2015 Short Films
SUNDANCE CHANNEL SHORTS
The 2015 Sundance Channel Shorts competition ran in 4 European countries – Spain, France, Belgium, and Poland. In collaboration with the Sundance Institute, a Grand Jury Prize winner was selected from each country and the winning films premiered at the 2015 Sundance London Film Festival. Fans also took part by voting for their favorite film to receive the Vimeo Audience Award.
The Sundance Channel Shorts competition perfectly represents the unique spirit of Sundance Channel. As the destination for independent films internationally, Sundance Channel is ideally placed to showcase and support emerging talent in the European filmmaking community.
For the third consecutive year, Sundance Channel is partnering with the International Film Festival of Patmos, whose mission to celebrate creativity in independent film from around the globe aligns with the Sundance Channel vision. For the 2016 Shorts Competition, Sundance Channel will partner with IFFP to include film submissions from Greece in competition for the Grand Jury Prize
Bad Girl
Short Film • 9.28′ • France
Director: Arnaud Khayadtanian
On the eve of her 18th birthday, it is time for Mathilde to confront the monster that haunts her nights.
OMA
Short Film • 7.29′ • Belgium
Director: Karolien Raeymaekers
A young girl has to conquer her fear for her grandmother who is terminally ill.
Misterios Minimos
Short Film • 10′ • Spain
Director: Carlos Essman
This film is about those mysterious little events that sometimes occur, and pass quickly forgotten.
Alvethor
Short Film • 6.44’ • Poland
Director: Pawel Kryza
Anka despises her job and passes her days with smoke breaks in the bathroom.
IFFP SELECTION A'
Gaspar
Short Film • 15.19’ • Greece • 2014
Director: Kelly Soulioti
Gaspar is a traveller; a posh, aimless drifter sampling every tribal brew, magic berry, self help course and new-wave remedy the atlas has to offer. It’s a charmed life to be sure but something truly seems amiss. Gaspar is now in Greece on invitation to a Pagan rebirth ceremony but with daemons locked in every mind and ritual so steeped in life, this trial could be a push too far.
A Man Called Man
Short Film • 3.33’ • Canada • 2015
Director: Guy Charnaux
Family, love, violence, death. The ludicrousness of a western upbringing in a nutshell.
The Blue Sweater
Short Film • 5.55’ • USA • 2015
Director: Dhaneesh Jameson Kooliyath
The Blue Sweater is the story of a promise made by a girl to her little brother Unni. She will knit him a sweater in his favourite colour, blue, by the next full moon. On the following day Unni accidentally enters the forbidden forest and discovers something intriguing…
IFFP SELECTION B'
Not Anymore: A Story Of Revolution
Short Film • 14.19’ • USA / Syria / Turkey • 2013
Director: Matthew VanDyke
A short film about the conflict in Syria as experienced by a 32 year old rebel commander, Mowya, and a 24 year old female journalist, Nour, in Aleppo, Syria. Winner of over 80 awards and screened in more than 200 film festivals around the world.
Küpeli
Short Film • 12.33’ • Turkey • 2013
Director: Çetin Baskın & Metin Akdemir
Hidden away in the Suriçi quarter of Diyarbakır, the Küpeli swimming pool has been a place to cool off in the heat of summer for many years. The pool is known as a draw for swimmers in waist-cloths and idiosyncratic divers and the source of many a legend. Its future, however, is uncertain given plans to demolish the site as part of an urban regeneration project.
Ride or Die
Short Film • 11.06’ • France / USA • 2015
Director: Alec Tibaldi & Magaajyiah Silberfeld
What do you do when your friends don’t think you have what it takes to ride with them?
Ilena
Short Film • 15.13’ • Greece • 2014
Director: Spyros Skandalos
An elderly musician is trying to claim his dignity. A young immigrant from Albania that takes care of him will be with him in these hard moments. Will they make it to the end, whatever the cost?
Silver Spoon
Short Film • 16’ • Romania • 2015
Director: Mick Davis
When a young woman is in the depths of despair, burdened by a painful secret she has carried for years, along comes an eccentric old stranger to change her heart forever.
POP UP SHORTS
Wimple
Short Film • 18.40’ • Iran • 2015
Director: Hamed Nejabat
An English tutor asks her student (a young man) to stay longer because she feels uncomfortable in the presence of her landowners son.
Mototakana Derive
Short Film • 4.17’ • Japan • 2014
Director: Michael Lyons
This Super 8 film documents an aimless walk through one of Kyoto’s former outcast neighbourhoods, which continues to exist below normal Japanese living standards. The soundtrack was created using a self-built apparatus we call ‘The Octopus’. Voltages from light sensors on the projection screen control an analogue modular synthesiser allowing the film itself to act as a score.
Backward Run (Tornistan)
Short Film • 3.59’ • Turkey • 2014
Director: Ayce Kartal
June 2013. Demonstrators occupy Istanbul’s Taksim Gezi Park . While the tension and police brutality rise in the streets, Turkish TV broadcasts documentaries about penguins. Tornistan is a self-censored film criticizing this press censorship.
Ūtland
Short Film • 5.10’ • Canada • 2015
Director: Vjosana Shkurti
Ūtland explores the contrast between two types of landscapes: It is the story of a young woman who discovers a thread that brings her step-by-step closer to her past and provides a hopeful glimpse into her future.
Kuti Khanti
Short Film • 4.04’ • Spain • 2014
Director: Simone Saibene
Kuti Khanti is a visual reflection, in the crater of the Greek island of Nysiros, from a quote from Anton Chekhov “Maybe our universe is in the tooth of some giant”.
Once Upon a Time in the USSR
Short Film • 5.15’ • Russian Federation • 2015
Director: Mikhail Zheleznikov
A brave physicist saves the Soviet people from uninvited ‘guests’.