MIEFF 2017

Tunisia | 2016 | 31 min
Ismail Bahri

At first, "Foyer" seems to be a projection without film, where the only thing visible is a palpitating white screen. Voices accompany this white emptiness. They are spoken by people who approach the cameraman at work on the film, questioning him about what he is doing. In turn, an amateur photographer, a curious passerby, a policeman and a group of young men all approach the man filming. As the situation develops, the discussions reveal to the spectators the principles of a film experience in progress, of the film they are actually watching. The film experience intrigues people, it interrogates and ultimately transforms the camera into a foyer (in the sense of a hearth), around which people gather, to speak, discuss and listen. At first centered on the camera, these conversations quickly reveal singular points of view, which trace the forms of a particular social and political landscape. They offer a glimpse of the context in which a tentative work experience is unfolding, searching for its way in the agitated world.

Japan | 2017 | 26 min
Makino Takashi

"Inspired from Aristotleʼs "On Generation and Corruption". After the screening in Athens, I had important conversation about Aristotle with one of old lady from audience. We talked about materiality of сinema. We also talked about the construction of cinema itself already has similarity of life and time. Cinema never exist. They just keep doing Generation and Corruption. The situation is also similar with the construction of life and civilization. Then I decided shooting this film. All of images were shot in Japan. Image will continue to repeat the appear and disappear like a infinity loop". Makino Takashi

Russia / USA | 2016 | 35 min
Anton Ginzburg

Turo is a film exploring post-Soviet geography and Constructivist architecture. It is made up four chapters and an introduction-index. Each chapter is exploring a different Constructivist building as a stage for past utopias. The buildings are landmarks of Soviet modernism: Melnikov House (architect Konstantin Melnikov), Narkomfin Building (architect Moisei Ginzburg), ZIL (Automobile factory designed by Vesnin brothers) and also recording of a "ghost mode" of a video game exploring ruins of Pripyat' (Soviet town affected by Chernobyl catastrophe) featuring unrealized Tatlin's Tower. Since a lot of Constructivist projects were never realized and existed as potential designs, they are placed into the virtual environments of the video game, positioning utopia within dystopia. It's an atemporal collective territory, where past dreams coincide with current consumer culture. Modernity could be interpreted as an updated Babel Tower project where the universal tongue would have been imposed over the rest of the world. It still resonates deeply with contemporary culture, but today it exists as an archive of ruins, the record of fragmentation.

Russia / Sweden | 2016 | 28 min
Мария Зеннстрём

Maria Zennström knew that their days were numbered. That's why she filmed the poor intelligentsia of Leningrad in the end of the eighties. The film was shot in a cramped flat in a city that was called Leningrad. Zennström needed a story so she used her family's. She needed a storyteller and used herself. Today, quite some years later, the people, the city and the country where the film was shot no
longer exist. The film becomes a time capsule.

France | 2016 | 12 min
Camilo Restrepo

To keep a promise she made to her dying mother, a young woman goes off in search of her father, a womanizer she has never met. Along the way, she soon learns that he is dead. But that doesn't change her plans, she still intends to find him. Carried by the spell-binding rhythm of the maloya, a ritual chant from Reunion Island, "Cilaos" explores the deep, murky ties that bind the dead and the living.