Category: 2022 ARFF BARCELONA

Original Film Title: Bizzarro e Fantastico

Director’s Name: Kris Krainock

Writer’s Name: Kris Krainock

Producer’s Name: Dylan Gallagher

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: France, Italy

Language: French, Italian

Runtime: 26 minutes

Film Description:

The new Italian-language film from Writer/Director/Producer Kris Krainock; A Roman Everyman discovers a violently ill intruder on his sofa after returning from the market. Begrudgingly, the Everyman must nurse this stranger back to health before he can unearth the ominous man’s true purpose for being there.

Original Film Title: Para Nadar

Director’s Name: Flore Elise Hartout

Writer’s Name: Flore Elise Hartout

Producer’s Name: John English, Tom Garner

Country of Origin: France

Country of Filming: Spain

Language: Spanish

Runtime: 1 minute 48 seconds

Film Description:

When diagnosed with Leukemia, Ari hit rock bottom, she did not want to live on, as she felt lost, without purpose. Every day since, Ari goes above and beyond the barriers and limitations caused by her medullary lesion with an inspiring attitude and an ambitious goal. The Paris Paralympic Games 2024.

Original Film Title: The Exit

Director’s Name: Sara Saghari

Writer’s Name: Abigail Kienbaum

Producer’s Name: Abigail Kienbaum, Amir Rezazadeh, Sara Saghari

Country of Origin: United Kingdom

Country of Filming: United Kingdom

Language: English, Lithuanian

Runtime: 10 minutes 25 seconds

Film Description:

While dog-sitting in London on Christmas Eve, a lonely cleaner is haunted by a childhood fairytale.

Original Film Title: The Empty Chair

Director’s Name: Jose Villalobos, Rob Margolies

Writer’s Name: Brian Thomas Wilson

Producer’s Name: Anna Clols

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English, Spanish

Runtime: 13 minutes 21 seconds

Film Description:

A woman with a broken past turns deep within herself to change her future.

Original Film Title: 500 Eskimo

Director’s Name: Daria Karpova

Writer’s Name: Daria Karpova

Producer’s Name: Elizaveta Matrosova, Yakov Dubrovsky, Julia Fruktenbein, Anna Malina

Country of Origin:

Country of Filming: Russian Federation

Language: Russian Federation

Runtime: English, Russian

Film Description:

Once upon a time a wizard comes to vizit Andrey and brings everything the character dreamt of when he was 6 years old: 500 ice creams and a dog. But here is a thing, Andrey is already 35. He has a family, a mortgage, a boring job and a daughter who is about to start her primary school year.

Original Film Title: WELLSPRING

Director’s Name: Jeffrey Smith Quizon

Writer’s Name: Jeffrey Smith Quizon, Ken Kwek

Producer’s Name: Jeffrey Smith Quizon

Country of Origin: Philippines

Country of Filming: Philippines

Language: Tagalog

Runtime: 24 minutes 41 seconds

Film Description:

One day in Mindanao, an open barrel with a hazard label is seen floating in a river. Nobody knows where the barrel came from, but soon scores of villagers who use the river for fishing, washing and cooking are dead.

A decade later, the river has disappeared in the heat of a catastrophic drought. In the surrounding jungle, only one source of clean water remains: a bukal, a hidden wellspring.

Here, two opposing factions of soldiers converge in their search for the wellspring, knowing that whoever controls the last vestige of water, controls the territory.

Commanding a government platoon are Abel and Dela Cruz, good Christian leaders whose troops are parched and wounded. Their Muslim counterparts in the rebel army, led by Ali and Ibrahim, are in similarly dire straits.

But more than their thirst for water is their thirst for revenge, as both sides have lost loved ones in the long conflict of their region, and each believes the other to be responsible for the poisoning of the river ten years earlier.

When they finally locate the bukal, both factions engage in a fierce gun-and-sniper battle—only to discover a deadly secret about the opposing party.

A co-production of EpyQ, TBA and Eko Pictures, BUKAL marks the directing debut of Epy Quizon, who directs a star-studded cast in a heartwrenching tale of fellow Filipinos stricken by war and tragedy.

Original Film Title: Fuera de Nuestro Control

Director’s Name: Alexander Garcia Mallarini

Writer’s Name: Alexander Garcia Mallarini

Producer’s Name: Alexander Garcia Mallarini, Robert Blink

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English, Spanish

Runtime: 20 minutes 52 seconds

Film Description:

When Isabela and Santiago meet they start exploring the complexity of love and unrealistic expectations that come with it. There is this illusion that if you love deep enough, you can conquer anything. But many times love disappoints; it changes, it evolves. And along the way, something or someone crosses your path, because you really need to go through the process of confronting the parts of yourself that you never knew existed.

Original Film Title: Yí (El río que no se corta)

Director’s Name: Karin Porley von Bergen

Writer’s Name: Karin Porley von Bergen

Producer’s Name: Arauco Hernández

Country of Origin: Uruguay

Country of Filming: Uruguay

Language: Spanish

Runtime: 11 minutes 30 seconds

Film Description:

Marcus returns to his father´s place still processing a fight that pushed him away from home for some time. He finds his father weaker. The family has lost its balance. Father and son do not know how to deal with it. On his way to take up the work with his father´s beehives, Marcos has an encounter that makes him perceive the scope of the river that nourishes the deepest conflicts with the people closest to him.

Original Film Title: 5 Stars

Director’s Name: Remi Itani

Writer’s Name: Aneesha Lowni

Producer’s Name: Mabel Evans

Country of Origin: United Kingdom

Country of Filming: United Kingdom

Language: English

Runtime: 13 minutes

Film Description:

Original Film Title: Springtime Forever

Director’s Name: Seanie Sugrue

Writer’s Name: Seanie Sugrue

Producer’s Name: Ashton Clay

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 22 minutes

Film Description:

After the sudden death of her husband, Glady is left to fend for herself in an unrecognizable New York City. At her husband’s funeral she reconnects with her granddaughter, Sophie, and she appears to be her only ally. Glady owns a painting that is worth millions and she starts to notices anomalies in her apartment that are evidence of pending foul play. She has to decide who to trust and who to keep at a distance. She is forced to fight her own battles and as result will learn to survive on her own.