Official Selection – Feature-length Documentary Competition

ARGENTYNSKA LEKCJA

Argentinean Lesson

Poland 2011 56’

Directed by: Wojciech Staron

Janek, an 8-year-old child, left Warsaw with his family to arrive in a small village in Northern Argentina whose inhabitants are descendants of Polish migrants. The child finds himself surrounded by a completely new world, among people whose language and habits are unknown to him. Over time he strikes up a friendship with a local girl, Marcia, and with her he initiates a process of discovery that will transform the lives of both.

Friday, November 18th, Odeon, 6:00 pm – Saturday, November 19th, Odeon, 11:30 am
ARMAND 15 ANS L’ÉTÉ

Summer Growing Up

France 2011 50’

Directed by: Blaise Harrison

Armand is a plump boy, but his movements are not clumsy. He does not feel uncomfortable with his body, nor with his peers. A strongly developed feminine side allows him to share the emotions and feelings of a summer holiday with other girls. Far from clichés, the author starts from Gus Van Sant and Larry Clark to play with American aesthetics and overturn its principles: at 15 years of age a summer in Southern France has the sound of crickets, of text messages and of fireworks as its soundtrack.

Tuesday, November 15th, Odeon, 9:30 pm – Wednesday, November 16th, Odeon, 3:00 pm
CRULIC – DRUMUL SPRE DINCOLO

Crulic - The Path to Beyond

Romania/Poland 2011 73’

Directed by: Anca Damian

Hand drawings, photos, collage and stop-motion animation give voice to Claudiu Crulic, a young Romanian immigrant who was accused of a petty theft and who died in the prisons of Krakow after a long hunger strike. Thanks to animation, this documentary ironically and poetically gives shape to the protagonist’s story from the afterlife. Romanian actor Vlad Ivanovembre ( (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Black Sea) gives his voice to Crulic to bear witness to a topical, unfortunately common case.

Friday, November 18th, Odeon, ore 21:00 – Saturday, November 19th, Odeon, 10:00 am
FAKE IT SO REAL

USA 2011 92’

Directed by: Robert Greene

North Carolina. A group of wrestlers participating in the professional tour is preparing for an important show on the weekend. Even if everything in the show is carefully planned, the physical effort, the discipline and, above all, the pain are real. The wrestlers show their personalities. All of them have histories which are exorcized every time they get on the ring. Against the background of a devastating financial crisis, the film portrays a community made up only by men who have to do their job.

Thursday, November 17th, Odeon, 5:00 pm – Friday, November 18th, Odeon, 10:00 am
L’ESTATE DI GIACOMO

Summer of Giacomo

Italy/France/Belgium 2011 78’

Directed by: Alessandro Comodin

Giacomo and Stefania, two teenagers, are hiking along the banks of the Tagliamento river. The excursion soon becomes an exciting adventure: not only for the exploration of the wood, of the river bends and of the abandoned cottages, but, above all, for the growing curiosity towards each other. The skin begins to burn, not only because of the heat of the sun. Summer is a season of life.

Sunday, November 13th, Odeon, 5:00 pm – Monday, November 14th, Odeon, 10:00 am
LA PLUIE ET LE BEAU TEMPS

Sunshine and Rain

France 2011 74’

Directed by: Ariane Doublet

Normandy accounts for 40% of the world production of flax, with China as the only purchaser. The film shows the processing and trade of the raw material, giving a concrete example of market rules and globalized economy. Thanks to the long-distance collaboration between the director and filmmaker Wen Hai, the French scenario alternates with the Chinese one: two apparently distant worlds are actually united by the same worries and by the same hopes.

Sunday, November 13th, Odeon, 7:00 pm – Tuesday, November 15th, Odeon, 11:00 am
LASCIANDO LA BAIA DEL RE

Leaving King's Bay

Italy 2011 78’

Directed by: Claudia Cipriani

Baia del Re is a neighborhood on the outskirts of Milan. In a particular school the destinies of a young girl and a teacher cross each other. Lasciando la baia del Re contains several plots: the painful and therapeutic story of a loss, the diary of a relationship that grows and deepens day by day, the portrait of a ‘difficult’ community, the chronicle of a travel through the wonders of the Arctic, with the constant threat of polar bears...a unique film, which was conceived as "a declaration of love and anger."

Wednesday, November 16th, Odeon, 6:30 pm - Thursday, November 17th, Odeon, 10:00 am
MENSAJERO

Messenger

Argentina 2011 85’

Directed by: Martín Solá

Rodrigo is a messenger of a community of the Puña region, in Northern Argentina, who left to go to work in a salt evaporation pond. Through him and through his journey, the eye of the camera reveals a particular world, characterzied by a bond between the inhabitants and their territory that is not only physical and mental, but also spiritual. The film is at the same time realistic and visionary, like the protagonist’s view.

Monday, November 14th, Odeon, 5:00 pm – Tuesday, November 15th, Odeon, 3:00 pm
MERCADO DE FUTUROS

Futures Market

Spain 2011 114’

Directed by: Mercedes Álvarez

An old house must be demolished. The objects and stories it contains are the starting point of this film, which skillfully depicts the spirit of our age. Watching a real estate trade show, the brokers of the financial world, the preachers of business success, we see how the space becomes more and more virtual, how personal and collective memories are evicted and how dreams and passions are reduced to mere merchandise, put up for sale in a Mercado de Futuros.

Wednesday, November 16th, Odeon, 4:00 pm – Thursday, November the 17th, 3:00 pm
PEOPLE I COULD HAVE BEEN AND MAYBE AM

Netherlands 2010 54’

Directed by: Boris Gerrets

Sandrine is a very attractive woman from Brazil who is in London in the hope of finding a husband. Steve, a homeless man who had previously had drug addiction issues and other problems, falls in love with her. But there is also Precious, a poet and, above all, Steve's ex girlfriend. “Filming a moment always entails the destruction of the previous or of the following one. This is the paradoxical truth which links cinema to reality.”

Wednesday, November 16th, Odeon, 91:00 pm – Friday, November the 18th, Odeon, 3:00 pm
RAMIN

Latvia. Lithuania, Georgia 2011 58’

Directed by: Audrius Stonys

Ramin, a former wrestling legend from Georgia, has now reached an age when he begins to feel the burden of memory. He embarks on a journey through space – across his homeland – and time – the time of his life. Always faithful to his style, in which the observation of reality is filtered by a precise linguistic consciousness, Stonys produces another fascinating 'internal monologue'.

Monday, November 14th, Odeon, 7:00 pm – Tuesday, November 15th, Odeon, 10:00 am
TERRITOIRE PERDU

Lost Land

Belgium 2011 75’

Directed by: Pierre-Yves Vanderweerd

“I am often asked why the Saharawi people fight for an empty territory. Besides the obvious economic reasons, I have always thought that people fight in the name of their attachment to a territory. Most of them were not used to the idea of frontiers until exile. In this film I wanted to show this nomadic way of thinking.” A film, shot on Super 8, which begins immersed in the wind and resembles a ship in the desert, sailing without any point of reference and yet, its center of gravity is slowly defined in the most accurate way.

Wednesday, November 16th, Odeon, 4:00 pm – Thursday, November 17th, Odeon, 11:30 am
THE ANABASIS OF MAY AND FUSAKO SHIGENOBU, MASAO ADACHI AND 27 YEARS WITHOUT IMAGES

France 2011 66’

Directed by: Eric Baudelaire

The story of the Japanese Red Army recalled through three emblematic lives: the JRA founder Fusako Shigenobu, her daughter May and filmmaker Masao Adachi. The latter, after joining the revolutionaries in Beirut in the Seventies, decides to live underground to keep on working with them. Once arrested, Masao Adachi is condemned not to leave Japan and to abandon cinema – until a French filmmaker asks him permission to make a film about his life.

Tuesday, November 15th, Odeon, 7:00 pm – Wednesday, November 16th, Odeon, 10:00 am
VOL SPÉCIAL

Special Flight

Switzerland 2011 103’

Directed by: Fernand Melgar

Awaiting definite deportment from the Swiss territory, rejected asylum seekers and undocumented migrants are jailed at the administrative detention centre Frambois. Between wardens and prisoners relations of friendship and hate, respect and revolt are formed until the announcement of the deportment, which is experienced like a stab. Those who refuse to leave are handcuffed, tied up and forcibly put in a plane. In this extreme situation, despair has a name: special flight.

Sunday, November 13th, Odeon, 9:30 pm – Monday, November the 14th, Odeon, 3:00 pm