer. He falls in love with his classmate, but is incapable of expressing his feelings for her. Acts of destruction of himself as well as of others take the place of empathy in his emotional repertoire.

The Heat (Żar)
POL 2013 | 24 min.
Language: Polish w. Engl. ST
Director: Bartosz Kruhlik
For the first time ever, the adolescent Michael meets a girl, who should become his new girlfriend. What starts as an innocent story ends in a psychologically gruelling breakout of violence. Forget about teen spirit.

Pandas (Pandy)
SVK/CZE 2013 | 11 min.
Director: Matúš Vizár
Based on the evolution of pandas, Matúš Vizár creates an animated reckoning, that is critical of civilisation. He reveals our perverted (mis)understanding of nature by showing how poorly humans treat it.

The Execution (A kivégzés)
HUN/ROU 2014 | 14 min.
Language: Romanian w. Engl. ST
Director: Petra Szőcs
“Playing Ceausescu” is common among the children of Cluj in 1990 – a game, which entails enacting a brutal execution. A precisely staged view onto a school yard as a place of subversive and direct violence.