Category: Best Feature ARFF Berlin 2023

Original Film Title: DIS-MOI POURQUOI CES CHOSES SONT SI BELLES

Director’s Name: Lyne Charlebois

Writer’s Name: Lyne Charlebois

Producer: Roger Frappier, Veronika Molnar, Sylvie Lacoste

Country of Origin: Canada

Country of Filming: Canada, Cuba

Language: French, Spanish

Runtime: 1 hour 39 minutes 8 seconds

Film Description:

1931. Brother Marie-Victorin was 46 when he met 23-year-old Marcelle Gauvreau. Both have been close to death and share the same love of God and Nature. He becomes her teacher, later she becomes his assistant. Their friendship evolves. This great chaste love, the love of Quebec’s flora, pushes Antoine and Roxane, who embody them on screen, to question their own relationship with love and Nature.

Original Film Title: ‘A MUZZARELL’

Director’s Name: Diego Santangelo

Writer’s Name: Diego Santangelo, Naomi Sally Santangelo

Producer: Naomi Sally Santangelo, Beniamino Manferlotti, Marica Di Matteo

Country of Origin: Italy

Country of Filming: Italy

Language: Italian

Runtime: 1 hour 30 minutes 8 seconds

Film Description:

Daniele, a rebellious and intolerant fourteen year old from Castel Volturno, is about to lose his grandmother who lives 40 km away, in Bagnoli in the Campi Flegrei. He and his best friend Lucio do crack. It’s their first time. To fulfill the woman’s last will, to eat a mozzarella made by her son, or rather the father of Daniele, a buffalo breeder, the boy embarks on a journey first on a moped and then on foot in the company of his crush, Martina. 
In the grip of drugs and social exclusion, the clan of drug dealers, of which he becomes a courier, unexpected encounters are opposed, for better or for worse, with uncommon people and paranormal experiences that emerge persistently, triggering memories of a happy age soon forgotten . 
When he asks the boss ‘O Biondo and his lieutenant El Napolitano for help and money, he still doesn’t know that he has slipped right into the wolf’s den. They impose a package of crack doses to deliver and no money to get by with the problems that arise along the way. While the rivalry between the Casal Di Principe gang and the group of Nigerians, who are trying to take control of the drug dealing square, culminates in an open massacre between hundreds of young people addicted to getting high, O’biondo, in agreement with the drug trafficker the Cuban, ambushes the head of the Nigerians in which Daniele is also involved. The Cuban carries an imposing load and his fire group, of which Daniele and Martina will experience all the ferocity. 
The journey through extreme events thus becomes a path of self-discovery and at the same time an escape route. Above everything hovers the mysterious presence of a woman who appears in different clothes and ages and who seems to accompany him on his journey towards freedom.

Original Film Title: Balagam

Director’s Name: Venu Yeldandi

Writer’s Name: Venu Yeldandi

Producer: Harshith Reddy, Hanshitha Reddy

Country of Origin: India

Country of Filming: India

Language: Telugu

Runtime: 2 hours 8 minutes

Film Description:

Komurayya, an old man living in a Telangana (India) village, is a jovial figure who wakes up early in the morning, greets everyone and works on his farm. He has three children – two sons, Aillaya and Mogilayya and a daughter, Lakshmi. But his family is no longer the same. His grandson Saayilu, a bright but self-centered youngster, decides to get married to clear his debts with the dowry he gets. Komurayya’s death just before the engagement changes the course of his life and the family members, rattling some skeletons in the closet. The family’s post funeral pinda (riceball) ritual, attended by the whole village, shows that the old man’s soul is unsatisfied with something when the crows refrain from eating the offerings. Will the family sort out their differences, figure out the old man’s wishes and free the departed soul?

Original Film Titlel: Trust in Love

Director’s Name: Mick Davis

Writer’s Name: Jimi Petulla

Producer: Jimi Petulla

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 1 hour 34 minutes 6 seconds

Film Description:

Mickey Ferrera’s recording producing career is going down the tubes, his estranged wife wants a divorce and his son is struggling with the reality that he is gay, but Mickey is a warrior, so he’s about to get in the trenches and Trust in Love to keep his family together and maybe make one more good record.

Original Film Title: Heart of the Healer

Director’s Name: MJ Politis

Writer’s Name: MJ Politis

Producer: MJ Politis, Valery Loughlin

Country of Origin: Canada

Country of Filming: Canada

Language: English

Runtime: 2 hours 46 minutes

Film Description:

An old, pathologically humanistic physician writing his memoirs about the people/patients who made him, for better or worse, what he has become is visited by them from the land of the living and the dead, with even bigger problems than being diagnosed with advancing brain cancer. A metaphysical, espionage, medical, psychedelic cerebral serio-comedic journey that merges past, present and future.

Original Film Title: Soultribe

Director’s Name: Stefan Rainer

Writer’s Name: Stefan Rainer, Dunja Burghardt

Producer: Stefan Rainer, Maik Burghardt

Country of Origin: Austria

Country of Filming: Germany

Language: German

Runtime: 1 hour 53 minutes

Film Description:

“Soultribe” portrays the authentic story of getting to know each other and the common and at the same time individual heroic journey of three young families and creative visionaries who, as companions, inspire and support each other and thus bring them to their full potential. 
The film shows how it is possible to live a meaningful life and individual vocation by focusing on joy in doing and the power of enthusiasm and community. 
On the common path of the visionaries, artists and entrepreneurs Stefan and Jenny, Patrick and Johanna as well as Maik and Dunja, there are always major hurdles and setbacks that have to be overcome – such as the balancing act between family life, partnership, gender roles and professional projects as well as creative individual ones unfolding The inner conflict of the protagonists between social expectations and the pressure to earn money and the desire for a free-flowing life without borders is also addressed.

“Soultribe” is touched by real, authentic actors who openly present their own inner and outer development story with all their doubts, setbacks and at the same time the courage to take big steps and thus inspire the viewers to do the same.

Original Film Title: Princess

Director’s Name: Brandon Robert Kersjes

Writer’s Name: Brandon Robert Kersjes

Producer: Brandon Robert Kersjes

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 1 hour 40 minutes 20 seconds

Film Description:

A young girl with the dream of becoming a princess, ends up a prostitute, but later abandons her promiscuous lifestyle, in order to gain a relationship with her young daughter.

Original Film Title: Lost Cos

Director’s Name: Robin de Levita

Writer’s Name: Robin de Levita

Producer: Catriona Rubenis-Stevens, Evgeniya Radilova, Stevan Keane, Jeffrey Smith Georges, Michael Tosner

Country of Origin: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 1 hour 28 minutes

Film Description:

Haunted by her tortured childhood and the violent loss of the great love of her life, troubled dental assistant Eni finds escape in Los Cos, a mysterious underground club where cosplay and burlesque intertwine and heroes and villains blur the line between fantasy and reality. But when a cosplayer dressed as “Merman” shows up dead on a New Jersey beach and a mysterious stalker gets up in her DMs, Eni must confront the traumas that have shaped her life and transform herself into an altogether more formidable force.