Film Library 2016
Demonstrating the power of film as a mechanism, a tool and a connective art form, the 2016 edition celebrates the power of cinema to reach out on many levels. Discussing a variety of themes from the migrant crisis to tales of love and loss, experience handpicked short film with our festival favourites.
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Dir. John Wright
Meet Fendi’s latest symbol of restrained elegance: the four-in-one By The Way bag. Alongside an original soundtrack, a futuristic approach presents an aspirational practical item.
Dir. John Wright
From Lancôme With Love is a digital film campaign for leading cosmetics brand Lancôme, advertising the launch of the fun-loving Lancôme Spring cosmetics collection.
Dir. Bruno Simões
A family goes through their usual morning rituals – the patterns of everyday existence that we all go through – but this time there’s something different about them.
Dir. Metz+Racine
Never Ending Story tracks the journey of French fashion powerhouse Louis Vuitton, founded in 1854 and quickly becoming the symbol of glamour and luxury.
Dir. Remo Camerota
Set in the future, a beautiful car is spotted by a space craft, silently running along the surface of an unknown planet. The Toyota hybrid glides with precision, power and silence.
Animation
Dir. Joris Oprins, Marieke Blaauw & Job Roggeveen
A woman who can’t have children steals a little girl’s imaginary friend. While at first this creates a rift between her and her husband, the power of imagination brings everyone together.
Dir. Oliver Harrison
A black and white, multi-layered, hyper-kinetic, typographical poem. Using the letters of the word apocalypse, each line explores areas of our lives eroded by recent events.
Dir. Dann Parry
Struggling to escape a desolate forest of his own making, a man is being followed by the creature he is bound to. Quirky and introspective short that explores the self.
Dir. Kate Jessop
Little Elephant is about the estranged relationship between a father and his gay daughter, now a young mother. Both characters reflect upon past memories and lost connections.
Dir. Georgina Ferguson & Eduarda Lima
Following the events on 7 July 2005, in which a train was bombed in King’s Cross killing 26 people. The story reflects upon a stranger’s kindness and life after disaster strikes.
Dir. Thibault Houdon & Maxime Roz
In a museum, a night guard is doing his watch. A glimpse of light draws us into a remote space. Suddenly, a noise is heard and starts a series of unsuspected events.
Artists’ Film
Dir. Theo Tagholm
Today abstraction is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror, or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the hyperreal.
Dir. Callum Hill
A fragmented journey through the dark canal ways on the outskirts of Mexico City. The female protagonist attempts to reconcile with the past through an unsettling pilgrimage.
Dir. Robert Francis Müller
Wrecking Machine explores the connection between selfdoubt and self-destruction through an existential take on mental health. Bridging the gap between truth and fiction.
Comedy
Dir. Ed Wiles
The anonymous night security guard in a London office tower finds a unique way to attract the attention of an equally anonymous cleaner based in an opposite tower.
Dir. Yousef Thami
Since his tragic childhood accident, Ed has had to live with his head detached but still fully functional. This film catches up with Ed years later, dealing with the stresses of adult life.
Dir. Riley Madincea
A man wakes up within his own dream of becoming a Hollywood star in his very own feature, but it quickly becomes a nightmare when he can no longer be in control of the plot.
Dir. Chris Mcgill
A living statue of one of Shakespeare’s most famous dramatic figures, Hamlet works in Stratford upon Avon, but is beginning to have second thoughts about his career choice.
Dir. Venetia Taylor
Josh is in Venice, Mum is in Sydney. Josh doesn’t understand backpacking, Mum doesn’t understand Skype. A hilarious clash of generations, desires and technological age gaps.
Dir. Matt Winn
Sarah and Paul’s favourite couple tell them that they’re getting divorced. Unable to understand why, Sarah and Paul start to analyse their own marriage, with disastrous consequences.
Dance
Dir. Nick White
Along the deserted highwalks of the Barbican estate, a strange presence follows a group of performers as they fill the empty space with dance, until the unknown takes over the screens.
Dir. Rachael Lincoln & Amelia Rudolph
Featuring Bay Area vertical dance company Bandaloop as they journey across the Sierra, the film challenges the boundaries of site-specific performance and where it can be.
Dir. Geej Ower (C/O Greatcoat Films)
Following one man’s psychological torment as he battles with the memory of a past relationship. An emotional and physical story of a character attempting to rid himself from his past.
Documentary
Dir. Courtney Dixon
This short documentary focuses on the tape-recorded sessions of an aging couple, explaining an odd hobby that has riveted a small, rural town for 10 years.
Dir. Fabio Palmieri
Each year 40,000 people try to enter Europe, fleeing from war and persecution. Since entrances by land have been denied, they board overloaded vessels, facing an often deadly voyage.
Dir. Jørn Nyseth Ranum
We are used to seeing skateboards in cities and on the hard asphalt. This shows the first attempt to bring them into nature and skate on frozen sand beaches in Norway.
Dir. Reuben Armstrong & Jamie Neale
The Artist and The Machine follows the highs and lows of Hastings-based artist Lorna Hamilton-Brown and her creative process involved in producing knitted pieces of work.
Dir. Hayley Evans
The Making of Latex 101 gives viewers insight into the makers of fetish clothing, based in West Lothian. Making everything from t-shirts to hoods with help from their cat Chuckie.
Dir. Ben Garfield
When Oleg Sirota discovered his native Russia was banning Western food imports, he quit his job, sold his house, took out a $100k loan and began building a factory in the wilderness.
Drama
Dir. Paul Holbrook & Sam Dawe
A tormented and neglected 12-year-old finds solace watching violent Western movies. When she finds a gun in her late father’s loft, she stands up to her tormentors just like the films.
Dir. Mike Jones
Chaste centres on one turbulent night but deals with a lifetime of regret. Gabrielle’s life is beige. All she wanted was a home full of love, but all she’s created is her own mausoleum.
Dir. Marc Bethke
Mikelis, a mathematician working for the European Union, is sitting in a hotel room in Brussels one day after his retirement. He is waiting for what he knows will be his last visitor, Carl.
Dir. Yoann Garel
Two young brothers set off on an expedition to go fishing by a lake. Little do they know that while out, they’ll run into a man, mysteriously out fishing all on his own.
Dir. Benjamin Lussier
Pool follows the story of Willem, a young man from Norway, on an existential quest. After suffering from selective mutism, a form of social anxiety, he sets out to engage with the world.
Dir. Justin Anderson
A modern adaptation of Guy de Maupassant’s short story about a man (Dougray Scott) and a woman (Emma de Caunes) sharing an unexpected encounter on a train.
Experimental
Dir. Michele Benigna
Aymara is a period/sci-fi short film shot in Infrared black and white. Surreal images tell a simple story of a domestic life in a coastal cabin suspended inbetween past and future.
Dir. Mia Forrest
A decadent thug poaches an exotic young trophy-boy and smuggles him into City Crush. When he escapes he must navigate the desolation and deviant lust of the locals.
Dir. Apollo Thomas
One room, one residential area, one parking lot and one lobby with escalators. Clarence is obsessed with the visions of a woman he thinks he loves, and tries to re-assemble romance.
Dir. Kevin Rios
A nostalgic portrait of a Cuban-American family as their cultural heritage is inevitably up for change, Made of Sugar charts an intimate exposure of bloodlines and identity.
Dir. Daisy Dickinson
Transcending the sounds and visuals of the drum, elements of fire and water act as catalysts for destruction – creating an atmospheric piece of raw, ritualistic, drumming phenomena.
Dir. Pedro Martin-Calero
People in the village of Kalachi, Kazakhstan have started to faint without reason. Pedro Martin-Calero takes inspiration from a real life phenomenon in this depiction of the condition.
Fashion
Dir. Melany
Loosely based on the real life events of Becco Di Rame (“copper beak”), this is the true story of Ottorino, a courageous goose who lost his beak fighting against a fox.
Dir. Amber Moelter & Luis Barreto Carrillo
Ethetics is an ethical film series which features products that cause the least damage to the planet, whilst still giving the consumer an aesthetic satisfaction.
Dir. Javiera Eyzaguirre
GUN means shooting what we don’t want to be. Our character is at war with a part of himself which he dislikes. He can’t even recognise his own image in the mirror.
Dir. Hung-Chun Wang
This short film is an experimentation into a new cinematic expression of fashion film, transforming the aesthetics into scenes of intimacy, addiction, seizing, occupy and futility.
Music Video
Dir. Lewis Rose
Unique music video for UK Beatbox champion and musical chameleon Beardyman. The unexpected story follows a funny and simultaneously bittersweet tale of lost raver love.
Dir. Katerina Athanasopoulou
A woman under sedation for a lung operation sinks inside her own unconscious. The film starts at that dreamy beginning of anaesthesia where your mind drifts helplessly.
Dir. Ian Pons Jewell
A mysterious woman with supernatural powers strolls the remains of a derelict world. As time goes on we remain unsure if she is an angel of revenge or a messenger of redemption.
Dir. Remi Laudat
Based around lovers who push their relationship to the extremes, we follow Raheem retracing his steps through areas where past memories took place, whilst questioning himself.
Dir. Piet Baumgartner
Meditative film featuring the everyday motions of two diggers transformed into synchronised and romanticised performance. Captivating and satisfying visuals throughout.
Dir. Corentin Kopp
Shot in Malmö, Sweden, Härligt Sverige is a Film Noir for Belgo- Swedish avant-pop band Victoria+Jean. This intense rumble of a track was produced by John Parrish (PJ Harvey, Goldfrapp.)
Thriller
Dir. Remy Bazerque
A modern take on mythological punishments that last an eternity, Cerberus is the tale of two brothers who torment each other time and again in a scenario they can never escape.
Dir. Carl Shanahan
An unsettling look at the ritualistic nature of dinner. Four children hope to make it through one family meal by adhering to their intimidating mother. But what’s being served?
Dir. Jamie Delaney & Russell Davidson
The film is a re-telling of classic Celtic mythological themes. All is not what it seems and that which seems certain can change rapidly into something unexpected and dark.
