Plunge [short film]
Synopsis
Katie Wotton has struggled with mental health and body dysmorphia throughout her life, and the sea has always been an escape. There, she fights the currents and challenges the shadows of her mind to find inner peace and a sense of belonging.
This film screens as part of the Documentary Shorts: Near and Far program.
Film Credits
- Rebecca Mark-Lawson, Daria Nitsche
- Ellie Land
- Alice Powell, David Arthur
- James McAleer
- Kathleen Wotton
- Marina Elderton
- Lizzie Francke
- Tyke Films Ltd
- https://tykefilms.com/plunge
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Estranged Letters [short film]
Synopsis
Visual artist Maryam Taghavi, born in Tehran and based in Chicago, prepares for her first solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art. This observational film provides an intimate inside look into Taghavi’s approach to her work, which beautifully uses Persian letters and calligraphy to explore geographic distance and transcend language barriers.
This film screens as part of the Documentary Shorts: Near and Far program.
Film Credits
- Assia Boundaoui, Naeema Jamilah Torres
- Assia Boundaoui
- Ally Southwood-Smith
- Cai Thomas
- Maryam Taghavi, Bana Kattan
- Saba Alizadeh
- Michael Kantor, Stanley Nelson, Marcia Smith, Monika Navarro, Joe Skinner
- Watched Film LLC
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Time Passages
Synopsis
In this revelatory and inventive personal documentary, Chicago filmmaker Kyle Henry (ChicagoIFF selection Rogers Park) explores his close relationship with his elderly mother Elaine at a critical moment. It is the early days of the pandemic. Mother and son are separated, and she has late-stage dementia. Mining his own extensive family archive in combination with playful uses of photographic projection and models, Henry delves into the specific complexities of their relationship while also relaying a larger tale of American motherhood and self-sacrifice.
From the Kodachrome pictures and grainy Super 8 home movies of his past to touching Zoom sing-a-longs with his mom in the present, Henry creates a vivid and intimate family portrait while reckoning with his feelings of guilt and helplessness. Also full of warmth and joy, Time Passages is an alternatingly moving and amusing testament to the bonds between mothers and children, and the ways we navigate life’s most challenging moments.
Screenings & Events
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Media
Film Credits
- Jason Wehling
- Karen Skloss & Abbigail Vandersnick
- Abbigail Vandersnick
- Kyle Henry, Elaine Henry, Lauren Salzman
- Curtis Heath
- AOK Productions
- https://www.timepassagesfilm.com/
Sponsors
Documentary Program Partner
Documentary Program Patron
Cynthia Stone Raskin
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No Other Land
Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor & Hamdan BallalPalestine, Norway
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To a Land Unknown
Synopsis
Displaced Palestinian cousins Chatila and Reda are stuck in Athens. They live in a crowded group home with other migrants, and steal and save what they can to pay for fake passports that will take them to Germany. When Reda relapses into his addictions and spends all their savings, Chatila devises what seems like a foolproof smuggling operation to earn the money back fast. Then things go terribly awry, and the cousins must concoct an even more sinister scheme in order to save themselves and their families back home.
With an intimate and naturalistic lens on the cousins’ bond and shared dream of a better life, To a Land Unknown is a tightly drawn thriller that presents an audacious, moving testament to the dire circumstances faced by migrants in purgatory.
Screenings & Events
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Media
Film Credits
- Geoff Arbourne, Mahdi Fleifel
- Mahdi Fleifel, Fyzal Boulifa, Jason McColgan
- Halim Sabbagh
- Thodoris Mihopoulos (GSC)
- Mahmood Bakri (Chatila), Aram Sabbagh (Reda), Angeliki Papoulia (Tatiana), Mohammad Alsurafa (Malik), Mouataz Alshalton (Abu Love), Mohammad Ghassan (Yasser), Monzer Reyahnah (Marwan)
- Nadah El Shazly
- Elisa Van Waeyenberge, François De Villers, Frank Barat, Sawsan Asfari
- Inside Out Films, Nakba Filmworks, Salaud Morisset, Salaud Morisset Deutschland, Homemade Films, Studio Ruba
Sponsors
With Support From
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Toxic Akiplėša
Synopsis
Thirteen-year-old Marija has trouble fitting into the gray industrial town where she lives with her grandmother. She begins to form a tentative and volatile bond with rebellious peer Kristina, and the two enroll in a local modeling school that promises its pupils the chance of a glamorous life far away from their bleak and isolated existence. Both girls are told they show potential, but the financial and physical demands of the school encourage them to come up with increasingly extreme and dangerous ways to conform their young bodies to impossible standards of beauty.
Toxic is an aptly titled coming-of-age tale set amidst contaminated physical and social landscapes. At its center is two young women’s exploration of, in the words of director Saulė Bliuvaitė, “the body as a project, currency, an object of desire, the body as a source of pain and magic.”
Screenings & Events
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Media
Film Credits
- Giedrė Burokaitė
- Saulė Bliuvaitė
- Ignė Narbutaitė
- Vytautas Katkus
- Vesta Matulionytė, Ieva Rupeikaitė, Giedrius Savickas, Vilma Raubaitė, Eglė Gabrėnaitė
- Gediminas Jakubka
- Juste Michailinaite
- Akis Bado
- https://btafilms.com/toxic/
Sponsors
New Directors Program Patron
Robert and Penelope Steiner Family Foundation
212 W Van Buren St., Suite 400
