Synopsis

Maria returns to Serbia after years of living in exile in Canada. She visits her grandmother, who is living a lonely life in a care home. Her large apartment in an old building is uninhabited, the traces of the past covered in dust. Maria’s initial joy is severely disappointed: Her grandmother does not recognise her, but takes her for Manuela, a fictional character from her favourite Spanish telenovela. Most hints of remembrance prove to result from the grandmother’s confusion of phantasy and reality. When Maria takes her back to her apartment, her memory seems to improve for a short time. But when the past dwindles in sickness, the only thing that remains is the creation of new realities.

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

February
RUS 2014 | 26 min.
Language: Russian w. Engl. ST
Director: Ruslan Magomadov
Chechnya, February 1944. Thanks to an unsuccessful hunt after a wolf, two brothers escape the deportation of their entire village through the violence of the USSR. A gripping story about inhumanity and fraternal strife.

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.

Guests

Sanja Zivkovic

Director Maria's Episode