Category: Best Short Film 2023 WSXA Amsterdam

Original Film Title: Remembering Sudan: The Last Male Northern White Rhino

Director’s Name: Ami Vitale

Writer’s Name: Ami Vitale

Producer: Ami Vitale

Country of Origin: Kenya

Country of Filming: Kenya

Runtime: 11 minutes 9 seconds

Film Description:

Zacharia Mutai was devastated the day he lost his best friend Sudan. Sudan was someone he spent years with, someone he knew better than his own children, someone he loved. This death was tragic, but not a surprise.

Zacharia, the head rhino caregiver at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in northern Kenya, was caring for the last remaining northern white rhinos on the planet. His friend Sudan was the last male rhino of this species.

Sudan, 45 years-old, was gentle, hulking and otherworldly. His final moments were eerily quiet—just the sound of the rain falling, a single bird scolding, and the muffled sorrow of his caretakers.

But this is not just the story of Zacharia’s loss or of the death of a rhino. This is the story of the death of a species. A loss of such magnitude is a loss for all of humanity. Without these creatures, we suffer more than just the loss of ecosystem health. We suffer a loss of imagination, a loss of wonder, a loss of beautiful possibilities.

In Remembering Sudan, photographer and filmmaker Ami Vitale documents the heartbreaking crisis facing the northern white rhinos and keepers like Zacharia Mutai who sacrifice so much to protect them.

After Sudan’s death in 2018, only two northern white rhinos remain, both females. Through Zacharia’s story, Vitale explores efforts to protect these rhinos as well as the groundbreaking scientific developments aimed at bringing the species back.

How did we arrive at the point where such desperate measures were necessary? It’s astonishing that a demand for rhino horn based entirely on misinformation has caused the wholesale slaughter of a species. At the same time, it is encouraging that a disparate group of people have come together in an attempt to save something unique and precious, something that if not saved, will be gone forever.

Go to olpejetaconservancy.org and Biorescue.org to learn more about saving and protecting these endangered species.

Original Film Title: Tremor Documentary 2022

Director’s Name: Rob Scherer

Writer’s Name: John Dutton

Producer: John Dutton

Country of Origin: United States

Film Description:

How you deal with adversity defines you as a person. The subject of this documentary, John Dutton, has dealt with adversity. Not only does he have multiple sclerosis but was also diagnosed with an aggressive form of Parkinson’s disease, which manifested itself with debilitating tremors. John tried everything, every drug regimen and holistic approach there was. Nothing worked. He turned to the medical mecca of Boston for a groundbreaking form of surgery which uses soundwaves as opposed to scalpels. The audience will get to witness, in real time, non invasive brain surgery with results that are immediate. A Best Picture Oscar WINNER calls this documentary amazing and inspirational and considers John to be a walking miracle who will change the world. We will, together, benefit society by illuminating this form of surgery to the millions of people who have tremors.

Original Film Title: Κασσάνδρα

Director’s Name: Alexander Manolides

Writer’s Name: Alexander Manolides, George Ding

Producer: Alexander Manolides

Country of Origin: Greece

Country of Filming: Greece

Language: Modern Greek (1453-)

Runtime: 25 minutes

Film Description:

A young woman visits a company that claims it can show the future of any relationship. When she discovers a future infidelity in her relationship with her boyfriend, she must decide whether to let the visions dictate her choices in the present.

Original Film Title: The Taste of the Sea

Director’s Name: Xuezhou Miao

Writer’s Name: Xuezhou Miao

Producer: Jianguo Shen

Country of Origin: China

Country of Filming: China

Language: Chinese

Runtime: 21 minutes 1 second

Film Description:

A-Shin, who had been convicted and imprisoned due to manslaughter, returned to the island from which he had departed for long. Family’s impoverished and pathetic living condition left him with mixed feelings and his father’s early death made him wistful still. To compensate for his debt to the family, A-Shin stayed by his mother’s side all day long, and at night refurbished the house with skills he had mastered in prison. 

One day, the creditor learned that he was recently released from prison and came to the door, provoking him to repay the loss of his son. Facing the old man’s irrational economic coercion, A-Shin could only appease him with forbearing words. However, the sarcastic remarks from A-Shin’s younger brother broke his heart and fragile feelings.

Late at night, A-Shin knocked on his mother’s room and apologized to her. Aware of her son’s intricate emotional fluctuation, she sighed that she finally realized, with all due persistence and silent waiting over the years, her dream of family reunion. But A-Shin’s heart was still shackled by the past. Recognizing what such silence really meant, she encouraged him not to be caught in his own trap, but instead to confront the future bravely and embrace a new adventure. Upon hearing such motivating words, a blend of emotions fermented within A-Shin’s heart.

Original Film Title: Walküren

Director’s Name: Joscha Seehausen

Writer’s Name: Joscha Seehausen

Producer: Joscha Seehausen, Marius Milinski

Country of Origin: Germany

Country of Filming: Germany

Language: German

Runtime: 22 minutes

Film Description:

2020 – Corona regulations prohibit prostitution. Brothels are closing. Like many sex workers, Martha, Elena and Toni are forced to offer themselves on the street, where the defenselessness of the women is mercilessly exploited. 
Trust in the state and the police seems to have been extinguished, so the three sex workers take the initiative and fight back. 
Vigilante justice.

Original Film Title: Noen

Director’s Name: Bernhard Østebø

Writer’s Name: Bernhard Østebø, Andreas Petterson

Producer: Ole Georg Østevik

Country of Origin: Norway

Country of Filming: Norway

Language: No Dialogue

Runtime: 15 minutes 25 seconds

Film Description:

Through a series of enigmatic and dreamlike scenes we meet a boy, a man and a woman, each in their own way engaged in a journey through inner and outer landscapes. The fourth “character” is a mysterious glass ball, wandering around from hand to hand. Some times distant and unreachable, some times close and tangible. Like waves, the characters drift towards and away from each other. 
Noen is a cinematic poem about enchantment and loss, hope and longing. Inspired by the lyrics of Nick Cave, but not meant to be an illustration or interpretation of these. 
The film is almost entirely without spoken words, and the story is driven by images, music and movement. The adult main characters are played by professional dancers, and there are two dance sequences.

Original Film Title: Woman in Retrograde

Director’s Name: Imogen Harrison

Writer’s Name: Kellie Blaise

Producer: Caroline Kealy, Dave Minogue

Country of Origin: Ireland

Country of Filming: Ireland

Language: English

Runtime: 17 minutes 53 seconds

Film Description:

Following the death of her only son Charlie, former school teacher Saoirse Reilly develops D.I.D (Dissociative Identity Disorder) as a coping mechanism. Unable to deal with his ill wife, Jack Reilly admits her to the local psychologist Dr. Cahill whose clinic is located on the grounds of Saint Jude’s Psychiatric Hospital. Dr. Cahill has been treating her to no avail for over twelve months.

Dr. Cahill stumbles upon an alternative method of treatment following months of frustration and zero change in Saoirse’s catatonic state. Railing against everything he’s been taught, he ploughs ahead and is surprised and excited with the results achieved. He has unlocked something within Saoirse, but what has emerged is her new personality, that of 1920’s infamous flapper girl Zelda Fitzgerald.

Under threat from his superiors and the disappointment of his colleague Lennie, Cahill faces the moral dilemma of whether to return Saoirse to her upsetting reality or allow her to retain the identity of her vibrant alter ego.