Florence 10th - 17th November 2012

International documentary film festival

  • CAMA DE GATO
    Cat’s Cradle

    Portugal 2012 57'
    Directed by: Filipa Reis, João Miller Guerra
    Brisk-mannered and frankly-speaking Joana spends her days hanging around with her girlfriends and coping with her parents. On top of this, a baby girl and a loathed financial dependence. Combining live recording and some staging, based on a strong complicity, Filipa Reis and Joao Miller Guerra made a film that goes well beyond the mere portrait. A film about a person but also an X-ray of an age and a country at a difficult time.

    2012 Thursday, November 15th, Odeon, 8:30 pm - Saturday, November 17th 10:00 am

  • CHIRI
    Trace

    Japan 2012 45'
    Directed by: Naomi Kawase
    Chiri, traces: by following the traces of her ancestors as well as those of her previous works, Naomi Kawase describes the end of her aunt, who has taken care of her since she was ten years old. Regaining her roots, which the film-maker has been following over the years while searching for her natural parents, also meant reflecting on her own artwork. Searching for her own traces, and maybe getting to a final destination, Kawase created a powerful, concrete, yet deeply human and moving film.

    2012 Sunday, November 11th, Odeon, 3:00 pm - Tuesday, November 13th, Odeon, 3:00 pm

  • COMME SI NOUS ATTRAPIONS UN COBRA
    As if We Were Catching a Cobra

    Syria, France 2012 120'
    Directed by: Hala Alabdalla
    The Syrian journalist Samar Yazbek describes us the situation in Damascus in the months preceding the outbreak of the Syrian revolution – a situation which was distorted by the regime-controlled media. Her account is combined with the ones of some of the most important Syrian and Egyptian cartoonists, who continue with their work even when their contents may lead to their persecution, arrest or death. The evocative power of a cartoon published on a widely circulated newspaper is considered dangerous by those in power – hence the strict censorship.

    2012 Wednesday, November 14th, Odeon, 9:00 pm - Thursday, November 15th, Odeon, 10:00 am

  • FIDAÏ

    France, China, Algeria, Germany, Kuwait 2012 80'
    Directed by: Damien Ounouri
    “During the Algerian Revolution, my great-uncle El Hadi joined his sister in France and became an active member of a secret FLN armed group. Settling of scores, attempted murder, hiding, imprisonment and finally deportation back to Algeria in 1962, his personal journey tells the story of countless ex-fighters for Algerian independence, and echoes the current effervescence of the Arab World. Today, at the age of seventy, El Hadi reveals this dark part of his life for the first time.” (D. Ounouri)

    2012 Saturday, November 10th, Odeon, 7:00 pm - Monday, November 12th, Odeon, 10:00 am

  • HIVER NOMADE
    Winter Nomads

    Switzerland 2012 90'
    Directed by: Manuel von Stürler
    Pascal and Carole are two shepherds devoted to transhumance: the former is older and more expert, the latter is a young and enthusiastic apprentice learning this ancient job characterized by an ancestral wisdom. They lead their flock for 600 kilometers through the pastures of French Switzerland. The film follows this long journey, thus giving spectators the opportunity to get into a microcosm where time passes by at a different pace and which is regulated by the ancient laws of sheep farming, which have nothing to do with the merciless techniques of intensive farming.

    2012 Monday, November 12th, Odeon, 6:30 pm - Tuesday, November 13th, Odeon, 10:00 am

  • LA NUIT REMUE
    Night’s Drifters

    France 2012 45'
    Directed by: Bijan Anquetil
    Sobhan and Hamid have been travelling across Europe and finally met one night in Paris. Sitting next to a fire memories and thoughts take shape. The faces of the two young Afghans are scarcely visible, but their voices are as clear as their vitality. Borrowing the title from a collection by Henri Michaux, Bijan Anquetil describes what can happen in the outskirts of our town when the sun sets. It is a world lying between wake and dream, Dasein and forgetfulness.

    2012 Tuesday, November 13th, Odeon, 6:00 pm - Wednesday, November 14th, Odeon, 3:00 pm

  • LE LIBRAIRE DE BELFAST
    The Bookseller of Belfast

    France, Great Britain 2011 54'
    Directed by: Alessandra Celesia
    This film has the touch of poetry: it does not portray Belfast by tracing its map, but it dwells upon the bodies, as history is shown in the accumulation of scars and in excessive thinness. It does not dwell upon the reconstruction of the collective tragedies of the past, but it gives space to the bonds and small aspirations that allow people to resist and to move forward with their lives: the librarian without a library, the punk who loves classical music, the brother who expresses himself through rap, the pub waitress who wants to become a pop-star.

    2012 Thursday, November 15th, Odeon, 4:30 pm - Friday, November 16th, Odeon, 3:00 pm

  • MY PRIVATE ZOO

    Italy 2012 63'
    Directed by: Gianni Sirch, Ferruccio Goia
    A black-and-white rhapsody, accompanied by a fascinating jazz score, describes the days of Anele, a young, shy and solitary artist living in Langa, the oldest South African township. The long car rides, the meeting places of the community and the crowded nightclubs give us a vivid picture of these areas, but they also hint at the existence of deep, hard-to-explain tensions. Post-apartheid and Mandela’s “living legend” have become mere shells, incapable of leading society towards social justice.

    2012 Thursday, November 15th, Odeon, 6:30 pm - Friday, November 16th, Odeon, 12:00 am

  • REVISION

    Germany 2012 106'
    Directed by: Philip Scheffner
    In 1992, two Rumanian citizens were killed on the border between Poland and Germany by two German hunters. Allegedly, they were mistaken for wild animals. Ten years later, Philip Scheffner went back on the witnesses and the sites where this story has taken place: this way, a film reconstruction that is also a genre narrative becomes a profound reflection on the value of testimony and an exploration of the aesthetic but also political potential of the cinema.

    2012 Tuesday, November 13th, Odeon, 4:00 pm - Friday, November 16th, Odeon, 10:00 am

  • SMS – SAVE MY SOUL

    Italy 2012 60'
    Directed by: Piergiorgio Curzi
    Nicolino Pompa is a peculiar poet. He is an assiduous reader of classifieds and has built over the years a tight network of virtual liaisons with women of all ages, attracted and charmed by his texts full of passion and cunning. Nicolino Pompa is also the father of four adult sons, with whom he entertains difficult relationships made of contradictions, violence, betrayals and of mostly implicit, yet well visible rash feelings. SMS is not only the portrait of Nicola, but also an actual narrative-essay on relationships in the time of digital, virtual, broken-up communication.

    2012 Friday, November 16th, Odeon, 10:30 pm - Saturday, November 17th, Odeon, 12:30 am

  • SOFIA’S LAST AMBULANCE

    Bulgaria, Germany, Croatia 2012 75'
    Directed by: Ilian Metev
    Aboard one of the few surviving ambulances still providing health care to the citizens of Sofia, Bulgaria, two medics and a paramedic run unceasingly from one to the other side of the city in the desperate attempt to respond to the emergencies they are assigned. Ilian Metev describes the hum-drum routine of these three humble metropolitan heroes.

    2012 Sunday, November 11th, Odeon, 4:30 pm - Monday, November 12th, Odeon, 3:00 pm

  • THE END OF TIME

    Switzerland, Canada 2012 109'
    Directed by: Peter Mettler
    What is time? Once again the Canadian director Peter Mettler investigates the invisible. This elusive film takes us around the world: from the CERN in Geneva, where there is the particle accelerator, to Hawaii, where lava flows almost destroyed the Big Island (sparing temporarily only one home), from the now abandoned center of Detroit to a Hindu funeral rite, the film takes us from one part of the world to the other. During this journey, the word time is considered in all its possible meanings.

    2012 Tuesday, November 13th, Odeon, 8:30 pm - Wednesday, November 14th, Odeon, 10:00 am

  • UN ÉTÉ AVEC ANTON
    Summer with Anton

    Belgium 2012 61'
    Directed by: Jasna Krajinovic
    Anton is 12 years old and, like most of his peers, he is getting ready to go to Kaskad, a military camp for young recruits. He leaves behind his grandmother, the outskirts of Moscow, his summer friends and his childhood dreams. They will be replaced by fellow soldiers, a hard life and a paramilitary group that will train him to defend his homeland from its enemies. The film portrays an intimate experience, the fate of a generation, the ambitions and the fears of an entire country.

    2012 Friday, November 16th, Odeon, 8:30 pm - Saturday, November 17th, Odeon, 11:15 am

  • 人民公园
    People’s Park

    USA, China 2012 78'
    Directed by: Libbie Cohn, J.P. Sniadecki
    “A walk through the park like no other, this brilliantly joyous conceptual documentary takes the vivid reality of an urban park: People’s Park in Chengdu, Sichuan, and, with a pure kind of cinema magic, makes it more real than real. […] The camera glides relentlessly forward and catches hundreds of Chinese urbanites out for fun, relaxation, socializing and freedom: eating, strolling, singing, dancing (to various, surprising beats) and watching each other. And being watched (by us).” (S. Kraicer)

    2012 Wednesday, November 14th, Odeon, 6:00 pm - Thursday, November 15th, Odeon, 3:00 pm

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