Category: ARFF Amsterdam 2024 – Best Experimental Film

Original Film Title: Hercules Recycled 2.0

Director’s Name: Don Moriarty, Greg Alt

Writer’s Name: Don Moriarty, Greg Alt, David Trottier

Producer: Don Moriarty

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: India

Language: Assamese

Runtime: 6 minutes 59 seconds

Film Description:

The legendary story of Koina Konda Xill is about six hundred years old with rich ancient custom and tradition prevailing in the Tiwa society of Assam, India till date. The women empowerment was very significant in Boghora Kingdom. Besides household works girls and women were taught archery and the skill of wielding sword for the sake of their motherland. While the king of Mayong was very compassionate on wild animals residing in the nearby Pobitora forest, an internationally famed Pobitora wildlife sanctuary at present. Lord Ananta Gosai Exhibition for the first time has been organized by the Boghora King where all the kings of neighboring Kingdom along with their family have been invited. During the festival the princess of Boghora and the Prince of Myong met and fell in love with each other. Both the parents of Prince and Princess agreed to their willingness and the wedding ceremony was held auspiciously. The King and Queen of Boghora bade goodbye to their daughter. On their way to Mayong the wedding party met with a natural disaster . A rock has fallen on Bride Princess’s body and gradually crushed her to death . The Prince has fallen under the hill. Finally, all the members of Wedding Party were killed, the bride – groom could not start their new life. Since that horrible incident the rocks of Boghora Hill started to produce the sound of traditional musical instruments played by Tiwa Community at the time of marriage and also some rocks produce painful cry of the Bride Princess. Thus the Bride Crying Rock of Boghora Hill is historically important bearing a true and painful story, has become the heritage site of Morigaon District of Assam, india.

Original Film Title: Fishbowl

Director’s Name: Haesun Choe

Writer’s Name: Haesun Choe

Producer: Haesun Choe

Country of Origin: Korea, Republic of

Country of Filming: Korea, Republic of

Language: Korean

Runtime: 13 minutes 27 seconds

Film Description:

Human being cannot escape their sight until they die.

Original Film Title: Petticoat Fire

Director’s Name: Mox Mäkelä

Writer’s Name: Mox Mäkelä

Producer: Mox Mäkelä

Country of Origin: Finland

Country of Filming: Finland

Language: English

Runtime: 47 minutes

Film Description:

A film about what was before…
She:
”In the history of mankind, I found what I found in the room of my childhood, in the house of my youth, and in the window of the cave of my adulthood. Man invented the mirror, but he only polishes the carnassial teeth in front of it.

I’ll stop it. It’s not right, it’s wrong. Everything is wrong. but so what. I fall asleep for a while – and when I wake up, everything is different.”

Original Film Title: Décharnement

Director’s Name: Johanne Chagnon

Writer’s Name: Johanne Chagnon

Producer: Johanne Chagnon

Country of Origin: Canada

Country of Filming: Canada

Language: French

Runtime: 6 minutes 11 seconds

Film Description:

Emaciated beings in a desolated landscape stand out in front of suspended remains. The poses of these silhouettes make the human figure almost animal, hardly recognizable. Can we detect in this ghostly wall the spectres of the people to which these abandoned moults belonged, these remains of a past existence? A past represented by the hanging manes, like so many traces of disappeared people who still wander in the vacant spaces or what is left of them, lost echoes.

The human presence here is one with a dissolving universe, displaying a kind of animality in organic fusion with its environment. A distressing symbiosis occurs through an ultimate choreography in a desolate landscape. Many perspectives are mixed in an ambivalent way, including the tenuous connection between life and death, between nature and mankind in danger. Can this interaction end otherwise than by annihilation or enjoyment, in an engulfing drive discharge, a vital effusion that waters and nourishes ?

Original Film Title: Heaven+Diary

Director’s Name: Masha Shalagina

Writer’s Name: Masha Shalagina

Producer: Masha Shalagina

Country of Origin: Finland

Country of Filming: Russian Federation

Language: Russian

Runtime: 21 minutes 5 seconds

Film Description:

Born out of the isolation of COVID-19 lockdowns, “Heaven” began as a prayer and a song. The lyrics of “Heaven” speak to God, expressing feelings of entrapment within one’s mind and environment.

“Heaven” quickly evolved into a music video, created in collaboration with Natalya Tarasova, Masha Shalagina, and Daniel Gorsky. Filming was set to begin in St. Petersburg, Russia, in February 2022. On the first day of filming, Russia invaded Ukraine, and the song instantly acquired a different meaning. The director, Maria Shalagina, an outspoken defender of freedom of speech and political freedom, immediately changed the music video’s course. She expanded its scope to include a diary section documenting the circumstances surrounding its creation.

The film was edited throughout the first year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and was released in its final form in 2023.

“Heaven” began as a prayer and concludes as a prayer for freedom and peace, both internally and externally, individually and collectively.

Original Film Title: Word

Director’s Name: Moein Hasheminasab

Writer’s Name: Moein Hasheminasab

Producer: Moein Hasheminasab

Country of Origin: Iran, Islamic Republic of

Country of Filming: Iran, Islamic Republic of

Language: Persian

Runtime: 1 hour 10 minutes

Film Description:

This movie narrates the tale of a girl who loses her mother during childhood, and her father vanishes as well. Struggling with intense mental stress, she explores her journey through the musical melodies her father once played for her as a child. Assisted by a musical friend, she pursues her quest until she locates her father and unravels the secret surrounding her mother’s demise.

Original Film Title: The Evolution of Human Motivations: An AI-Illustrated Odyssey

Director’s Name: John Voorhees Wylie

Writer’s Name: John Voorhees Wylie

Producer: Jane Bondar

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Language: English

Runtime: 1 hour 37 minutes 35 seconds

Film Description:

The film portrays symptoms of severe mental illness as “emotional fossils,” uncovering layers of inner human experience shaped throughout our evolutionary past. This concept adds empathetic depth to our understanding of evolution and human nature, humanizing these still stigmatized conditions.

Anchored in scientific plausibility, this pioneering narrative intricately stitches together paleoanthropological findings and facts, all in accordance with evolutionary theory, into a unified and inclusive story. It convincingly connects past events to present phenomena, presenting a coherent view of humanity’s evolution that enlightens and unites.

Original Film Title: Stated Tone

Director’s Name: Xin Huang

Writer’s Name: Xin Huang

Producer: Xin Huang

Country of Origin: United Kingdom

Country of Filming: United Kingdom

Language: English

Runtime: 18 minutes 31 seconds

Film Description:

Different from the artist’s previous works, the Stated Tone begins with the failure of the weather forecast in a gothic and haunted atmosphere to inquire about the truth, and runs through the artist’s monologue, which is not only a lost journey of the artist herself, but also a journey of every lost soul. How to move on in the darkness is the question raised by this work, and perhaps whether the final end exists can be answered differently