Category: BEST FEATURE FILM -2024 ARFF BARCELONA

Original Film Title: La Récréation de Juillet

Director’s Name: Joseph Rozé, Pablo Cotten

Writer’s Name: Joseph Rozé, Pablo Cotten

Producer: Antoine Playoust, Martin Playoust, Nicolas Tzipine

Country of Origin: France

Country of Filming: France

Language: French

Runtime: 1 hour 21 minutes

Film Description:

July 9, Paris. Gaspard, 26, teaches music in the middle school he used to attend as a kid. After his twin sister dies in a tragic accident, he respects her last wishes and asks their long lost childhood friends to spend a few days in the school where they all met. In the memory-filled place deserted for the summer holidays, they gradually fall back into childhood as if time hasn’t gone by. But as a heavy secret shakes their bubble, they have to stop playing hooky and get back to reality.

Original Film Title: Mosul My Home

Director’s Name: Adalet R. Garmiany

Writer’s Name: Adalet R. Garmiany

Producer: Adalet R. Garmiany, Touraj Aslani

Country of Origin: Iraq

Country of Filming: Iraq

Language: Arabic, English, Kurdish

Runtime: 1 hour 2 minutes

Film Description:

For many of us, when we first hear the name Mosul City, we immediately think of the brutal reign of the so-called ‘Islamic State,’ of humanitarian crisis, devastation and slow recovery. However, this film tells the story of Mosul beyond these stereotypes, examining the aftermath of war, the environment of the city and its communal places, as well as the once thriving energy of the city and its multi-ethnic inhabitants.

Throughout the film we follow the journey of Mohammad Al-Shabaki – a simple man with a compassionate heart. His entire body is covered in wounds, tracing a map of human tragedy. His home is the now roofless factory he used to work in.

In bare feet, Mohammad walks through desolate alleys, passes heaps of rubble still covering corpses and unexploded devices, visits desecrated places like the Tomb of the Prophet Jonah and the charred former cinema.

Mohammad’s soul is filled with memories that allow us to see, hear and touch the life of Mosul that is long-gone but may return one day.

Original Film Title: The Nana Project

Director’s Name: Robin Givens

Writer’s Name: Eric Ulloa

Producer: Anthony Del Negro, Carl Moelleberg, Shane O’Brien, Zach O’Brien

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 1 hour 23 minutes

Film Description:

Set in the competitive world of chess, we follow Nana’s (Academy Award WINNER Mercedes Ruehl) journey in a heartwarming feel-good comedy about reuniting her grandsons (Will Peltz and Nolan Gould) and supporting her retirement community.

Original Film Title: MAHALLE

Director’s Name: Inan ALTIN

Writer’s Name: Inan ALTIN, Selcuk KOZAGACLI, Veysel SAHIN

Producer: Studio Karinca

Country of Origin: Turkey

Country of Filming: Turkey

Language: Turkish

Runtime: 2 hours 5 minutes 51 seconds

Film Description:

“The shooting of this film in Istanbul was interrupted on the 11th day when the police raided the set. Therefore, the director had to complete the scenes of the film with animation in France.”

“The Neighborhood” takes place in present day, in a poor neighborhood with a high real-estate value in Istanbul… A poor neighborhood surrounded by gardens, flowers and trees… One side facing the Bosphorus, while the other facing the bright lights of the skyscrapers…

A giant construction company, international funding institutions, their collaborators, all with an appetite for the value of this neighborhood, ready to do anything to seize it… Determined struggles of the young of the neighborhood, foreseeing the dangers ahead and putting all effort to mobilize the neighborhood. And a love story in the middle of all of this: Rüstem and Aslı.

For Aslı, her wedding has been the most important thing; but as the day approaches, she would have never guessed how things would turn out. This is a story of creativity. Of the children of the people who don’t only talk, but keep seeking extraordinary means to solve problems.

“The Neighborhood” is a story of love and struggle, amidst suspicious deaths, big money games, and a drug epidemic…

Original Film Title: La Laguna Rosa

Director’s Name: Juan Arce, Francisco Gallo

Writer’s Name: Juan Arce

Producer: Juan Arce

Country of Origin: Mexico

Country of Filming: Mexico

Language: Spanish

Runtime: 1 hour 22 minutes

Film Description:

Two distant siblings, two different worlds. A journey of familial reconnection, positivity, and valuing the different ways of seeing the world. Mariana is a fiercely independent, twentysomething young woman with Down’s syndrome who loves ballet, art, and living her best life. When invited to participate in a publicly funded dance exhibition in the city of Merida, Yucatan, she visits uptight, estranged brother Arturo with her free-spirited ballet teacher in tow to ask for some assistance getting there. Arturo, initially put out and resistant to doing anything much to help that would distract him from his own life and high-strung fiancée, can’t help but to be swept up by his sister’s profound dignity, sincerity for the world in general, and true passion for dance.

Original Film Title: 壞鳥

Director’s Name: LI TAN

Writer’s Name: LI TAN

Producer: LI TAN

Country of Origin: Hong Kong

Country of Filming: Hong Kong

Language: Chinese

Runtime: 1 hour 59 minutes 38 seconds

Film Description:

BAD BIRD is a thought-provoking film by Chinese Director Li Tan, who has filmed it in the style of auteur theory, revealing the purpose of the movie through its self-presentation. BAD BIRD takes us on a journey of taboo and self-discovery. It follows the provocative acts of three women who go to extreme length to revive a vegetative man through sexual indulgence, pushing the boundaries of what society deems morally acceptable. Desire is innate and we are all equals in its presence. As the story unfolds, these women delve deeper into their own hidden desires, exploring their own limits of sacrificial self-giving, and discovering that sometimes the purest form of love can exist outside the boundaries of morality. The film challenges conventional representations of morality and delivers into the complex nature of human relationships and the boundaries we often place on them. What is left for us to depend on when this moral purity is spurned and deviated from? What if the root cause of the fissure between all the characters was the awakening of the BAD BIRD? Ironically, the psychological and emotional impact of these women’s ‘out-of-control’ behavior leads not only to a descent into psychological turmoil and moral deterioration but more importantly to a journey of self-discovery and reconciliation among the characters as well as within each individual themselves