Third Edition
LA OLA 2017 (Los Angeles + New York)
Feature Film Screenings
MIMOSAS
Directed by Oliver Laxe
2016, 96 min, 16mm-to-digital. In Arabic with English subtitles.
Oliver Laxe’s stunning new film is a breathtakingly shot ‘Eastern western’ that follows a mysterious caravan carrying a dying sheikh into the Moroccan Atlas Mountains. Somewhere in the desert, a caravan is escorting an elderly sheik to the village where he was born. His last wish is to be buried with his loved ones. But death does not wait. Without their leader, the company grows fearful. And at the foot of a mountain pass, they refuse to continue, entrusting the body to two men who agree to carry on and bring it to its final destination. But who are these men? And do they really know the way? Meanwhile, in another world, a mysterious young man is chosen to find the caravan. The film won the Nespresso Grand Prize at Cannes Critics’ Week 2016, among other international awards.
DIRECTOR IN PERSON (LOS ANGELES)
THAT FEELING
ESA SENSACIÓN
Directed by Juan Cavestany, Pablo Hernando, and Julián Génisson
2015, 79 min, digital. In Spanish with English subtitles.
In this highly original and comical film, three Spanish directors tell three stories: about a woman who becomes passionately excited by inanimate objects throughout the city (a parking meter, a metal bridge, etc); a man who follows his father in order to unravel his secret; and a couple of friends who suddenly, as if felled by a virus, display improper behavior against their will. These three interwoven storylines seem at first sight to have little to do with each other, but in each the characters are visited by an unexpected and strangely addictive sensation, which knocks them out of their daily routine and forces them to come to terms with issues such as love, faith, and human will.
DIRECTOR IN PERSON (LOS ANGELES)
OLEG AND STRANGE ARTS
OLEG Y LAS RARAS ARTES
Directed by Andrés Duque
2016, 70 min, digital. In Russian with English subtitles.
Several biographical facts: Oleg Nikolayevich Karavaychuk (1927-2016) played the piano for Stalin as a child prodigy, attended the Leningrad Conservatory, and in the course of his career primarily wrote music for theatre and film – for instance, for Paradjanov and Muratova. In Russia, he is admired for his music and his playing, but also for his unique and eccentric personality. At the age of 89, Karavaychuk is still a controversial and puzzling figure in Russian culture. Who is this man, who looks as if he stepped out of a story by Gogol? The beautiful film that Andrés Duque has made about him is a gift to the viewer, a gift from an old artist who wants to be reconciled with the world and who transports us away from reality with words, gestures, and piano playing, free of social conventions, to a world where clashing dissonants have a liberating beauty.
ÀGATA’S FRIENDS
LES AMIGUES DE L’ÀGATA
Directed by Alba Cros, Marta Verheyen, Laura Rius, and Laia Alabart
2015, 70 min, digital. In Catalan and Spanish with English subtitles.
LES AMIGUES DE L’ÀGATA is a thoughtful and delicate portrait of four young friends through the eyes of Àgata. Now in her first year at university, Àgata finds her relationship with her school friends transformed, both in their daily lives in Barcelona as well as during a trip to the Costa Brava. For this exceptional final thesis film, all four directors shared in the various film production roles, with the assistance of mentors including Isaki Lacuesta and Elías León Siminiani.
DIRECTOR IN PERSON (LOS ANGELES)
NO COW ON THE ICE
INGEN KO PÅ ISEN
Directed by Eloy Domínguez Serén
2015, 63 min, digital. In Swedish and Galician with English subtitles.
“Language and landscape as a gateway to a new life.” A young Galician emigrates to Sweden, where he performs several part-time jobs while trying to embark on a film career. The challenge of learning a new language and the fascination of an unusual landscape soon become two fundamental stimuli in the face of the difficulties of adapting to a new country. Inspired in part by Jonas Mekas (both by his memoir, “I Had Nowhere to Go,” and his pioneering diary films), Domínguez Serén utilizes his constant documentation of his new habitat, his various trades, and his new relationships, to reflect on his new status as an immigrant.
Short Film Program
DECORADO | SCENERY Alberto Vázquez | 2016 | Spain, France
The world is a wonderful stage, but the casting is deplorable. Winner of a Goya Award for Best Animated Short Film, nominated at AFI Fest 2016.
FAJR Lois Patiño | 2016 | Spain
In the Moroccan desert, the night dilutes forms and silence slides through sand. Dawn starts then to draw silhouettes of dunes while motionless figures punctuate the landscape. From the abstraction of the night, light returns its dimension to space and their volume to bodies. Stillness concentrates the gaze and duration densifies it. The adhan (muslim call to pray) sounds and immobility, that was condensing, begins to irradiate. And now the bodies are those which dissolve into the desert.
NEW MADRID Natalia Marin | 2016 | Spain
New Madrid is an experimental essay on cities built as a simulacrum and the failed utopia as a result of the experiment on the eight towns called the United States of Madrid.
NUESTRA AMIGA LA LUNA | OUR FRIEND THE MOON Velasco Broca | 2016 | Spain
Hadji is a disabled young Hindu man who lives humbly on the banks of the Ganges River. After losing what little he had, he is accepted as a disciple by a strange spiritual leader of Russian origin. This alliance will lead them to some bizarre events that will have consequences through a synchronous principle in other parts of the West. This short film is inspired by the third century Gnostic text The Hymn of the Pearl.
LA DISCO RESPLANDECE | THE DISCO SHINES Chema García Ibarra | 2016 | Turkey - Spain
The shadow of the mountain grows as the evening falls. Five lads get ready for the evening: they have booze, music and a car. It doesn’t matter if the disco shut down years ago.