Official Selection, Special Events

Cinema Universale d'Essai

Italy 2008 68’

Directed by: Federico Micali

Firenze, zona del Pignone. Una vecchia sale, il Cinema Universale d'Essai, teatro di leggende metropolitane e di aneddoti tramandati da una generazione all'altra, rivive nei racconti di quelli che la frequentarono. Il ricordo appassionato di un luogo caro alla cinefilia, trasformato irrimedibilmente in una discoteca.
Čiža acīm

Little Bird’s Diary

Latvia 2007 26’

Directed by: Edmunds Jansons

A woman who lived her life through the two major tragedies on the earth, the Nazi occupation and then the Soviet one, decides to tell the story through her simple drawings, day by day, as in a diary. From her drawings, director Edmunds Jansons made the animation draws that gave life to the film.
Langue sacrée, langue parlée

France 2008 73’

Directed by: Nurith Aviv

Punctuated by the exchanges between Jewish writers and artists who attempt to describe their relationship with the sacred dimension of the Hebrew language, the film visually moves you along the train tracks from Jerusalem to Tel-Aviv, editing the images of the Lumière brothers to those of everyday life. Meanwhile voices intersect, all pondering a specific question: “Is it conceivable that modern languages aren't filled with centuries of religious history from which they still carry reminders?”.
Les Hommes de la Forêt 21

The Man from the Wood N° 21

France 2007 52’

Directed by: Julien Samani

Part of the unedited and new collection «L'Usage du Monde» produced by Arte and the Museum of Quai Branly, Les Hommes de le foret 21, captures two woodsmen at work cutting down giant tree trunks in the equatorial forest. The woodsmen end up in the West with the hope of a better life that forever eludes them.
Routes

UK 2007 48’

Directed by: Alex Reuben

A journey through the landscape, music and dance of the deep south of the United States. From North Carolina to the streets of New Orleans, these images capture the gestures and the movements of the men and women that dance to different rhythms, or who simply demonstrate their rich cultural heritage and the beauty of their traditions. A film without dialogues: charming, hypnotic, gripping.
Unas fotos en la ciudad de Sylvia

Some Photos in the City of Sylvia

Spain 2007 67’

Directed by: José Luis Guerin

Resulting from the research of Guerin in preparation for his En la ciudad de Sylvia, the film is composed of a series of striking photos (of places, of faces, of women's bodies, of the details of works of art) and a voice in the background that talks about the infinite reaches of the experiences of love, working in time with a visual enchantment and the accompanying music.
Z32

Israel/France 2008 81’

Directed by: Avi Mograbi

Based on the confession of a soldier, who while obeying orders, kills some Palestinian civilians in cold blood in a retaliatory military encounter, the film is a lucid reconstruction of a crime and is accompanied by a mocking Brechtian choir that comments on the situation at hand. The result is a political message with universal ramifications on the act of killing itself.