Category: 2023 ARFF Amsterdam

Original Film Title: Untitled Days

Director’s Name: Beatrix Guedes

Writer’s Name: Beatrix Guedes

Producer: Beatrix Guedes, Leonardo Musa, Cecilia Salguero

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: Brazil

Language: English

Runtime: 30 minutes

Film Description:

AN EYE-HEADED FRUSTRATED POET FALLS IN LOVE WITH A BLIND CABARET SINGER WHILE STRUGGLING WITH HIS ADDICTION TO COLLYRIUM DELIRIUM AND HIS ABSOLUTE INCOMPETENCE TO COME UP WITH A DECENT RHYME.

Rupert is a failed poet living a pathetic solitary life. He works in a filthy library, and spends most of his days reading books he wish he had written. He is lost amidst surrealistic dreams and a blind obsession for his muse Rosetta , the cabaret singer.

“Rupert” is an anti-genre , surrealistic and heavy loaded criticism of violence against women infused in a story of blind love narrated by an eye-headed man.

Original Film Title: Untitled Days

Director’s Name: Eva Rini May Cragg

Writer’s Name: Eva Rini May Cragg

Producer: Eva Rini May Cragg

Country of Origin: Germany

Country of Filming: Germany

Language: No Dialogue

Runtime: 8 minutes

Film Description:

LOGLINE 
A woman doesn’t quite want to come into frame. On the verge of invisibility she tiptoes towards herself.

SYNOPSIS 
A pigeon coos through drawn curtains as the silhouette of a woman wrapped in her sheets moves with slow breaths. The shadow of flapping wings interrupts a gap of light and someone scurries from frame to leave an empty bed behind. Beyond a cracked door a kettle steams while a figure exercises behind chiselled glass. Large canvases block the windows and she turns the pages of her book, but a fly interrupts.

Original Film Title: Mental Soirée

Director’s Name: Sally Eckhoff

Writer’s Name: Sally Eckhoff

Producer: Sally Eckhoff

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Runtime: 6 minutes 10 seconds

Film Description:

An animated moral lesson from an unlikely source

Original Film Title: Mental Soirée

Director’s Name: Alberto Arellano

Writer’s Name: Alberto Arellano

Producer: Jakub Laskus

Country of Origin: Spain

Country of Filming: Poland

Language: English

Runtime: 5 minutes 14 seconds

Film Description:

Synopsis 
A Manual for a correct study of Telepathy in 3 steps leads the story trough an evocative universe in which the characters are immerse. 
The mind is like a shipwreck, which always leaves remains on the beach…a story depicted in colors, shapes and symbols. 
Mental Soirée tells the story of two shipwrecked people who meet in an unique soirée.

As a general comment about the film: 
The film is an artefact articulated between two main ideas: 
The first one is based on an experiment- scientific approach of how to get an extrasensory perception in 3 steps, ( in fact we want to really invite the audience to test it by following those steps strictly…) and the second main idea is based on a poetic gaze, suggesting a magnetic universe in which emotions, time, communication and feelings are diluted.

Original Film Title: NUDE DESCENDING THE STAIRCASE CONTINUOUSLY

Director’s Name: Jacek Jędrzejczak

Writer’s Name: Jacek Jędrzejczak

Producer: Jacek Jędrzejczak

Country of Origin: Poland

Country of Filming: Poland

Language: English

Runtime: 5 minutes 4 seconds

Film Description:

This work is a creative dialogue, a visual work freely corresponds with the work by Duchamp in a way focused on the possibilities of the use of the film technique. 
The inspiration with the works by other artists is an element absent in my art, yet this one artist I consider to be an exceptionally important – not only to me but to the creative process perceived widely and universally. 
The visual means used and the continuum specifics given to the film create the point of reference for your own interpretation – either by people aware of Duchamp’s art, or not. 
This work is an hommage of a kind to Marcel Duchamp, the French artist and experimenter, author of the “ready-made” term. “Nude Descending a Staircase” (1912) is one of his best known works.

Original Film Title: À pas chassés

Director’s Name: Régis Pinault, Valérie du Chéné

Writer’s Name: Régis Pinault, Valérie du Chéné

Producer: CNAP, Centre d’art contemporain Chapelle Saint Jacques, Région Occitanie

Country of Origin: France

Country of Filming: Spain

Language: French

Runtime: 34 minutes

Film Description:

À pas chassés is inspired by the real-life story of philosopher Walter Benjamin. 
Set today in the small town of Port-Bou, the film uses a fictional narrative to evoke his crossing of the Franco-Spanish border. 
Transformed into a ghost, the main character enters the landscape. He sleeps, dreams, rambles, loses himself in his fantasies. To live out his emotions, he plays with color, light and the city. At the same time, two key characters, the Phantom’s lover and an erudite woman, set off in search of him.