abidance

Directors Anja Strelec,Tomislava Jukic
Croatia
Runtime 44:00
Completion Date: March 3, 2016

 
Unusual quotidian which is shared by 3 generations: grandmother, mother and granddaughter.
The film takes place in a nursing home where mother is working for years. Grandmother used to be a headmaster of the same nursing home and she devoted her life to it. Now she is just one of the inhabitants. She doesn't want to accept weakness of the old age.
Granddaughter is trying to animate grandmother with her camera but their play is interrupted every time mother enters into the room and reality becomes the main character.
Memories are built to keep grandmother alive but her desire to leave is too strong.
That brings out the question: For whom is harder, for the ones who want to leave us or for the ones who stay?

Genes of our fathers

Directors Dr Braam Ackermann, Sean Murray
United Kingdom
Runtime 49:55
Completion Date: November 9, 2016
First-time Filmmaker

This rockumentary was made to accompany my second studio album, "Genes of our fathers". Being a Psychiatrist the film explores the influence of our fathers on our belief systems. It also deals with how our family responded to my mother being killed in a terrorist attack.

Alegria - A Humanitarian Expedition

Director Christoph von Toggenburg
Switzerland
Runtime 30:00
Completion Date: October 31, 2013

​

Alegria - A Humanitarian Expedition tells the story of an epic solo expedition across the Himalaya that changed the life of hundreds of people in need and reached millions around the world. In 2010, Christoph von Toggenburg cycled alone 3200km along the world’s highest tracks pulling a 30kg trailer packed with survival gear in support of leprosy patients and mentally destitute women in India,
With little air to breathe and temperatures between minus15 to plus 45 degrees Celcius he crossed mountain passes higher than 5500m mastering a total of 50’000m.
Crossing Nepal during the Maoist unrests, conflict stricken Kashmir, he encountered wonderful hospitality, found new friends, and saw some of the world’s most spectacular landscapes of this planet.
He became film-maker, actor, fund- and awareness-raiser in one person filming and editing this touching adventure entirely by himself making this a zero-budget production.

Not Without You: Phillip and Bella

Directors  David Slowo
Australia
Runtime 34 min 35 sec
Completion Date: Sep 2016

Born in 1922, twins Phillip and Bella were inseparable during their childhood in Vilna. In this moving and compelling short documentary they recount their lives together and the difficulty of their forced separation and the years they spent apart during the Holocaust. A miraculous re-union at the end of the war laid the basis of an undying bond and legacy that continues today.

''Speaks and presents Tbilisi''

Director Gogi Toradze
Georgia
Runtime  26:00
Completion Date: May 5, 2016

​

Short Documentary Film: ''Speaks and presents Tbilisi" Is a documentary portrait of Guinness record candidacy, the famous sports commentator - Jamlet Khukhashvili.
He is already serving 50 years in his profession, at the same time he is actively involved in the public life, In particular, the development of relations between Georgia and Israel."

Winter Continuous Cycle

Director Michele Molinari
Italy
Runtime  18:50
Completion Date: December 10, 2016

​

Mantua, a medieval small town in Northern Italy, is my hometown. I came back to it after many years living abroad. Of my past life I surely miss the metropolis’ hustle bustle and the anonymous crowd, but at present I enjoy the open view of three little lakes that literally surround the city and wandering in public parks on their shores.
Ciclo Continuo d’Inverno, Winter Continuous Cycle, is a perspective on these outdoors, where the city is a distant reality detectable by urban sounds and the skyline, with human presence only revealing itself through moving cars and thrown away garbage. In the meantime days and nights slowly alternate in the light and weather of winter.

Only Three Strings

Director  Sergey Golovetskiy
Sweden
Runtime 01:24:51
Completion Date: July 7, 2016

It’s a commom belief that balalaika is an instrument suitable for unsophisticated folk music only. In reality its possibilities are much more than that: it’s a real concert instrument that any kind of music can be played on. The film is about balalaika and people who make and play it.

Maju Terus! / Go For It!

Director Dieter Bartels
U S A
Runtime  1 hr 32 min 18 sec   
Completion Date: Sep 2011

 
Moluccas exiles in The Netherlands have been labeled as failures. The filmmakers challenge this misconception showing that Moluccas actually were quite successful when judged by their own cultural premises used to interpret the trials and tribulations experienced first as soldiers in the Dutch colonial army in their homeland, Indonesia, and after World War II, as refugees in Holland resisting, sometimes violently, integration. Reinventing themselves, Moluccans assured their ethnic survival despite heavily intermarrying with the Dutch and eventually succumbing to a Dutch way of life.

Islenos, a Root of America

Director Eduardo Cubillo
Spain 
Runtime   1 hr
Completion Date: Dec 2016

This documentary has a strong emotional intensity. It deals with World History patterns common to every people, to the sense of belonging, to the ties to traditions, to the mother country. It is almost impossible not to feel identifed with the characters, no matter which culture you belong to. Passion, strength, pride and fight are the values that describe this community and every character transmits. The film shows Louisiana, its landscapes, the Mississippi River, sunsets, canals and this community’s relationship with this region.

Brothers in arms. In the Name of Joint Victory

Director Oleg Shtrom
Russian Federation
Runtime  41:00
Completion Date: June 1, 2016

​
Vladimir Kutz 90 year old. After 73 together with the crew, he repeated his unique fighting way. Former prisoner a concentration camp near Stuttgart, in 1945, was released by American soldiers and became the son of the regiment. Together with the American forces his way to the town of Enns in Austria, where in May 1945 joined the allied US troops and the Soviet Union. Before returning home for another four months he served in counterintelligence 5th Airborne Division of the Red Army. Much has changed since then, but it also sounds a bell at City Hall, the Danube carries the water, on the banks of which nearly killed our hero ...

Deisht-I-Kipchak. Mystic Signs

Director Bakhyt Gafu
Kazakhstan
Runtime  49:34
Completion Date:

​
Two-reeler about ancient kipchak writings
The first episode narrates about the times of Kipchak confederation's appearance on historical arena. This happened in IX century. The most eloquent illustration of that time imprinted on the great adventurers' maps is The Land of Kipchaks - Deisht-I-Kipchak which borders laid from Altay to Danube. Also, there were numerous scriptures and first printed book published in Lvov in year 1618. These unique documents traveled with Kipchaks from Georgia and Armenia to the Western Ukraine through the Crimea. The mystery of the scriptures is that they're written with Armenian letters but in Kipchak language. And that's why until this time they were almost unreadable to ordinary reader no matter Turk he is or Armenian.

The Hamlet of Canfield Gardens

Director JIll Campbell
United States
Runtime  01:28:00
Completion Date: July 1, 2015
First-time Filmmaker

​
Filmmaker and playwright Jill Campbell’s exploration of the life of her mentor, Bernard Kops. At 89, Bernard writes a poem a day, a play a year, teaches a class a week and dotes on his muse of 60 years, Erica, while coming to terms with a main theme in his work: death. Combining vérité footage with traditional Jewish songs, the film utilizes Kops’ poetry to delve in and out of indelible moments from his life.

Mova Nanova

Director Jacklyn Cornelisse
Netherlands
Runtime  26:44
Completion Date: July 1, 2016
First-time Filmmaker
Student Project

​

Belarus is known as the last dictatorship of Europe thanks to the autocratic regime of Aleksandr Lukashenko. The current education system still has many soviet traditions in which historical events are altered and liberal Belarusian writers banned. It is forbidden to teach outside the approved curriculum. Anyone who does, is considered an activist and a potential danger to the nation.