SAFF 2022
Synopsis: Voltaire and Rousseau - Then and Now
In 2012 a group of us made a short documentary about Voltaire and Rousseau, a second hand book shop in Glasgow. We were introduced to Eddie and Ian McGonigle and heard about them, the shop, the proposed development on their lane and their hopes and thoughts for the future. Ten years later we visit them again to see how things have changed and how things have stayed the same.
Synopsis: 1815
During the Highland Clearances, a stubborn old tenant farmer and a young Waterloo veteran strike a reluctant and uneasy bond in a relentless search through highlands; glimpsing the human cost of the clearances as they go.
Synopsis: Potemkinistii
In 1905, the sailors on the battleship Potemkin are given political asylum in Romania - an act of defiance against Russia. In 2021, a sculptor (Alexandru Dabija) wants to create an artwork inspired by the event. A comedy about art, history, memory and cinema, which film critic Andrei Gorzo describes as "a cross between a Caragiale sketch and a Mark Rappaport video essay".
Synopsis: Way Back
Dunja and Jasna are traveling with their mother Jovana to visit their father who lives alone in the cottage. DUNJA and JASNA are convinced that he had abandoned their mother because of the affair with another woman. By exchanging impressions of his action, they remember the past and reveal the expectations of a meeting. DUNJA treats this affair as a product of the father's crisis and hopes the visit could reunite family, while JASNA has accepted the parent's divorce as a final. Under the pressure, the mother reveals there was no adultery. She simply never loved their father.
Synopsis: Two Stars Short
A bridesmaid clashes with her cab driver over a tense journey to her friend's wedding.
Synopsis: Be On My Side
On a planet where burnout is fatal, a desperate stranger meets a bookshop assistant just trying to survive.
Synopsis: When You Are Close To Me
A journey to the extreme boundaries of human communication at the discovery of a community of deafblind and sensory impaired people: a multilingual microcosm where verbal language is one of the codes and the least used, the rest passing through touch, presence and getting to know the other.
Synopsis: Haulout
On a remote coast of the Russian Arctic in a wind-battered hut, a lonely man waits to witness an ancient gathering. But warming seas and rising temperatures bring an unexpected change, and he soon finds himself overwhelmed.
Synopsis: Tonight’s Homework
The initial idea for Tonight’s Homework (Masgh-e Emshab) was based on Abbas Kiarostami’s film Homework (Mashgh-e Shab). The intention was to find out whether after three decades, students and parents are still faced with the challenge of homework, meaning assignments intended to be done at home. In their preliminary research the directors came to realize that this was no longer a significant issue for students, parents, and teachers. In other words, the issue of homework as a problem of the educational system has been replaced by greater and more significant challenges, such as the appearance of social class differences and its effect on students’ learning interests, the disregard of parents in relation to their children’s education, a lack of planning by the education and development system to promote enthusiasm in students, and many other issues. In this film we meet children who due to their living context have life experiences that are significantly different from their peers; children who try to develop their talents and capabilities despite great difficulties. Alongside the film’s main topic, the directors also present a parallel comparison to Abbas Kiarostami’s film, in order to present their research within a deeper context.
Synopsis: Mukagali
The fate of the POET, living in a totalitarian state with its society deprived of liberty, is quite tragic. Living in the conditions of total subjection when not only behavior but also thoughts are identical, the horror of totalitarianism is that even the souls of people with a rather prosperous destiny are broken by the regime.
The main character is a talented poet; he cannot be like everyone else. For a poet, unfreedom is fatal. He has to choose between art and a comfortable life. A poet cannot adjust, he cannot write dictation, and cannot give up art. Along with this, personal tragedies come to him: the death of his daughter and the arrest of his son. In an agony of grief, he is haunted by the guilt. As a result, his life was short, but the legacy of his poetry is great!
Synopsis: Nuisance Bear
Churchill, Manitoba, is famous as an international destination for photographing polar bears. We’ve seen the majestic images and classic wildlife series captured here - but what do these bears see of us? Through a shift in perspective 'Nuisance Bear' reveals an obstacle course of tourist paparazzi and wildlife officers whom bears must navigate during their annual migration.
Synopsis: Hello, Muscles
Summertime in Scotland.
11-year-old Victoria lives with her mum and Samson the dog, along with Trevor, her mum’s boyfriend. Victoria hates Trevor. He’s a brute who calls her ‘Twiglet’ and locks Samson in a cage. But when she catches him stealing from her mum’s purse, Victoria realises enough is enough, she needs to get tough and get rid of Trevor once and for all.
But on her quest to build muscles, Victoria uncovers a different kind of strength, and reveals what it really means to be strong.
Synopsis: Absence
Rouzbeh arrives in Prague, away from his troubled family life in Tehran, and drowns himself instead, in a research about his father’s past as a communist expatriate in the former Czechoslovakia. Upon visiting the flat where his father used to live 50 years ago, he’s stopped by the police investigating a recent accident. The resident of the flat (Vladimir) has fallen from the window and his father’s name is identical to Rouzbeh’s. This can be no accident and he must accept that Vladimir is his own half brother. As he gets closer to the soul of Vladimir and discovers the hidden corners of his life, he learns a shocking fact about his father’s past, in total contrast to the hero he always admired. This directs him to a course of events identical to the one which brought Vladimir to his fall from the window.
Synopsis: Oh Dear Sarah
After a long career as an afghan women right activist, Sara gets the public recognition she always aspired when becoming the first female taxi driver of Afghanistan. The testimony of a reality which no longer exists, a circular tale from fear to love which has returned to the starting point.
Synopsis: Floor 14 “Avarice”
A story of a caregiver trying to buy another day for his wife.
Synopsis: Cercas (Fences)
After losing her mother, Mary must face her fears and break the fences for the world.
Synopsis: Blink In The Desert
One day a young hermit finds a winged insect and crushes it out of disgust. Meanwhile, the elephant sees the whole situation but says nothing. From that day on, the boy is chased by shadows of the winged insects.
Synopsis: Living In A Story
Young courier finds himself in an unusual situation, while trying to deliver a package to the writer of cheap pulp novels.
Synopsis: Platform
Luis is a Deliveroo driver in Berlin who meets a very strange customer. Ramesh delivers for Uber Eats in Hong Kong and is lured into a trap. Hiro is working for Amazon Flex while pursuing his acting career when he receives a surprising offer from Amazon Studios. They are all connected through the chat function of an online pizza delivery simulator. They're up to something. Only what?
Synopsis: Intercom 15
Several residents discover an unconscious woman lying in front of the block. Even though she lives on the third floor, nobody knows her name. While waiting for rescue, the neighbours reflect on her life and their own.
Synopsis: Shell In Love
A timid snail, scarred by a childhood trauma, spends his time hiding away in his shell where he has created an imaginary version of the outside world. After a chance encounter with love he will have to face his fears and discover the wonders of reality.
Synopsis: Brutal
Brutal is a surrealist, psychological thriller that focuses on a young mother named Maya. Set in a bleak, menacing, nightmarish tower-block, Brutal addresses the consequences of systematic societal shame brought upon women who are faced with the decision of bringing an unwanted child that has been conceived non-consensually into the world and the subsequent inner turmoil that proceeds it.
Synopsis: Other Times
Fictional documentary where three women compare the current tourist with the all times traveller, establishing a dialogue between today's society and the world of other times. Old photographs from the 20th century and current ones from the 21st become visual testimony to the transformation of Barcelona.
Synopsis: The Fool’s Mate
A couples relationship is at a crossroads - as Fred attempts to break how with Holly, she thinks he’s about to propose. But might an impromptu game of chess finally force them to confront how they really feel about one another…
Synopsis: SCOTT
A portrait of Scott Campbell, a Deaf Photographer based in Glasgow, Scotland.
In this short documentary film, Scott tells us about his journey in photography and what impact it has had on his life, as well as sharing with us some of his most treasured work.
Synopsis: Wielding The Soul
It not easy that a theatre director let a camera record the rehearsals of a play for so long. 'Wielding the soul' is a trip with LLuís Pasqual and his actors while they rehearse ‘El sueño de la vida’ by Alberto Conejero who, in this text, ended the unfinished play by García Lorca ‘Comedia sin título’. From the reading of the play to the opening, we witnessed how Pasqual helped his actors to embody their characters. ‘Wielding the soul’ is a director’s notebook, a notebook not only to talk about theatre but to see how you can make it.
Synopsis: Manuel
In 1943, a Jewish family hides from the nazi roundups. Adam, a 10-year-old boy, following a strange dream, starts a mysterious countdown.
Synopsis: A Better Relationship with the Unknown
An investigation of issues surrounding Scottish independence, nationalism and Brexit. Voices float in and out, agreeing and disagreeing as images shot on the street in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Inverness create the visual world of the film.
Synopsis: Night of The Living Santa
A santa toy has come to life to scare a sleeping man.
Synopsis: Night
The dust of war keeps the eyes sleepless. Night brings peace and sleep to all the people in the broken town. Only the eyes of the mother of the missing child stay resilient. Night has to trick her into sleeping to save her soul.
Synopsis: Night
“Bonding Humanity (Perhaps Manifesto)” is created by deliberately rearranging, reorganising and juxtaposing fragments from New Yugoslav Film* ("Yugoslav Black Wave'') and its cinematic heritage related to the interplay between collective spaces and their uses. Personal, social and political contexts intersect into a dialogic narrative form that advances possibilities for new interpretations. The voiceover manifesto is manoeuvred to evoke personal trajectories and collective memories. By involving the essay film as a tool for creative exploring, one is able to discover and question the borders of an uncertain past, present and future. Having in mind that it’s subject - a patchwork of decontextualised memories - be they artificial or authentic, personal or historical, is something to be nursed.
Synopsis: Living In The Air
Gray, a guide from Dalian, China, often acts like a host introducing Scotland to new Chinese international students, although he still lives a wandering life here, sometimes alone in a temporary rented flat, but more often on the road. Home is not just a place for him, but a symbol of belonging.
Synopsis: Neolith
Synopsis: Once Upon a Time in Quizca
From a small town between mountains, the voice of an old peasant emerges to make present a lost memory: the solo death of one of his closest friends. Some horsemen, also old friends, embark on a restorative odyssey.
Synopsis: Runelight
Runelight is about the permanent impact that loss can have on our lives, and a reflection on how it can feel as though our world is literally changing around us.
Synopsis: Open Mountain
On July 19, 1929, in a town in Colombia, a group of shoemakers fought to improve living and working conditions in the country. They called themselves The Bolsheviks of Líbano Tolima. Their revolution lasted only one day, and its traces were almost completely lost. The women of this village share with Aura, an anarchist grandmother, a feeling that their rebellion is still going on.
Synopsis: River Skin
Agostinho works at the night shift. Unable to explain a strange seizure leaving the factory, he wanders through his routine, aware of the impossibility of change.
Synopsis: Let The Sunshine In
Through a collage of foggy memories, the film depicts a "third culture" experience of being torn between my homeland a new adopted home.
Synopsis: Small
Deep in the forest, a shy, young boy comes across a
mysterious village composed of buildings no larger than
the size of his hands. As a storm fast approaches, the
village is vulnerable and he must find a way to protect it.
Synopsis: Haboob
A man and his daughter are used to living in harmony and peace with nature, but some disruptions change their lovely little life.
Synopsis: 73
When the Yom Kippur War began, Eli was a tank gunner in the Golan Heights. The filmmaker interviews Eli, her father, about the day the war broke out and paints a collage of his memories.
Synopsis: A Companion for Amateur Cinematographers: Vol. I
Set against the backdrop of Italy in the years of the fascist dictatorship, a man of means, yet unknown to history, scrutinises the world through his small cine camera. Guiding him and teaching him is a manual; the buds of ideology are detectable beneath the seemingly impartial tone it uses to describe technique. But in his films, the ineffable signs of resistance still rise to the surface.
Synopsis: Indian Summers
Vincent, a junior contractor for hydro-electric dam extensions, is on a professional trip to northern Quebec in the fall. Instead of doing this new work, he decides to find this lake, "a great surface of water, which reflects our souls"...
Synopsis: Skookum Jim and The American Dream
This film by Scottish artist Ken Smyth explores the impact of The Klondike Gold Rush on both the indigenous people of Yukon in North West Canada and on the fake-news-inspired, get-rich-quick, American prospectors. It raises issues of racism, cultural imperialism and environmental destruction that remain highly relevant today. The film is based on a poetry sequence by Chrys Salt and a soundtrack by British composer Richard Ingham, and is voiced by Canadian actor Peter Marinker and the poet herself. Production was supported by Creative Scotland.
Synopsis: Dividing Line
DIVIDING LINE presents the real-time journey of a young doctor, Lily, who breaks down under the psychological pressure of an accident case. She makes the wrong decision to keep her team safe, which opens the door for an unearthly ride through the night into her worst nightmare as a dedicated helper.
Synopsis: Liquid Bread
Southern Slovakia, hot summer days, a family of three generations meets under one roof. An unexpected visit from Zoja, the granddaughter, stirs up the peaceful routine. Within a quiet presence of God and alcohol, the family untails it’s tragicomical past and a few (almost) unsaid secrets.
Synopsis: Roots
Sitting in the back of a moving car, different passengers go on the road on the edge of a vast forest. They carry tales about hornet's nests, petitions against nuclear waste, loneliness, carnival treats, folklore traditions, cemetery visits and roads leading home. The forest, serene in the sun, mysterious in the fog and wild on the river, frames the seven stories as they pass by. Containing elements of documentary, ethnography and fiction, Roots is a strangely wondrous and often exhilarating film.
Synopsis: The Little Match Girl
An adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s famous short story by the same title, The Little Match Girl. A sad tale of a young girl who tries to sell matches to feed her homeless family, but neglected, dies alone on the cold streets of Cape Town.
Synopsis: Ijen London
A short film made in preparation for a longer one called After London, where a young woman goes on a quest to find the mythical city of London. On her journey she comes to a vast toxic swamp, spewing smoke and chemical waste, sulphurous flames emerging from the dead land.
Synopsis: Naked Island
A young couple, detained on an island, comes into contact with a mysterious disease.
Synopsis: The Last Ski Maker In Scotland
The uncertain future of skiing in Scotland has inspired Jamie Kunka to make sustainable skis out of wood. Based in his cabin in the Scottish Highlands, Jamie is the last ski maker in Scotland
Synopsis: From Khovrino
At night in Moscow a little girl Dana is rushing home through dark alleyways. She’s being chased by a suspicious-looking man.
When he finally catches up with her, it turns out he wants to make a gift for a girl, about which she had dreamed of for many years.
But their meeting prepares surprises. The thriller develops into a social drama and both become victims.
Synopsis: Edinburgh From The Skies
Edinburgh is a city of extraordinary beauty – from whatever angle it is regarded. Here we see it from the air, the camera’s eye moving across the swathe of the classical New Town, revealing streets, spires, saliences man-made and natural. This city is a poem in stone, a place of fragile beauty, a place of shifting northern light. Here it is beneath us, so beautiful that we catch our breath again and again.
Synopsis: Sensibility
The Howard's find themselves on the outskirts of London Society, however the unexpected arrival of a young eligible bachelor, and a Duke at that, offers the promises of a lifetime. The only thing standing in their way are themselves. Lady Howard must do battle with her cohort of un-married children if she is to stand any hope of capitalising on this once a season opportunity of bolstering the families standing within society.
Synopsis: Harrier
Using the practices of birdwatching and nature observation as a gateway, we unravel the story of Joan McNaughton, a woman whose passion for the natural world was born from a dark and tumultuous history with alcohol addiction.
Synopsis: Edge of Grief
Edge of Grief explores the emotions surrounding the grieving process, personified in a journey through a forest. The film uses stop motion, combining textile-based models with natural materials. The ever-changing yet repetitive emotions are explored along the journey where filmic atmosphere and sound shifts mood. The majority of the film features a large handmade set, with other scenes shot on a multi-plane. I made this film in response to the death of a very close friend and I hope my film can provide a sense of comfort to others experiencing similar feelings.
Synopsis: Whale Heart
A young man spends his life searching for something he lost as a child.
Synopsis: The Watchers
Two little brothers have to stay alone in their remote hut, to protect it from an obscure threat, while also dealing with their own fears and fantasy.
Synopsis: Tatt
The story of a mysterious monster-thief who stole the forester's pants.
The Official Short Film Selection
Synopsis: WIll My Parents Come To See Me
Somalia. A policewoman sits in her parked car. After a while, she gets out, puts on her service cap, and enters the prison. There, decisive hours have dawned for young Farah. Organizational machinery starts up around him. Farah is examined by a doctor, instructed by the bailiff, and looked after by an imam. Farah is waiting for his parents to visit.
“How are you?” is the question everyone asks him that day. Each time, “Good” is his concise answer. Only when the policewoman takes Farah out of town the next morning does the unspeakable become a painful reality.