Diario di bordo – Day 04

Monday 04 luglio – Day 04

Finally a cooler, slightly breezy evening! Here we are, therefore, returned to Piazza Verdi; adults and children sat in front of the big screen returning to an idea of a collective membership to short-form cinema.

Tonight’s screening opens with a couple looking for a new home in Federico Untermann’s Todo lo demás. As the minutes go by, the moral gap between the two protagonists becomes ever larger.

A few minutes later, we are treated to Tannaz Hazemi’s incredible vision of the world through children’s eyes in Before the Bomb. We are confronted by a simultaneously poetic and agonising sequence of events, where a young girl, who is very mature for her age, and her little brother are almost left to fend for themselves, taking on adults and the dangers of the outside world with commendable determination. The end speculates that the two youngsters escape to a far off paradise, be it real or, perhaps, metaphorical.

A real sense of mystery and suspended imagination follows, with Wenceslao Scyzoryk’s 112 subjecting the spectators to a sense of relentless criticism through the psychological prism of a phone line.

We are filled with robust emotions, however, by Dutch filmmaker Els Van Driel’s Hoe Ky Niels werd, which, with the disarming naturalness of a documentary film, tells a pulsating story about gender diversity and the random nature of destiny, which at times even changes the sexual and gender identities of human beings.

Beach Flags is a short directed by the sensitive, feminine touch of Sarah Saidan. The film transports us into a world of sand and water, but the exotic setting doesn’t mean we forget that we’re talking about female application, about pride and rights, all in a competitive context.

Gabriel Harel, director of Yùl et le serpent, instead tells the story of a fascinating incident in which a small protagonist reacts to bullying. It is again a cartoon of epic human consequences, adventurous in the broadest meaning of the word.

The story thought of by Leah Johnston for My Younger Older Sister is not a simple one. It is about the process of mourning a young woman is going through, passing through a thousand uneven stages. Pure poetry.

How resourceful, how capable of crossing seas and mountains with losing a shred of authenticity women are.

Alexis Korycinski does justice to this capacity in The Hairut, where a young woman enters into the inflexible world of the military, discovering her true internal morality.

A father, a daughter, two glasses full of thrills, but flowing from different bottles. Mohamed Kamel, director of Rabie chetwy, demonstrates his understanding of the burns of introspection, and such sensitivity praised by the spectators.

There are still abusive, warlike conflicts, where distressed human beings are tossed into hell like bowling pins. This time it is the turn of Sajjad Abbas to tell the tale, who, with The Iraqi Superman, exploits the medium of animation to tell a beautiful, visceral story.

Disco Inferno from the talented Alice Waddington pays homage to an old, charming French Drama from the 1960s: Belphégor ou le Fantôme du Louvre.

In highly refined black and white, the film possesses the ambience of an old-school horror flick; a surreal sequence of events that shares its title with a famous disco track from years gone by.

It’s just past midnight and two young, foreign women are sat in front of us, lingering to share their opinions on what we have just seen.

This is the power of cinema: discussions, and sometimes clashes, but always communication. And long may it be so.

Next stop: Tuesday night. May the cinematic extravaganza go on…

Riccardo Visintin

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