Film Library 2014
in 2014, ASFF curated films that contained memorable images, retaining an unprecedented visual and emotive impact in an age of digital media, video circulation and accessible platforms. Attracting thousands of entries, the festival connected filmmakers and attendees through the collective power of cinema.
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Dir. Damien elroy Vignaux
Tane creates the world by giving the impulse of movement, and inhabits this world with a beautiful woman, Hine, the living link between the gods and the people. Movement is life.
Dir. Poppy De Villenueve
A film documenting a couple’s stay at the sea-perched Le Sirenuse hotel in Positano, Italy, which was shot on the proviso that the place itself should inspire the narrative.
Dir. James Copeman
Noya, navigating her way through her teenage years gets inevitably lost in the wrong crowd. One day, by accident, she meets Nadiv, who represents everything her friends aren’t.
Animation
Dir. Alan Holly
A lost soul stumbles drunkenly through the city, where Death finds him and shows him many things. A hand-drawn film voiced by Brian Gleeson and Orla Fitzgerald.
Dir. Carl Beauchemin, David Forest and Thomas Chretien
Two travellers undertake the construction of a gigantic bridge in order to cross a gulf blocking their way, inspiring with their courage and determination a rural community living nearby.
Dir. Åsa Lucander
When you lose something dear to your heart, there is only one place it can be found. The Lost Property office. The film looks into the idea of memory loss and the aging process.
Dir. Alisi Telengut
A profound human-animal and human-nature relationship is represented by a painted world filled with a camel’s emotions, based on a real Mongolian nomadic story.
Dir. Daisy Jacobs
Using seven-foot-tall characters performing on life- size sets, The Bigger Picture tells a stark and darkly humorous tale of caring for an elderly parent.
Dir. Eoin Duffy
A black comedy exploring some of life’s common fears: fear of the unknown, of failure, rejection and finally the fear of death. Narrated by George Takei
Artists’ Film
Dir. Rebecca Ruige Xu
Utilising computer graphics and sound synthesising, this work depicts a the poem Drinking Alone by Moonlight from the ancient East by translating its rhyme and tonal prosody.
Dir. Thanasis Tsimpinis
A girl, locked in a room, creates a magical portal to escape reality. Meanwhile, her domineering mother makes a birthday cake for her. Their worlds are about to be crushed.
Dir. Disa Krosness
To be a woman; eggs inside and outside. To be locked in a shell with beauty, innocence and vulnerability painted on the surface. Let’s smash it open and let the insides out.
Dir. Toby Tatum
A monstrous garden, where stone dinosaurs are
enlivened by rampant foliage and gargantuan flowers
invites you into a new and uncharted world.
Dir. Adrian Paci
The Column was born from the frustrations at an economic strategy whereby time must be condensed to the point at which delivery coincides with production.
Dir. Irene Reiserer
Who is the villain and who the prey? Human skin, glasses of blood and beasts in the forest. A hypnotic piece, shot on 8mm and archaic as humans.
Comedy
Dir. Nick Scott
Wallace D. Popple’s working day delivers a series of painful mishaps. Yet, within this off-kilter tale about happiness, there lies a twist for the twisted.
Dir. Jonathan Flint
An elaborate plot to break up with his girlfriend has dire consequences for Mark in this dark comedy which highlights everyone’s reluctance to be the bearer of bad news.
Dir. Tsveta Lozanova
Happy Birthday Cindy Wei follows school underdog Cindy Wei as she builds up confidence through discovering the flamboyant world of her cross-dressing cousin.
Dir. Rob Reed
Mark likes Karen, a lot. He met in her in a cafe on a random afternoon. So while out in the car with Alan he tries to give her a call… but things don’t always go as planned.
Dir. Jean-François Asselin
Mathieu seeks all ways to attract attention to himself. It is a matter of extreme endurance: you think of me so I exist. A dark and sinister look into one man’s quest for survival.
Dir. Kate Herron
On Valentine’s Day, a hopeless romantic and a cynic realise that love is right in front of them. Co-written by filmmaker Kate Herron with the comedy troupe Birthday Girls, who also star.
Dance
Dir. Marites Carino
Sucked into a choreographic time warp, conceptual hip-hop dancers share fleeting moments of intimate synchronicity as viewers slowly realise things are not always as they seem…
Dir. Ivalo Frank
Viviente is a music video that explores the issue of identity through modern dance, lyrics and music. It highlights how body language and music can overcome all cultural barriers.
Documentary
Dir. Theis Mølstrøm Christensen
Søren and Malene fell in love playing music together. They had a child, but then were both diagnosed with cancer. This film allows them to once again find their common tune.
Dir. Rob Curry
A field-recorded encounter with some of the more eccentric folk rituals of the Norfolk Broads – as witnessed through the eyes of one homegrown fabulist.
Dir. Alexandra Wedenig
In 1954 Franz Wedenig travels by train through Switzerland, France and Spain. In 2013 his granddaughters Alexandra and Elisabeth retrace and follow his route.
Dir. Tash Horton
A colourful exploration into the landscape of the female face and into the minds of 12 young women living in a society that obsesses over physical appearance.
Dir. Tom German
Somewhere Else is an observational film portrait of the life of John Eldridge. Exploring the crossover of surfing with motorbike customisation, it is a celebration of subcultures.
Dir. Amanda Bluglass
A heart-warming portrait of rebellion, spirit and joie- de-vivre. Britain’s oldest punk, great-grandmother Viva Hamnell reflects on her life in Cornwall’s first punk band.
Drama
Dir. Leah McKissock
After college, a depressed young woman has a quarter-life crisis. Between her degrading job at a restaurant and her failed relationships with family and men, she starts seeing a therapist.
Dir. Louis Lagayette
Jennifer is a teenage mother living in Liverpool with her son Tommy. They struggle to survive, but receive the help a social worker, who realises that Jennifer is hiding something.
Dir. Nic Wassell
A metaphysical time-travel mystery: a Japanese woman comes home to a discovery that turns her world upside-down and catapults her into her own past.
Dir. Camille Delamarre
He hears the ‘click’. Lowers his head. Damn. He is standing on a mine. If he moves, it will explode. How will he get through this? He doesn’t have much time left… It’s time for the last call.
Dir. Rachna Suri
Ali is one of the few British Muslims in the Army. Returning home from Afghanistan unexpectedly, he faces renewed tensions from his family and community.
Dir. Chris Shepherd
After a life time apart a son finally meets his father. The son wants to know about his history, where he came from and how he came to be, but his dad gives him a surprise.
Experimental
Dir. Andre? Braz
A young man has lost himself. Life has led him through paths making him become someone he doesn’t identify with – until his father’s death leads him to unbury a box.
Dir. Marc Grey
Suzanne is waking up. In those fleeting moments before she forgets her dreams, she searches her subconscious for answers – but can she learn to break free?
Dir. Christine Hooper
Four in the morning, crapped out, yawning. Experience a comic portrayal of the tedious insanity of insomnia. With an aesthetic inspired by David Hockney’s photomontages.
Dir. Sam Firth
Recorded every day for a year at exactly the same time, in the same place, Stay the Same is about our relationship with time and the desire to capture experience.
Dir. Simone Smith
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Fashion
Dir. Clive Will
A commercialised depiction of Kirsten Goss’ jewellery collection Arcade, the film mixes high speed videography, with colourful props for an onslaught of arresting images.
Dir. Joseph Ghaleb
Concrete Love observes a woman dreaming under the pillars and shapes of a romance that she misses, but perhaps never had.
Dir. Lorna Tucker
Inspired by Vivienne Westwood’s Climate Revolution, Red Shoes is a journey through a dark, enchanted space where decay and opulence sit side by side.
Dir. Amanda Wong
The reality of a creature and a landscape is both distorted and revealed through the filmmaker’s use of reflection, refraction and perspective.
Dir. Zinka Bejtic
The film questions the relationship between elements that are associated with positive and negative, light and dark, good and evil, ugly and beautiful.
Music Video
Dir. Jeremi Durand
Don’t we all have our own way to say “stop”? In this promo for the French electro band, Petru keeps control over his daily life through his own kind of dancing ritual.
Dir. Lewis Lloyd
A longing vision of past summer romance, seen through a kaleidoscope of faded celluloid memories. An inner journey into the intangible nature of love.
Dir. Thea Hvistendahl
The music video Faen Ta is put together from the visual personal ads of six people, who all introduce us to their environment amid lonely everyday scenes.
Dir. Chris Ullens
A forest comes alive at night courtesy of enigmatic stop-frame animation, with mysterious characters meeting and a stunning display of animated strings, in a hand-crafted, playful ballet.
Dir. Dirk Rauscher
The Temple is a story about a metaphorical temple, built by
“her”, in which she is waiting for “him”, brought to life in an artificial construct of symbolic memories and fragments.
Dir. Jeff Metal
Taken from his album Thanks For Trying, Skeptik stars in this epic, beautifully shot, Peak District-based tale of a “bear”, friendship, and a frightening twist.
Thriller
Dir. Richard Williamson
Surviving a surprise sex party with your soul intact is tough in this wickedly dark psychological short. Welcome to the Black and White midnight party.
Dir. James Sharpe
Fibs is the subtle and nuanced tale of Naomi, a teenage girl who is lost in a fantasy, and who will say anything as she attempts to win back her older ex-boyfriend.
Dir. Adam R. Brown
Alex, a travel-worn survivor in a desolate world, returns to his childhood home to find not only artefacts of his youth, but also the plague-ridden body of his recently deceased father.
Dir. Martin Åhlin
Naomi accidentally collides with the blind Laura on the street. But she finds an impulse has been awakened inside of her – an impulse to do something bad.
Dir. Marie Enthoven
Emma discovers her life is a lie and her mother holds the strings. Her lover, her friends, all seem to be paid to surround her, as she struggles to distinguish truth from paranoia.
Dir. Jonny Phillips
Sometimes you can’t see the woods for the trees… An ancient oak tree awakens a jaded tree surgeon to the intensity of life, when a routine job suddenly turns out to be anything but.
