Will My Parents Come and See Me
Somalia. A policewoman enters a prison. There, deci- sive hours have dawned for young Farah. He is exam- ined by a doctor, instructed by the bailiff, and looked after by an imam. Farah is waiting for his parents to visit. “How are you?” is the question everyone asks him that day. Each time, “Good” is […]
Staging Death
If cinema exists in order to remind us time and time again with our own mortality, Jan Soldat’s found footage piece on the multiple film deaths of fa- mous actor Udo Kier confronts the medium with its essence. After researching around 350 films and TV-series, Soldat created a fascinating montage of fear, beauty, grace and […]
Paradiso, XXXI, 108
Culled from Israeli military propaganda materials from the ‘60s and ‘70s, Paradiso, XXI, 108 regards (with irony) towards a “cinematic self-portrait of men playing war”, to quote its author. Kamal Aljafari works here with a network of intertextual quotations – Sebald, Borges, Alighieri – to create a conceptual counterpoint to the images on the screen.
The Teachers’ Lounge
“What happens in the staff room stays in the staff room,” says Carla Nowak in an interview with the school newspaper. Even if that is purely wishful thinking for the teacher at this point. This is her first job, and she is committed to teaching mathematics and physical education to her class of seventh graders. […]
Critical Zone
Amir leads a lonely life. With his dog for sole company, he drives through the underworld of Tehran, dealing drugs of all kinds and healing troubled souls like a modern prophet. He navigates the city streets aimlessly, following the directions of his GPS while getting high to escape a town with no future. And yet, […]
The Birthday Party
Italy, December 1999. A father drives his son to a friend’s birthday party at a remote farmhouse. The child is anxious about talk of the so-called “Y2K bug”. But it is the party itself that ends up malfunctioning, when the disturbing details of a family comes to light.
RISING UP THE NIGHT
As the Congo builds Africa’s largest power station, the people of Kinshasa are engulfed in darkness. Amid this dysfunctional and corrupt situation, the population fights for access to electricity. While some form public committees and others find refuge from the darkness in prayer, everybody is getting hold of makeshift lights, not just to survive, but […]
Boomerang
Tired of her marriage to Behzad, Sima is looking for a new home for herself and her teenage daughter Minoo, without telling him. Meanwhile, Behzad is arranging a ‘chance’ meeting with his ex-girlfriend, in the hope of rekindling their intimacy, and is also unsuccessfully searching for a rare species of owl outside Tehran. For her […]
BOGANCLOCH
BEN RIVERS
U.K., Germany | Η.Β., Γερμανία
2024, 86′
HYMN OF THE PLAGUE
In an old Soviet recording studio, the orchestra records a composition based on Pushkin’s play A Feast in Time of Plague. Then gradually, mysterious phenomena creep in among them, ghosts of the past or echoes of an impending disaster, creeping imperceptibly all the way to the very end. The film premiered at the Locarno Film […]