ANI DULCI AMĂRUI,
Margaux Basch – FR/Film Screening

In Viișoara, a small village in Romania, the old school is closed, abandoned. Young adults come back to that place and remembers their teenage years.

Margaux Basch is a documentary filmmaker. After completing a master’s degree in digital art at the National College of Art in Dublin, she graduated from INA in documentary writing and directing in 2021. She has directed around ten short films and also works as an editor and assistant director. In her latest project, Bitter Sweet Years, she collaborates with Romanian teenagers on the theme of coming of age.

CATCH,
Shingyu Kang – KP/Film Screening

A college student majoring in photography roams the city to take new photos in her daily life.

Shingyu Kang is a photographer and film director in South Korea.

After majoring in film directing at Seoul Institute of the Arts, He has won awards or competed at several international and South Korea national film festivals, and has exhibited photography in various venues.

He has been working with photography for a long time, believing he can create powerful messages in images by combining nature, humans, and the placement of objects.

PHOTOAUTOMAT,
Film Screening

Vintage photo booths can be found throughout the city of Berlin, standing out as strange mechanical monoliths that are both easy to spot and yet somehow still overlooked. They offer a unique experience that diverges significantly from modern photography and smartphone culture by not allowing users to preview their own image or to know the exact moment in which the photograph will be taken. This element of surprise and mystery shifts the focus from appearance to the overall experience and offers a refreshing break from the pressure to present a perfect self-image.

Gloria Regonesi is a filmmaker and film editor active across Italy, Germany, and the UK. Her poetry films and video essays delve into the perception of space and the emotional resonance of places, while also addressing broader themes such as language and perception. Her work often challenges a reconsideration of how we understand reality and how we interpret and interact with the environment.

Observation of capitalism and capitalist society serve as a backdrop for her audiovisual pieces, characterized by haptic elements and an innovative and experimental approach to editing.

THE MELTING AGE,
Alfonso Rodriguez – ES / Film Screening

From hot to cold.

It all seems like a grotesque game we force ourselves to play—this unprecedented lunacy. In Greenland and Antarctica, melting ice caused by warming is making the planet’s sea levels rise while cooling ocean currents that, in turn, influence wildlife and ecosystems. An excess of salt water contrasts with the waste of scarce drinking water aquifers: we use four liters of water to make one plastic bottle containing the same liquid, and this is quite a moderate proportion compared to other products.

The poles are melting, and that has a huge negative impact on us. Yet human beings insist on seeing this differently. The accessible territory that will emerge from under the ice of the gigantic Greenland and Antarctic landmasses will become new areas to exploit previously untouched natural resources, especially oil and gas—the same resources that, paradoxically, have caused the ice to melt, enriching a few while driving the vast majority of people into poverty.

This lunacy that no one understands but everyone accepts with resignation. And above all, selfishly: our potential downfall and that of future generations, which we have brought upon ourselves.
Anthropogenic climate change is already a proven fact. It is the consequence of global warming caused by the human race.

Major international conferences, bringing together almost every country in the world, discuss how to tackle the situation, how to mitigate its effects, where global responsibility lies, and the near future of our planet.

But it matters little whether we meet with good intentions or whether certain measures or agreements are binding. What is truly important is that no one seems to be taking the first step—a step in a more sustainable direction, one that is more careful with the mass use of the planet’s limited natural resources.

Will we exploit them until the Earth breathes its last breath?

If this is not what we want, we must act now.

“The Melting Age” is a journey through over 30 countries on seven continents, showing places and situations that demonstrate the causes and consequences of the climate crisis—what we might gain and, at the same time, what we could lose.

Using photographs taken at the end of the 20th century and throughout the 21st, along with an astonishing soundtrack, the aim is to narrate how humanity’s great challenge in the coming decades is being tackled and how the climate crisis has been with us for a long time. We should not be surprised now.

WHERE THE SUN DISAPPEARS,
d. Jeoffrey Guillemard – FR/MX/ Film Screening

Thousands of enthusiasts gathered for a total solar eclipse. During the 4 minutes and 20 seconds of darkness, Irma Arellanes Hernandez shared with the world the story of her son’s disappearance. She is part of the group “The Lost Treasures,” composed of mothers whose sons have been abducted by drug cartels. She transformed the eclipse into a metaphor for their daily lives.

FOTOREVOLTE,
Jule Körperich – GER/Film Screening

Fotorevolte explores a world where digital storage is maxed out, bringing all our photos and videos to life. People get lost in a flood of images—celebrities, logos, and places—blurring the line between reality and virtuality.

The animated film mixes around 1,000 visuals that clash and blend together, while the soundtrack is created using a light-sound synthesizer, enhancing the surreal chaos.

Fotorevolte tells of the moment when the world’s available storage capacity is exhausted. All digitally stored photographs and films come to life. People are displaced from their reality by photos of sights and celebrities, logos, and film characters. A bizarre competition unfolds between cleaning up and the manifestation of ever-new images, until the boundary between the real and virtual world turns completely blurred. When finally the Internet overflows, the world sinks into a mishmash of pixels.

In Fotorevolte, the question of the influence of always available real and fictional images on the world is turned upside down and taken ad absurdum. The animated film combines around 1,000 drawings, photos, graphics, and videos, whose different visual languages fight for space, overlap, and mix. In line with this approach, music and sounds were created by transforming the film images with a light-sound synthesizer.