Category: 2023 ARFF Barcelona

Original Film Title: Homeown Lullaby

Director’s Name: Bo Liu

Writer’s Name: Bo Liu

Producer: Yunosuke Tamari

Country of Origin: China

Country of Filming: Japan

Language: Japanese

Runtime: 47 minutes 26 seconds

Film Description:

Naoto, who has been wandering around the big city for a long time, always remembers his friend Takumi, who treated him warmly during his difficult boyhood. However, Takumi has disappeared from Naoto’s life without a trace. This became a coiling of Naoto’s heart.
Naoto returned to his hometown to look for Takumi. In the place where his memories took place, memory and reality intersected, and everything seemed to return to the beautiful old days.

Original Film Title: TOUCH

Director’s Name: Jana Siân Blume

Writer’s Name: Jana Siân Blume

Producer: Polina Litvinova

Country of Origin: Germany

Country of Filming: Germany

Language: English, Romanian

Runtime: 19 minutes

Film Description:

ANI (24) is a young Romanian woman who studies professional dance in Cologne.
The final performance of the dance school is coming up and Ani is rehearsing with her dance colleagues on a choreography called “TOUCH”.
The director of the dance theater will be watching the performance to welcome new talents into the ensemble. Ani feels torn. Because at the same time her mother in Romania is suffering from cancer and she needs urgent financial support from Ani for medical care. But Ani misses her mother and would rather give up everything to visit her sick mother at home. Ani tries desperately to meet all of the family’s expectations. However, Ani wants to make her own decisions and be free like her girlfriend Mara who is Anis closest person, but doesn’t want to lose Ani and encourages her to stay in Cologne and fight for the job, so they can stay together. Ani’s mother dies all of a sudden the day of the performance, but Ani has no time to mourn. Her father pushes her to go on stage. But Mara is overwhelmed by her feelings and suffers strong grief, whilst the director of the theatre is watching her having a black out on stage. The audience and the choreographer are uneasy but Mara walks onto the stage and takes Ani’s hand. Mara gently guides the movements and they dance an intimate duet in front of everyone. Like they always do at home when no one is looking. Familiar and tightly embraced, they dance in the spotlight and forget everything around them. In the midst of chaos, Ani feels disappointed to not have been able to support her mother before she died. She realises that she was trying so hard to hold everything together and that she was trapped. Now, she can let go and in Maras arms she forgets about the director and the performance and embrace her emotions and grief.

Original Film Title: El Canto de los Coquis

Director’s Name: Rachel Dolan

Writer’s Name: Natalia Fuentes

Producer: Tobi Oladipo

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 13 minutes 4 seconds

Film Description:

El Canto de los Coquis is an MFA short film that follows the journey of Elena, a young Puerto Rican American woman who is visiting her family in Puerto Rico for the first time. Her excitement for the land and culture are shaken when her dual identity creates a rift of not being American or Latina enough. Through the support of those around her, Elena discovers the joy in finding who we are and the acceptance in learning we are always searching for those answers. No matter what, the people we surround ourselves with and their love will always fill us with the sense of returning home.

Original Film Title: Fleeting

Director’s Name: Peter Figueira

Writer’s Name: Peter Figueira

Producer: Javier Barajas

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Runtime: 7 minutes 20 seconds

Film Description:

“Fleeting” is a short, silent (but musical) film that follows a reclusive man, who relives a forgotten memory of a past lover when a red silk lace takes him on a nostalgic journey through love, loss, and longing.

Original Film Title: وهى فى برلين

Director’s Name: Sondos Shabayek

Writer’s Name: Sondos Shabayek

Producer: Sondos Shabayek

Country of Origin: Egypt

Country of Filming: Germany

Language: Arabic

Runtime: 10 minutes

Film Description:

On a street in Berlin, Sara joins her boyfriend Tarek in a line to view a flat. Sara just came from the gynecologist; she is 10 weeks pregnant. Tarek starts discussing marriage plans, after all an Egyptian couple they have no choice but to marry. But Sara who has left Cairo in search of free life struggles to accept that they should ignore all their problems as a couple and rush to marry for the baby. When she fails to stop Tarek’s excited planning, she breaks the news; that she already had an abortion. Miles away from home, Sara is still battling the demons of her patriarchal society that are mirrored in her relationship with Tarek.

Original Film Title: DEADLINE

Director’s Name: Shihan Shoukath

Writer’s Name: Shihan Shoukath

Producer: Shihan Shoukath

Country of Origin: United Arab Emirates

Country of Filming: United Arab Emirates

Language: English

Runtime: 10 minutes 9 seconds

Film Description:

A disturbed 811 operator navigates through connecting grieving callers amid another troubling day of disclosures – and realizations.

Original Film Title: Θέμα Χημείας

Director’s Name: Nick Karamousadakis

Writer’s Name: Nick Karamousadakis

Producer: Nick Karamousadakis

Country of Origin: Greece

Country of Filming: Greece

Language: Modern Greek (1453-)

Runtime: 23 minutes 45 seconds

Film Description:

A chemical analyst, finds himself under unbearable pressure from the environment he chose to live in. Which leads him to a drastic change, for self-acceptance.

Original Film Title: My Tower

Director’s Name: Ziqing Ran

Producer: Ziqing Ran

Country of Origin: China

Country of Filming: United Kingdom

Language: English

Runtime: 6 minutes 8 seconds

Film Description:

My tower is inspired by the Tarot. My film is a surrealist narrative film. Talking about the very sensitive person who wants to go out of his tower and get a relationship with others. The tower for him is not only the shelter but also the cage. It is as well as the uterus, and the tower broke like a subconscious delivery.

My film split the two worlds, inside and outside parts. These two parts are connected through the theater in the tower, which will affect each other. The red ball, which symbolizes the protagonist’s emotion, is the medium of transmission. As more and more complex emotions appear, they became the snake, its body makes the protagonist lose his breath. The inner world was invaded by the red line. The protagonist was thrown into the water by the red line, and the tower collapsed, the red umbilical cord protected him. Finally, He left the tower and a new road appeared in front of him.

Original Film Title: The Truth Within

Director’s Name: Gaby Soto, Juan Camilo Rincon

Writer’s Name: Gaby Soto, Juan Camilo Rincon

Producer: Ringling College of Art + Design

Country of Origin: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 3 minutes 10 seconds

Film Description:

In a Make-a-Bear Store, a hard-boiled teddy bear detective is alerted by his lover of a dead body that has been found. Upon arriving at the crime scene, he starts unveiling clues which set him on a path to discovering the truth: Danger lurks closer than he thinks.

Original Film Title: ASUKA

Director’s Name: Xupeng Feng

Writer’s Name: Xupeng Feng

Producer: Xupeng Feng

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 3 minutes 40 seconds

Film Description:

A “coming of age” cosplayer is drowned in the fantasy of being the “Asuka”, lingering between reality and anime.