Category: Best Documentary – 2025 ARFF Paris

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: Eternals: Everythingism

Director’s Name: Berdo Kutubidze, Giorgi Shkubuliani, Giorgi Murvanidze, Irakli Kacheishvili

Writer’s Name: Berdo Kutubidze, Khatuna Koridze

Producer: Berdo Kutubidze

Country of Origin: Georgia

Country of Filming : Georgia

Language: Georgian

Runtime: 1 hour 30 minutes 24 seconds

Film Description:

Salvador Dali: “Everything was totally invented by Zda-ne-vich and everything that followed was just specialization in Zdanevich.” This is how he appreciated one of the legendary Georgian of the 20th century, one of the iconic artists of the world.
Public broadcaster of Ajara TV & Radio documentary “Eternals: Everythingism ” is dedicated to Georgian public figure, poet, writer, dramatist, critic, futurist, Zaum and Dada theorist, lecturer, historian, curator, designer, misanthropist, typographer, editor, researcher and publicist Ilya Zdanevich (a.k.a. Iliazd).
All stages of life are described in detail: childhood, education, fascination with futurism during adolescence, discovery of Pirosmani, “41 degrees” world view, revolutionary publications, hand-made books and participation in expeditions in the 10s, traveling to Paris in search of artistic news, where Ilyazd get to know artists who were still unknown then, but are now known to everyone.
How was artistic life in Paris in the 20s? What stages did he go through before working with Gabriel Chanel? Coco, after all, was the godmother of his first child…
The film describes the most important moments of Ilia and Pablo Picasso’s friendship, their joint publications and the history of Picasso’s painting behind the portrait of Pirosmani…
One part of Zdanevich’s historical archive is in Tbilisi, a large part is in the National Library of France, as well as in the center of Pompidou, and a small part is near Marseille, where the material is kept that is invaluable to Georgia and the world culture. It turned out that Iliazd was a great archivist along with everything: he wrote everything, could explain and formulate everything. The materials used in the film are from this archive: Unpublished personal correspondence, photos, publications, works…

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: Santiago Sierra the Finger in the Wound

Director’s Name: Enrique Palacio Garbín

Writer’s Name: Enrique Palacio Garbín

Producer: Enrique Palacio Garbín

Country of Origin: Spain

Country of Filming : Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain

Language: German, Italian, Spanish

Runtime: 1 hour 41 minutes 8 seconds

Film Description:

Santiago Sierra, internationally recognized for his provocative works, is an artist who breaks boundaries. His projects denounce social, economic and political injustices, generating uncomfortable debates.

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: Shards

Director’s Name: Sara Broos

Writer’s Name: Sara Broos

Producer: Sara Broos

Country of Origin: Sweden

Country of Filming : United States, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Italy, Sweden, United States

Language: Swedish

Runtime: 1 hour 16 minutes 52 seconds

Film Description:

A personal journey in time and space, through light and darkness, on trains and in dreams. About disorientation and longing for meaning and homecoming in a divided world. Individual destinies are woven together with myths and historical events in an associative flow between parallel realities, nightmare and idyll. Hidden traumas and open wounds. A hopeful lament about the beauty and cruelty of life, the passage of time and each individual’s unique story.

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: The Power of Sports For Amputees

Director’s Name: Marci Lynne Krown

Writer’s Name: Marci Lynne Krown

Producer: Marci Lynne Krown

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming : United States

Language: English

Runtime: 1 hour 35 minutes 50 seconds

Film Description:

This is about three people with leg limb loss looking to participate and/or compete in sports. With the right tools, success is unlimited. We interview a high school teen, Carson, that lost his leg to Cancer and wants to go back to participating on his High School sport’s teams; a middle-aged man, James, that is a congenital amputee that is finding his purpose and helping others like himself; and Beatriz also a congenital amputee that is a Paralympian training for a spot on her US Track and Field team going to the 2024 Paris Paralympics.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: LOOK UP—The Science of Cultural Evolutiond

Director’s Name: Nini Caroline Skarpaas Myhrvold, Espen Jan Folmo

Writer’s Name: Nini Caroline Skarpaas Myhrvold, Espen Jan Folmo

Producer: Nini Caroline Skarpaas Myhrvold, Espen Jan Folmo

Country of Origin: Norway

Country of Filming : Norway

Language: English

Runtime: 2 hours 50 minutes 47 seconds

Film Description:

Embark on a captivating journey where academic science meets cultural wisdom. “LOOK UP—The Science of Cultural Evolution” is a groundbreaking animated film that breathes life into a comprehensive scientific manuscript. This two-hour and fifty-minute feature is a new genre, blending the intricacies of psychotherapy research with the timeless sagacity of ancient and modern wisdom.

Dive into an exploration of how cultural evolution mirrors biological evolution, highlighting emergent phenomena that define both our scientific endeavors and our collective consciousness. The film delves into the profound impact of psychotherapy on personal and societal transformation, advocating for the integration of relational science into everyday practices.

Guided by a compelling narrative, “LOOK UP” takes viewers on a Viking raid through the realms of psychotherapy, uncovering the unique specialties that contribute to human development and interconnectedness. It emphasizes the ancient practice of healing through unconscious cultural agreements, manifesting in the form of placebo effects and shared human experiences.

Join us for an enlightening experience that invites you to embrace the ancient healer within, fostering personal growth and societal change. This film is not just a viewing experience but an invitation to practice and integrate the profound insights it offers.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: The Imagination of a Child

Director’s Name: Cesare Catania

Writer’s Name: Cesare Catania

Producer: Cesare Catania

Country of Origin: Italy

Country of Filming : Italy

Language: English

Runtime: 14 minutes 7 seconds

Film Description:

The movie, mainly in black and white, completely without dialogue and interspersed with moments of reflection for the viewer in front of the written thoughts of the “narrator”, analyzes the psychological evolution of an artist who develops ideas and beliefs linked to the world of art. The story of the movie, conceived by the artist and director as a “democratic work of art”, takes place in the current present, in particular in the cities of Milan and Venice (the latter in particular the key city of the film). It tells of two lives, that of an Italian sculptor and that of a little girl, originally from Sri Lanka, who lives with her family in Italy. Both the lives of the two protagonists are somehow linked by an unbridled artistic passion, and the whole film revolves around the design of a sculpture. This drawing is the main element of the story told, the one that allows the lives of the two protagonists, despite starting from such distant points, to intertwine at the end in a “disruptive encounter between two opposites”. At the end of the short, in fact, it is revealed that in reality the whole film was nothing more than the artist’s dream and that the two protagonists were none other than the same person. The Italian artist therefore identifies himself with the black girl. The Caucasian artist and the black girl are the same person in the film. This choice is singular, linked mainly for the director to overcoming all cultural barriers, in an artistic context of 2024 under the theme “Foreigners Everywhere”, title of the Venice Biennale of Art where the sculpture “The Embrace”, protagonist of the short film, is exhibited throughout 2024 as the official artwork of the national pavilion. Furthermore, the main objective of the film is to describe the psychology of an artist through a dream, a dream in which the same person realizes that he must look at the world from two different points of view: as an adult with the eyes of maturity and as a child with the eyes of imagination. The true artist, according to the film, is the one who looks at the world around him with the eyes of an adult and with the imagination of a child; in practice… “a worker of emotions”.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: Nv Shu: Rising Tide

Director’s Name: Shuting Li

Writer’s Name: Shu Liu

Producer: Shuting Li

Country of Origin: China

Country of Filming : China

Language: Mandarin Chinese

Runtime: 1 hour 11 minutes

Film Description:

NVSHU: RISING TIDE is a documentary that pictures the contemporary wave of China’s Nv Shu culture, the first and only female-writing and female-specific language as well as the women power behind it. The film explores the contemporary context of N Shu culture and captures the daily life and creative moments of representative Nv Shu inheritors, focuses on the inter-generational inheritance of Nv Shu research from the early elder scholars to the new generation of young women, and presents the cross-generational charm and vitality of Nv Shu culture.

(HONORABLE MENTION)

Original Film Title: BEYOND PROGNOSIS – vEN

Director’s Name: Silvalex, Morgan LE FAUCHEUR

Writer’s Name: Silvalex

Producer: Franck CORBERY

Country of Origin: France

Country of Filming : France

Language: English, French

Runtime: 55 minutes

Film Description:

Destined for a global career in downhill mountain biking, Yannis Pelé is only 17 years old when he suffers a terrible crash during a competition. The diagnosis is clear: his vertebrae are fractured, and his spinal cord is injured. Yannis has lost the use of his legs and with them, his dream of becoming an athlete. When a childhood dream comes to an end, what remains but hope? So Yannis refuses to believe it and holds on. It’s the beginning of a race against time. But what the medical profession doesn’t know is that Yannis has a lucky star and confidence in life…

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: Life in the Bubble

Director’s Name: Ari Moretz, Gabby “Mochabeer” Moukhaiber

Writer’s Name: Ari Moretz

Producer: Ari Moretz

Country of Origin: Canada

Country of Filming : Canada

Language: English

Runtime: 51 minutes 7 seconds

Film Description:

A chronically ill woman (Ari) details her struggles in confession cam style as she shares how she copes with complex illness and finds healing through her artistic practice and online social media presence.

(FINALIST)

Original Film Title: In Search of Edgar Allan Poe

Director’s Name: Andrew D. Kaplan

Writer’s Name: Andrew D. Kaplan

Producer: Andrew D. Kaplan

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming : United States

Language: English

Runtime: 1 hour 37 minutes 43 seconds

Film Description:

This award-winning documentary explores the triumphant but tragic story of the brilliant poet, master short story writer, and influential critic Edgar Allan Poe. Set in his later years, it recounts how he penned haunting poetry, pioneered science fiction, and perfected the modern horror tale, yet was plagued by alcohol, lost loves, and a penchant for self-destruction. The film sheds new light on the mysterious circumstances surrounding Poe’s death and his enduring influence on later writers.