KVIFF 2012: Forum of Independents

Lean She’at Nosaat / Where Ever You Go / Kamkoli jdeš
Director: Rony Sasson
Israel, 2011, 50 min, International premiere
Zohara is headed to a wedding when young Neriman stops her car. Seeing the terror in the girl’s eyes, Zohara knows she has to get her off the street. Where does she want to go? And why does she have a gun? The film succeeds in developing a seemingly simple situation into a work of unexpected connections and strong dramatic impact.

Leave Me Like You Found Me / Leave Me Like You Found Me / Nech mě, jak’s mě našel
Director: Adele Romanski
USA, 2011, 80 min, International premiere
Erin and Cal used to go out together, and now they’re together again. During their trip to a national park, however, it becomes obvious that the old vices haven’t gone away, and eventually both begin to wonder why they’re even together. Or will this ordinary trip become a deeper experience than either expected?

Love Me Not / Love Me Not / Neměj mě rád
Director: Gilitte Pik Chi Leung
Hong Kong, 2011, 92 min, European premiere
Aggie and Dennis are old friends, connected by more than the flat they share. While Dennis is clear about being gay, Aggie is starting to be less so. With a natural flow, this relationship chronicle avoids crisis situations, enabling it to succeed as a sensitive look at the coexistence of two interesting characters.

Les manèges humains / Les manèges humains / Lidská manéž
Director: Martin Laroche
Canada, 2012, 89 min, World premiere
After studying to become a movie director, Sophie decides to work at an amusement park. Thinking his employee might be able to put her experience to practical use, her boss asks her to shoot a park video. Sophie never imagined she would be embarking on a journey which would ultimately allow her to come to terms with a trauma she experienced in her native Africa. This subjective movie benefits from superb acting performances reinforced by atmospheric music and captivating camerawork.

Les Mécréants / The Miscreants / Něvěrci
Director: Mohcine Besri
Morocco, Switzerland, 2012, 88 min, International premiere
On the orders of their spiritual leader, three young Islamists kidnap a troupe of young actors. When the extremists arrive at the specified place of detention, they find themselves cut off from their base. The two very different groups are forced to live together for a period of seven days during which any sense of certainty is destroyed on both sides. They may have differing views but could they have something in common as well?

Noor/ Noor / Noor
Director: Cagla Zencirci, Guillaume Giovanetti
France, Pakistan, 2012, 79 min, International premiere
After leaving Pakistan’s Khusras transgender community, Noor appears as a man and takes a man’s job at a company that decorates transport trucks. He even finds a girl who loves him as he is.… But an unfortunate scuffle with a drunken rapist sends the feminine-looking youth on a journey in a stolen truck that forces him to redefine his own identity. This fascinating road movie offers viewers a bluntly poetic invitation to dance.

Noseland/ Noseland / Nosálov
Director: Aleksey Igudesman
Austria, 2012, 82 min
Set at a classical music festival in summertime Dubrovnik, this mischievous mockumentary attacks stereotyped notions of violinists, cellists, and other virtuosos, conductors not excepted. Julian Rachlin, Aleksey Igudesman, Mischa Maisky, John Malkovich, Sir Roger Moore, and many others perform, play, and recite with withering (self)-irony.

Oh Boy!/ Oh Boy! / Sakra, kluku!
Director: Jan Ole Gerster
Germany, 2012, 83 min, International premiere
Young Niko is riding a conveyor belt of experience, but he doesn’t seem to know what to do with it. He wants to be alone or at least be silent, but people keep asking him things. And so while contemporary Berlin pulsates around him, the young man wrestles with recklessness because, like this, his journey might end prematurely.

Smrt čoveka na Balkanu / Death of a Man in the Balkans / Smrt člověka na Balkáně
Director: Miroslav Momčilović
Serbia, 2012, 80 min, World premiere
A lonely composer commits suicide in his apartment. By means of a webcam that the victim mounted on a tripod and pointed at the middle of the room, we are able to follow the commotion that subsequently takes place in his flat. This original, low-budget movie, packed with snappy dialogue and functioning as a window onto the “Balkan mentality,” is shot entirely in one take.

Vacuum/ Vacuum / Vakuum
Director: Giorgio Cugno
Italy, 2012, 94 min, International premiere
A young married couple, Arianna and Milo, are delighted by the birth of their first child. But, of course, six months later everything is different: for the young woman, daily life in their apartment in the suburbs of Torino has become a grueling routine focused exclusively on the child. The economic crisis and postpartum depression deeply affect the young woman’s life as she desperately tries to find herself again. Debut director Giorgio Cugno built his visually impressive project upon authentic details and a claustrophobic atmosphere.

Vast/ Inside / Uvnitř
Director: Rolf van Eijk
Netherlands, 2011, 50 min, International premiere
An intense and intimate drama of an inwardly fragile, outwardly tough teenage girl who has been sent to a correctional facility. There her psychological state is laid bare as she tries to overcome shadows from the past. Sigrid ten Napel’s intense portrayal dominates a film boasting responsive, detail-driven camerawork.

W sypialni/ In a Bedroom / V ložnici
Director: Tomasz Wasilewski
Poland, 2012, 76 min, International premiere
Forty-year-old Edyta is in crisis. She sleeps at hotels, and when her money runs out she uses the internet to find men who are looking for sex. With a minimalist plot line, the movie reveals the characters more through faces and gestures than words, and through the brittle, elusive atmosphere, perhaps the film’s main protagonist.