​​​​​​​​​NNFestival 2017 (1 semifinal)

BLACKBIRD a dream resurrected

Director Cyrus Salvia
U S A 
Runtime 11 min 4 sec
Completion Date: Aug 2016
1ST TIME FILMMAKER

'BLACKBIRD a dream resurrected'' is the story of a man who's hopes and aspirations are slowly extinguished as a result of the life choices he has made… with dramatic consequences.
During a seizure, it's the images that seep from his subconscious that really tell his story.
The images in this 'dream'.. from the bare feet, the snow covered forest, the moss that turns black, the barren trees, the fox , the owl and especially the pods full of dead blackbirds are all there to 'speak' to him. It is through these images and because of their meanings...that he is able to rebuild his character, resurrect his dream...and fly!

A Sunny Day

Director Timo Behnke
Germany
Runtime 9:09
Completion Date: December 15, 2015

After an intense shopping day, a mother of two children comes back with a living toy. The father shows no interest. The children might be more impressed.

Voice of the Dead

Director David Criswell
United States
Runtime 17:23
Completion Date: July 13, 2016
1ST TIME FILMMAKER

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A man who was convicted of a murder he did not commit awaits his execution when a new prisoner enters the cell next to him. In the course of conversation, the man in the new cell claims to be the man he murdered!

SAD FACE

Director Roman Kirichenko
Ukraine
Runtime  20 min 17 sec 
Completion Date: Oct 2015
1ST TIME FILMMAKER 

The Policemen arrests an ordinary tribesman—our main character— because he has a sad face. By showing a sad face, the tribesman breaks the government’s new Law, which orders everyone to be happy and to walk around with smiles on their faces. Because of his refusal to obey, the tribesman’s freedom and life are in danger. And he was just today released from prison, where he had spent five years for disobedience. It doesn’t matter to the tribesman, however, because he is not going to obey these senseless laws either. Therefore he has to take part in a dangerous battle with the brutal System, which means facing the sophisticated Interrogator. And his only protection is honesty and wisdom. But is it enough for him to stay true to himself, and will it help him to knock off the mask of his chief enemy?

Courage

Director Jean-Luc Julien
Germany
Runtime 4:04
Completion Date: July 20, 2016

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A man struggles to overcome his nervousness with women in a bar when he stumbles upon words of wisdom in the bathroom.

Twin Stars

Director Mehmet Tığlı
Turkey
Runtime 17:32
Completion Date: June 27, 2016
1ST TIME FILMMAKER

Can and Cihan are identical twins. They live in Büyükada-Prince Island with their family. First we see their period when they are 10-years old. Can is more emotional and feverish, while Cihan is more even-tempered and dominant. At night, their family send them to get some quell water from a quell a bit further away from their house. Leaving their plastic cans by the quell, they start counting the stars in the grass area behind the quell and they choose 2 of the brightest stars of all and imagine them as their own universes. They give the names Castor and Pollux to these two stars just like in the story their granny used to tell. Castor is Cihan’s, and Pollux Can’s. On another night, the weather is very cloudy. They fail to find Pollux, which is one of the brightest stars. The same night, Can’s plastic can has been stolen by the quell, and Can is very disappointed. Cihan hugs his brother.

Keep The Chocolates

Director Kevin Boston
United States
Runtime 6:47
Completion Date: August 8, 2016
1ST TIME FILMMAKER

"Keep The Chocolates" is an urban tale of contemporary love and relationships. Based on a true story, it is a dark comedy written and produced by first time Filmmaker Petra Khashoggi and Directed by Kevin Boston. A beautiful British girl named Lucy (played by Khashoggi herself) unexpectedly spends Valentine's Day alone after being jilted by her cold, self-serving lover, played by Australian soap star Ben Lawson (Neighbors, Modern Family, Billions). Just when Lucy’s day couldn’t possibly get any worse, a mistaken Valentine’s Day delivery brings sexy GQ model/actor Cottrell Guidry to her doorstep—but is it a mistake or is it fate? A bittersweet box of chocolates might just change her life.

Unhooked

Director Victoria Marks, D. Andy Rice
United States
Runtime 24:52
Completion Date: May 25, 2016

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A choreography-documentary hybrid in which Greek Life students move and then say it in their own words: this is how hookup culture works from the inside. Student voices contribute surprising insights to what has become a national conversation about the epidemic of sexual violence on college campuses.

Hunting Day

Director Ivo Skanstiņš
Latvia
Runtime 19:38
Completion Date: July 26, 2016
STUDENT PROJECT
1ST TIME FILMMAKER

When after a poaching run a hunter is found dead in the forest, the hunters daughter and mentally ill son set out in fathers old milk truck to find the truth behind his death and take revenge.

A Love By Your Side

Director Paul Spencer Alexander
United States
Runtime  5:21
Completion Date: April 2, 2016

"A Love By Your Side" is a short film musical written & performed by PS Alexander that examines a seldom talked about but truly cryptic aspect of our society; isolation and living without someone to love. It is so easy for the majority of other people out there not to feel this way or take notice of others who are suffering, especially if it's the secret broken hearts or indescribable loneliness of close friends remaining silent.

Noticed

Director LIMOR DIAMANT
United States
Runtime  15:00
Completion Date: September 30, 2015
1ST TIME FILMMAKER

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Olga is a postal worker who lives in her imaginative reclusive world of Spaghetti Westerns and the whimsical life of bugs. Herself created universe is interrupted one night when she discovers that a suspicious peeping tom lives across from her. Olga's unexpected obsession to get NOTICED by him takes her on a new journey of no return.

Laughter Far Away

Director Ewan Golder
United Kingdom
Runtime  26 min 26 sec
Completion Date: Jun 2016

STUDENT PROJECT

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Laughter Far Away is an immersive, hypnotic journey into the surreal drunken nether world of a young, emotionally scarred man desperately seeking oblivion, at the edge of the world, at the edge of life.

Into The Ground

Director David TUIL
France
Runtime 20 min
Completion Date: May 2016

Mathieu & Samy, two frustrated teenagers decide to throw an extraordinary party in Paris Catacombs. However the party will take an unpredictable turn and they will learn that nothing should have be let to chance …

December, an Invention of the Year 2015

Director Jean Seban
France
Runtime  22:00
Completion Date: January 10, 2014

A film about time

FLOOD

Director Enoh Lienemann
Germany
Runtime  7:24
Completion Date: March 14, 2016

„ Flood „ is a film about the question of identity of women, which are in an upheaval phase. The empty room serves as a symbol for the open question were the true roots are. In metaphorical pictures the film follows a woman. She stands for a lot of women with a migration background and the efforts to find her way and her roots in a multicultural, but also national society.

Dark Dreamer

Director Max Ponischowski
Germany
Runtime  15:00
Completion Date: January 13, 2016

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Marcus wakes up in the middle of the night and gets a visit from a strange creature with unnatural powers. The man calls himself a Nighthob and opens up about the fact, that Marcus doesn't know what life he has lived so far in secret . The adventure begins.

A Magician

Director Max Blustin
United Kingdom
Runtime  3:20
Completion Date: June 30, 2016 

 
After witnessing a man behave violently towards his girlfriend, someone decides to intervene.

Love is everywhere

Director Jessy Langlois
France
Runtime  29:58
Completion Date:December 21, 2015
 
 
ONE MOVIE - 7 CITIES IN THE WORLD
Virginia meets a young man, one morning at dawn, on a Parisian bench. It is not yet clear that this will be a beautiful love story that she will live with him. She did not know that it will not be the man of her life. But what she knows even less, is that a chain reaction will begin, all around the planet, in Paris, Rio de Janeiro, NEW YORK, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Dubai, Tel Aviv and she is, herself, the first act of it. She will meet someone again, and have a new beautiful story, even more enjoyable.
 

LOVE SONG: The Triumph and Tragedy of Tchaikovsky

Director  Ian Woodward
United Kingdom
Runtime  29:00
Completion Date:February 22, 2014
 
LOVE SONG is based on exclusive ground-breaking research by filmmaker Ian Woodward. The docudrama reveals for the first time the heart-breaking true story behind the creation of Tchaikovsky’s fantasy overture “Romeo and Juliet” which gave the world one of the most famous love themes ever written. The facts are presented in biopic docudrama form. All the characters depicted in the film actually existed, although some moments have been fictionalised to fill-in gaps where details are scant or non-existent. The result is LOVE SONG: THE TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY OF TCHAIKOVSKY. A cinematic first that could seriously rock the classical-music Establishment.

Cinecittà On Wheels

Director Inti Carboni
Italy
Runtime  6:26
Completion Date:February 23, 2016
 
A skateboarding video starring the Cinecitta' film studios.
 

A Boy Enters

Director  Mads Krause
Denmark
Runtime  20:00
Completion Date:May 25, 2016
 
 
Jannick enjoying life, but then a boy knocks on the door.
Jannick is well adapted to his lifestyle of hanging out with friends and partying. He charms the ladies and has fun with his boys. But the day after a party there's a knock on his door. Jannick opens and in walks a boy, who claims Jannick is his father. Now he has to figure out what to do in this feel good comedy.

ADORATION: A Natural History

Director  Ian Woodward
United Kingdom
Runtime   22:44
Completion Date:February 6, 2015

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ADORATION, a wildlife docudrama by lifelong naturalist Ian Woodward, FZS, is a portrait of the countryside seen through the seasons, its fauna and flora, and through the eyes of Nature Woman. It is accompanied by beautiful, inspiring music and the filmmaker’s screenplay-in-verse. Nature Woman, played by London-based actress Kim May, is the physical embodiment of the film’s imagery and sentiments. (FZS = Fellow of the Zoological Society of London.)

Squares

Director Bernard Kordieh
United Kingdom
Runtime  12:45
Completion Date:April 17, 2016

Noah journeys through a world outside time and space to relive moments with his soul mate that has passed away. Unable to exist in the present with the threat of being incarcerated, he is intervened by a friend with a message.

TOO MANY GHOSTS

Director  Ian Woodward
United Kingdom
Runtime   15.00
Completion Date:October 29, 2011
 
TOO MANY GHOSTS is a fictionalised commentary on the folly of war set in Europe between the last five days of the Second World War and a few days after the end of hostilities. Joe Franklin, a young corporal in Britain’s illustrious 330-year-old East Yorkshire Regiment, is reminiscing about the horrors of war and the mental scars it inflicts on the physically and mentally injured. He is filled with remorse at the memories of those very close to his heart who have perished. Many are missing but some have been returned home to be buried in towns and villages up and down the British Isles. Joe’s story is told against the musical backdrop of England’s iconic national composer, Sir Edward Elgar, with poetry by some of the country’s great war poets and specially-composed verse by the film-maker.
 

After Auschwitz

Director Paul Blinkhorn
United Kingdom
Runtime  12:30
Completion Date:March 6, 2016
 
A short film about survival, truth and reflection. It examines the emotional survival of one woman as she looks back on the choices that she has made in life. Hiding from the shadows of the past, Rebeka reflects on the paths not taken, of love lost and the moral obligations of being a survivor.