SAFF 2021 Feature Film Program

 

Man Of God

Exiled unjustly, convicted without trial, slandered without cause. Man of God depicts the trials and tribulations of Saint Nektarios of Aegina, as he bears the unjust hatred of his enemies while preaching the Word of God

 

EST

1989. A few weeks before the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Pago, Rice and Bibi, twenty-four (twenty-five) years old, leave the calm city of Cesena looking for adventure: a ten-days-long holiday in Eastern Europe, in those places where the Soviet regime is still alive. As they get to Budapest, they meet Emil, a Romanian fleeing from the dictatorship in his country. Without knowing what waits for them, is a journey beyond their imagination.

 

All On A Summer’s Day

On the way to a final gig before she joins the rat race, Nicky's car breaks down on a quiet country lane off a motorway locally known as the Highway of Tears. When a Samaritan stops to offer help, she is unsure whether to trust him in this homage to British 70s psychological-thrillers

 

The Flowers The Fish And The Cockerel

The journey begins, Edinburgh in the background, an intimate film on the creative daily life of Mark Cousins. Director, writer, film polymath, teacher but, more than anything, Mark. Mark shows himself unfiltered, he lives his life in front of our camera, but he can’t help it, he must turn his camera on us. The subject becomes the filmmaker. The filmmaker becomes the subject. Questions, answers, doubts, truths and lies.

 

Parcel

Parcel is story of a doctor couple and Nandini the female protagonist suddenly starts receiving some unanimous mysterious parcels with some of her older and recent photographs. This process creates a turbulence in their family and they reach verge of terminating their marriage. Nandini tries to find out the root cause anticipating some black mailing purpose with association of her past wrong doings( As per her ). Its a multi-layered social story under a health system backdrop where nothing comes as explicit but a fear psychosis based on anticipation jeopardize everything.

 

Who Will Remain

Attempting to better understand her grandfather Avrom Sutzkever, Israeli actress Hadas Kalderon travels to Lithuania, using her grandfather’s diary to trace his early life in Vilna and his survival of the Holocaust. Sutzkever (1913–2010) was an acclaimed Yiddish poet—described by the New York Times as the “greatest poet of the Holocaust”—whose verse drew on his youth in Siberia and Vilna, his spiritual and material resistance during World War II, and his post-war life in the State of Israel. Kalderon, whose native language is Hebrew and must rely on translation of her grandfather’s work, is nevertheless determined to connect with what remains of the poet’s bygone world and confront the personal responsibility of preserving her grandfather’s literary legacy. Woven into the documentary are family home videos, newly recorded interviews, and archival recordings, including Sutzkever’s testimony at the Nuremberg Trial. Recitation of his poetry and personal reflections on resisting Nazi forces as a partisan fighter reveal how Sutzkever tried to make sense of the Holocaust and its aftermath. As Kalderon strives to reconstruct the stories told by her grandfather, the film examines the limits of language, geography, and time.

 

Speak So I Can See You

Conjuring reality and wonder, “Speak so I Can See You” takes us to a seemingly different era, by exploring the world of Radio Belgrade. One of Europe’s oldest radio stations and a true institution of the city, the station still broadcasts original programming and helps keep history, culture and critical thought, as well as ever- relevant questions about ourselves and the world, from slipping out of memory and mind. Set at the intersection of an observational documentary and a unique sensory experience, the film conjures everyday scenes at the station and immersing interludes exploring the relationship between sound and the space it inhabits. Through a synesthetic blend of sounds, words, notes, echoes and light, we are taken into a unique cinematic soundscape that doubles as a love letter to radiophonic art and its disarming insight into what makes us remember, understand, think, discover, and feel.

 

Seeking Glass

In the depths of the Scottish winter, a bludgeoned body outside an old church unravels a dark mystery surrounding Saint Columba's glass book.

 

Riptide

A Scottish schizophrenia love story road movie.

Discharged from a psychiatric hospital, Jacob attempts to resume his life in Edinburgh, control his schizophrenia and be a worthy member of society. He works collecting litter from the streets. He boxes. He takes his medication. He writes everything down. His Dad barely wants to know him. Frustrated by this existence and encouraged by his psychiatrist to seek fulfilling opportunities, Jacob sets off to the Highlands in search of adventure. By the sea he finds the charismatic Eva, who claims to be the secret daughter of Ingmar Bergman. And she’s on a mission. Jacob and Eva join forces and embark upon adventures.

 

Metamorphosis In The Slaughterhouse

Shadi is a little girl that her parents have been accused of murdering a girl in the village, and villagers killed her parents to seek revenge. Her uncle adops her and now Shadi must face the problems that people of the village caused them.

 

Tamaran Hill

On her mother's grave, a college student Hinako strangely sees a flower of cosmos. Her father calls her to say that he can’t come back due to a typhoon, and repeats “Tamaran” in frustration. On the way home, Hinako buys a book “Tamaran Hill” and gets absorbed in it. While she reads in silence on the railway platform, spoken texts and the story spread in her head. The next morning, she finds that that flower was offered by her late mother’s sister Mizuki. She visits a cosmos honey farm where Mizuki works.