This Concorto Thursday begins with the meetings of the two juries, the senior and the junior one, however, the results will be kept secret till the official ceremony on Saturday.
To make this waiting sweeter, a film critics match – a hopefully tough one – between the junior and the senior jury, the Asinovola blog, Luca Pacilio from Gli Spietati and Rael Montecucco from Gli Sbandati. A not-to-be-missed event: see you at 6 p.m. at Palazzo Ghizzoni!
Tonight, the screenings of the short films in competition begin with Gli Anni, a touching documentary merged with amateur videos belonging to the Cineteca Sarda Archive, followed by Hurlevent, a long-awaited animation by director Fréderic Doazan, an old acquaintance of Concorto. Feathers takes us to the US, while Manila is full of men called boy guides us through a complex familiar story set in the Philippines. This second short films block ends with Per tutta la vita, an enquire about memory and fugacity. Le champ de maïs tells the story of an Indian day labourer, while the evening will be closed with The Passage, an unexpected and irresistible US comedy.
At 11:30 p.m. in the Greenhouse the second part of the Focus Supernature (here the reviews) will be screening, in the meanwhile the Talks in the Grove with the senior jury.
Just be there!
Gli Anni – Sara Fgaier
As seen by Vanessa Mangiavaca
Developed within Reframing Home movies – Residenze in archivio, Gli Anni opens the door to the past, being a patchwork of amateur films coming from the Cineteca Sarda Archive and belonging to different families. Following the footsteps of Alina Marazzi’s Un’ora sola ti vorrei,
the director Sara Fgaier keeps us company during these 20 minutes, reading some passages of the homonymous novel by Annie Ernaux. A real intimate insight into which every little feminine universe, whether of yesterday or of tomorrow, can identify: the fear of life flowing away, the
nightmare of not succeeding in capturing a memory, the terror of acknowledging oneself as different from when one was so loved. It is a dream kept secret for so long that is now too late to be revealed. Gli Anni represents regret. And so nothing is left but relying on images, before it is too late and even these become victims of deterioration over time.
Hurlevent – Fréderic Doazan
Visto da Margherita Fontana
Inspired by the visual poetry of Canadian artist Hart Broudy, Hurlevent is a unique work of language animation. Some alphabets, coming from all over the world, come to life, taking on the appearance of little creatures swarming on the pages of a thrown away book. The encounter between languages can only turn into conflict: the process of signification is metaphorically represented as a ravenous ingestion of the meaning of things. Saying things becomes feeding on them, turning your opponents into preys in a sort of struggle for survival. Digital and its binary code complicate the horizon of contemporaneity, threatening to flatten any attempt at translation.
Feathers – A.V. Rockwell
As seen by Yorgos Kostianis
Award-winning filmmaker and Sundance Institute Feature Film fellow A.V. Rockwell ’s short is a love letter to black boys, the adverse psychological effects of racism, and how to heal those wounds in modern society.
The film focuses on Elizier, an emotionally dejected new enrollee at The Edward R. Mill School for Boys, must overcome memories of a tragic past and the present hazing by his peers in order to tackle larger issues dominating his young life.
Manila is full of men called boy – Andrew Stephen Lee
Visto da Carlotta Magistris
Delicate black and white short film set in the Philippines back in 2009, Manila is full of men named boy depicts a voluminous and stigmatized masculinity, skilfully enhanced and made effective through a stereotyped portray. With friendly gags, useful for framing the social situation, and with a linear narrative, the film focuses on a man, Big Boy, who returns to his country after living in the United States. Somehow he finds himself buying a boy, pretending that he is his son in order to impress his father and receive his approval. The dynamic created between the two, sometimes willingly portrayed as comical, leaves room for an underlying bitterness when it comes to social complaint, geographically contextualized in the story but that seems to suggest a wider reflection.
Per tutta la vita – Roberto Catani
As seen by Elena Saltarelli
The animated short film Per tutta la vita, whose director, coming from the region Marche, is Roberto Catani, tells about how everything in life is characterized by the ephemeral, the fleeting, the transitory: nothing lasts forever, everything is affected by the Lavoiserian principle according to
which either objects or human emotions do not end, but, on the contrary, transform themselves. Every image is a world within itself, a microcosm of infinite duration that leaves room for another one in just a few seconds. What is really important is to understand how this very short time frame tells about a period of the main character’s life, a period of suffering that cannot be forgotten but that is ended by its very nature.
The technique used it that of hand-drawn animation, meaning that the director created about 1400 drawings for the 4-minute long final video. Another tribute to the importance and to the dedication to the memory, the only real leitmotiv of this narration.
Le champ de maïs – Sandhya Suri
As seen by Sofia Brugali
As the title suggests, this short film is set in a field, precisely in the last cornfield close to an Indian village which the starving inhabitants are waiting to harvest. During the day, it is just a normal field where agricultural labour activities take place, whereas at night it becomes Lalla and her lover’s alcove and hiding place, a place where they can finally look one at each other between the rustling corn plants, though not without fear. The physical sensuality of their encounters under the moonlight conflicts with the daily composure and their urgent need to become one is a way to rebel against the coming harvest.
Sandhya Suri describes the path of a love story born together with corn and inevitably bound to be mowed down along with the plants full of cobs. In this scenario, the portray of a woman in the quest for her freedom stands out.
The Passage – Kitao Sakurai, Philip Burgers
As seen by Vanessa Mangiavacca
Kitao Sakuraia, known for being one co-author of The Eric Andre Show, the revolutionary television talk show produced by Adult Swim, once again demonstrates his talent and nails it with The Passage. Phil (played by the brilliant Philip Burger, known for his character Dr. Brown) is a sort of Neanderthal man, who appears to have fallen from the sky and accidentally landed on Earth. Bizarre situations follow one another, creating a non-linear narration: random clown gags pile up in a brand new version of the classic silent cinema. Phil cannot speak but succeeds in communicating
with his body and with his malleable expressions: languages from all over the world alternate without being deliberately translated. Watching The passage is like zooming through different cultures, events, landscapes, backgrounds, and different film genres. It is a joyful and peaceful reconciliation with diversity, an authentic human odyssey. Weirdo and no sense, as Concorto likes it.
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