Category: Best Documentary ARFF Barcelona 2023

Original Film Title: Gerry Anderson: A Life Uncharted

Director’s Name: Benjamin Field

Producer: Benjamin Field

Country of Origin: United Kingdom

Country of Filming: United Kingdom

Language: English

Runtime: 1 hour 32 minutes

Film Description:

Gerry Anderson’s career spanned 60 years, with his iconic works including such popular television series as Thunderbirds (1965-66), Stingray (1964-65), Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967-68), Space: 1999 (1975-77), Terrahawks (1983-86), and Space Precinct (1994-95).

Released a decade after his death in 2012, Gerry Anderson: A Life Uncharted will draw on access to over 30 hours of previously unpublished interviews in order to share new, untold stories.

In addition to featuring commentary from friends, family, fans and colleagues, archive audio will also be combined with ‘deep fake’ technology to allow Anderson to appear on-screen and tell his own story, from a poverty-stricken childhood to success in the worlds of cult television.

Original Film Title: Hudson, America

Director’s Name: Zuzka Kurtz, Geoffrey Hug

Writer’s Name: Zuzka Kurtz, Geoffrey Hug

Producer: Zuzka Kurtz, Geoffrey Hug

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: Bangladesh, France, Morocco, United Kingdom, United States

Language: English

Runtime: 1 hour 41 minutes 10 seconds

Film Description:

A portrait of America through the eyes of six Bangladeshi Gen-Z students and their conservative Muslim community, 2016-2022.

Original Film Title: SMILE og VINKE

Director’s Name: Eva Charlotte Nilsen

Writer’s Name: Eva Charlotte Nilsen

Producer: Eva Charlotte Nilsen

Country of Origin: Norway

Country of Filming: Norway

Language: Norwegian

Runtime: 57 hours

Film Description:

Do you want to join me for a walk along the shore?
SMILE AND WAVE is an essay film set in a tidal landscape in Northern Norway. Might one say something about life by portraying a place? Might one understand more of oneself by contemplating one’s passions? The flow of the tide and memories of the past are intertwined in this story about the vulnerability of life and what remains when something is gone. Fascination with nature led to a French marine biologist, to heart urchins, and to a father.

Original Film Title: Ice Mermaid

Director’s Name: Dan McComb

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Runtime: 41 minutes 47 seconds

Film Description:

Ice swimmer Melissa Kegler faces swift currents, hypothermia and her own doctor’s disapproval in her quest to swim colder and longer than any American.

Original Film Title: Pinheiro | Ep02 – Refresh

Director’s Name: Thomas Dunzendorfer

Writer’s Name: Thomas Dunzendorfer

Producer: James Fairbank, Raphaela Ossberger

Country of Origin: Austria

Country of Filming: Austria, Sweden

Language: English

Runtime: 6 minutes 37 seconds

Film Description:

Presenting Pinheiro, a portrait of the modern skier and part of Atomic’s vision for the future of ski racing.

In episode 2, follow Lucas Pinheiro Braathen as he prepares for an intense alpine skiing World Cup season.

The strive to improve and to perfection provides the main plot for this series, showcasing what it takes to become a complete skier – besides training and racing. This project is about opening the world of skiing to new people. A whole new generation of fans and people.

Original Film Title: True Hearts

Director’s Name: Deborah Dickson

Producer: Deborah Dickson, Scott Anger

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: Italy, United States

Language: English, Russian, Spanish

Runtime: 58 minutes

Original Film Title: Lacanianos

Director’s Name: Damián Comas

Writer’s Name: Damián Comas

Producer: Pablo Apiolazza

Country of Origin: Spain

Country of Filming: Italy, Spain

Language: Spanish

Runtime: 47 minutes 7 seconds

Film Description:

“Lacanianos” is a documentary that presents several of the brightest minds in Lacanian psychoanalysis in Spain and Latin America. Among them: Jorge Alemán, Gustavo Dessal, Celeste Stecco, Julia Gutiérrez, Alejandro Tolosa, Mercedes De Francisco, among others. Lacanian psychoanalysts who make a reading of the contemporary world and its complexity, to question the movements of hate, the death drive, the place of the real, the unconscious, and above all, how much of our existence is just repetition.”

Original Film Title: La llibreta del Dr. Gras

Director’s Name: Andreu Prunera Garcia, Júlia Albacar Cordero, David Barreda Rocamora

Writer’s Name: Andreu Prunera Garcia, Júlia Albacar Cordero

Country of Origin: Spain

Country of Filming: Spain

Language: Catalan

Runtime: 1 hour 6 seconds

Film Description:

The doctor’s notebook is a documentary film that claims the memory of the victims in the Spanish Civil War and Franco’s dictatorship, and explains the whole process followed for exhuming a massive grave of Ebro’s battle.
A story that follows the trace by a doctor’s old notebook, where he wrote down the cures he provided to soldiers and fighters during the war. Using this notes, 80 years after, the bodies of 177 people have been exhumed in Móra d’Ebre (Catalonia).

Original Film Title: The Land of Ahimsa

Director’s Name: Aryeman Ramsay

Producer: Dolly Vyas-Ahuja, Mayur Ahuja

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: France, India, United States

Language: Arabic

Runtime: 1 hour 30 minutes

Film Description:

The Land of Ahimsa is a feature-length documentary that strives to inspire and encourage India to adopt a vegan lifestyle. Indians are waking up to the truth that all animals deserve a chance to live. India is considered the land of Ahimsa, which means non-violence to all living beings in our actions, thoughts, and words. As a country, we citizens have drastically grown apart from the true meaning of this word. The mission of this documentary is to convince India as a whole that it is time to put this word back into action in what we say, think, and do.
The film follows Dolly Vyas-Ahuja on her journey to veganism. Once vegan, she made it her mission to educate and create awareness regarding the cruelty of the animal agriculture and dairy industry, as well as its impact to animal rights, personal health and the environment. Just like her grandfather, a freedom fighter who marched alongside Gandhi to liberate India from British rule, she strives for animal freedom and liberation.
Gandhi once said, “The moral of a nation can be judged by the treatment of its animals.” Like Gandhi and her grandfather, Dolly has a dream that India will rise up to the true meaning of non-violence, Ahimsa, choosing justice over habit and creating a new divine imprint.

Original Film Title: Alcindo

Director’s Name: Miguel Dores

Writer’s Name: Miguel Dores

Producer: Maus da Fita, Movimento SOS SOS Racismo

Country of Origin: Portugal

Country of Filming: Portugal

Language: Portuguese

Runtime: 1 hour 3 minutes

Film Description:

On the 10th of June 1995, under the multiple pretext of celebrating the Race Day and the victory of Sporting for the Cup of Portugal, a large group of Portuguese ethno-nationalists went to the streets of Bairro Alto to beat up black people they met along the way. The official result was 11 victims, one of them deadly, whose tragic death on Rua Garret gives name to the court case – the Alcindo Monteiro case. Alcindo is a documentary about a long night – a night with the size of a country.