Shorts Competition. Block 1

How can you understand a violent past? Somali-born Abdi is furniture designer and support worker. He reenacts his life, marked by war and criminality, with the help of his neighbor and filmmaker Douwe. By means of playful reconstructions in a special effects studio, Abdi and Douwe embark on a candid and investigative journey through a painful history, focusing on the creative process throughout.

After spending some time in New York, filmmaker Shuli Huang returns to his hometown of Wenzhou. Without his lover, who is about to start studying in Belgium, he is alone with his family. Huang’s mother can’t accept that her  son is gay, and begs him to lead a “normal” life. We hear their conversations in the form of a voice-over, as they run the gamut from self-reproach and wailing to emotional blackmail. Motherly love and social conventions collide painfully time after time, without any resolution. Huang edited the conversations to Super8 material filmed during his visit home, of a city through fogged-up glasses, loving shots of his mother, flashes of his father, and the filmmaker himself: a shadow, waving to the camera but never truly in view.

This intimate and gorgeously composed film won the director a Queer Palm at Semaine de la Critique in Cannes.

Eight-month-old Lew lives with his mother in Poland, where they had to flee from the war in Ukraine. His dad can't hug him or see him take his first steps or say his first words.

A story of a friendship between Ania and Lidka, her mother-in-law. Ania is strong-minded and determined. Lidka is her opposite: shy and reserved, she just left her abusive husband. As they meet inside a newsstand kiosk run by Ania, the two women work on a divorce petition that would enable Lidka to begin a new life, free of fear and violence. Despite many harsh words and continuing challenges, they slowly form a bond that gives them courage and strength.