II EDITION
ROYA
Director: Mohammad Reza Mohammadi
Institute: Iranian Youth Cinema Society
Afghanistan/Iran, 21’59”, fiction
SYNOPSIS: An Afghan man and his wife want to illegally cross the borders and reach Europe. After bearing many hardships and being threatened by the human traffickers, time has come for the woman to give birth at the border surrounded by the police, where the situation is already critical. The woman suddenly starts moaning and this puts the lives of all the people in danger and inflames migrants’ protests.
PROFILE: Mohammad Reza Mohammadi is an Afghan writer and director born and raised in Mashhad, Iran. He started making films by shooting some amateur short films. Realising that he knew little about cinema, he joined the Iranian Youth Cinema Association and learned how to make films for a year. He then emigrated to Europe and lived in Sweden, Germany and France for three years. After returning to Iran in 2021, he made the short film Nazpari, which was selected in festivals such as Chelkinofest and Sama International Film Festival. Roya is the second short film made in Iran.
THE ONE-WAY TICKET
Director: Melika Rezapour
Institute: Catalyst Institute of Creative Arts and Technology
Iran/Germany, 10’11”, fiction
SYNOPSIS: A German-Iranian coproduction. The story is narrated from Taha’s point of view, a six-year old boy raised by a misogynist father that lives in a society where women have no freedom of choice. He finds out that his sister wants to escape with her lover. The decision to reveal the secret to his father or not is now up to him.
PROFILE: Melika Rezapour is a screen-acting student based in Berlin. She was born on 2nd of July 1996 in Tehran, Iran. She would like to change the state of things through the art of storytelling. Her stories are always a reflection of her own personal life.
SUPERSYMÉTRIE – SUPERSYMMETRY
Director: Illan Reille
Institute: La Fémis
France, 23’34”, fiction
SYNOPSIS: As a young researcher in astrophysics in New York City, Sasha hopes to discover a unifying theory of the universe. However, when her life derails, she discovers that her world is much more fragile than what she thought. How far will she have to go to regain her lost stability?
PROFILE: Illan Reille has been attracted to cinema and astronomy since his childhood. After studying literature, where he was particularly keen on the philosophy of science, he joined the screenwriting department of La Fémis.
AN EXTRA DAY IN PRAGUE
Director: Jacob Ramsay
Institute: FAMU
Czech Republic, 15’, fiction
SYNOPSIS: Before moving across the ocean, a 13-year-old hockey player spends an extra day in his home country, reuniting with his estranged father and saying goodbye to his “best friend.”
PROFILE: Jacob Ramsay is an American director based in Prague, Czech Republic. He blends documentary and fiction filmmaking techniques, collaborating with first-time actors, whose characters’ lives run parallel to their own. His films depict underrepresented groups, meditating on themes of family, often focusing on transitional moments when a character must leave something or someone behind. Jacob holds an MFA in Film Directing at the Film and TV School of Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (Czech Republic) and a BA in Film Studies from Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania (USA).
THE LESSON OF COURAGE
Director: Ruisong Sun
Institute: Beijing Film Academy
China, 21’25”, fiction
SYNOPSIS: The story takes place in a small town in the south of China, On the way home from junior high school, Xiao Nan passes through a mountain road and sees a hut. He is a witness of his drunken mother’s rape by a homeless in the hut. After this accident, Xiao Nan’s mother tries to keep the secret of what happened in order not to loose her promotion. However, this secret is slowly building a black hole.
PROFILE: Ruisong Sun is a screenwriter and director born in Jiangsu, China. Graduated from the director department of Beijing Film Academy (film director direction), he has worked as a screenwriter and executive director of many short films. He has experience in handling different types of projects, in controlling his characters’ delicate emotions and in managing the narration of the story.
DAS ENDE VOM ENDE DER WELT – THE END OF THE END OF THE WORLD
Director: Meike Wüstenberg
Institute: Filmakademie Wien
Austria, 24’, fiction
SYNOPSIS: High-school students Mia and Esther are obsessed with columbine-shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. They share the shooters’ hatred against their own social environment and are determined to commit a school shooting themselves. The two outlaws have planned every detail in their fantasies and decide to train in shooting in an abandoned quarry. Mia is struggling to hide her doubts, but will she manage to impose herself on her friend?
PROFILE: Born in Berlin in 1994, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in European Media Studies from the University of Potsdam. She began making her own films as a writer and director and in 2018 continued to study film directing at Vienna Film Academy. As part of her education programme and also at a later stage, she has worked on numerous international fiction projects as an Assistant Director.
SHIBA – FUR COAT
Director: Evgeny Vedrov
Institute: Moscow School of New Cinema
Russian Federation, 22’41”, fiction
SYNOPSIS: A retired woman goes to the city centre. At the station square, she is approached by some fur coat salespersons. They manage to “sell” her an expensive fur coat at a cheap price, but the grandmother is confused for a few days. She does not know whether she has been tricked or if it is a miracle.
PROFILE: Evgeny Vedrov was born in Moscow in 1981. He is an engineer-physicist by training, PhD in economics. In 2020, he graduated from the course, “Author of Cinema. Online”, at the film school “Free Cinema”. In 2022, he graduated from Oleg Dorman’s script workshop at the Moscow School of New Cinema. Evgeny’s student films have been screened at international film festivals.
JADZIA – THE CONCUBINE
Director: Maks Michorczyk
Institute: Warsaw Film School
Poland, 22’04”, fiction
SYNOPSIS: Jadzia, the priest’s concubine, becomes pregnant. It soon turns out that she is not the only woman in his life.
PROFILE: Maks Michorczyk was born in Limanowa in 1997: he is a third-year student of directing at the Warsaw Film School and a graduate of Intellectual Property and New Media Law at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków.
