Short Films
Get Your Passes And Have A Full Festival Experience!
SCHEDULE
18/07/2024
Thursday
Programme
Venue
19/07/2024
Friday
Programme
Venue
20/07/2024
Saturday
Programme
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21/07/2024
Sunday
Programme
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22/07/2024
Monday
Programme
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23/07/2024
Tuesday
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24/07/2024
Wednesday
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25/07/2024
Thursday
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26/07/2024
Friday
Programme
Venue
KIDS SHORTS PROGRAMME
Friday, 19 July • 12.00 • Patmion Theater • 98'
TALES WITHOUT LION
Premiere • Animation • 16’ • Switzerland • 2023
Director: Vital Z’Brun
Language: French
Subtitles: English, Greek
“Histoires sans lion” tells stories in fragments, leaving open the possibility of generating a meaning or a continuation. Also conceived as a series telling stories without the lion, the king of the jungle, without the monarchy, without its power… Leaving room for other animals to rewrite history.
CREATURES OF THE KALEIDOSCOPE
Premiere • Natural History • 18’ • UK, France, Australia • 2023
Director: Hannah Alexander
Language: English
Subtitles: English, Greek
Explore one of nature’s most magical creatures, the cuttlefish. Unravel their secrets and embark on a mesmerizing journey of nature’s living kaleidoscopes. Follow these elusive creatures as this documentary delves deep into the extraordinary lives of these remarkable cephalopods, see their unique abilities as they morph into stunning array of colours and shapes in a blink of an eye. Witness their incredible transformation from vulnerable prey to cunning predators, navigating the vast oceans ever changing surroundings and dangers. With the use of animation and world leading scientific knowledge, go beyond what the eye can see and understand them like never before.
COSMOS MELANCOLIA
Premiere • Science Fiction • 30’ • France • 2023
Director: Alexandra Leroux, Damien de Medeiros
Language: French
Subtitles: English, Greek
While playing in the forest, three children stumble across a character that looks like Godard’s Pierrot le Fou. The latter listens to the news on the radio announcing a series of environmental disasters. Distressed, the children connect to a tree that sends them on a mission to reboot planetary consciousness.
WHAT SHE DIDN'T KNOW
Premiere • Animation • 3’ • USA • 2023
Director: Zoe Zheng
Language: English
Subtitles: English, Greek
A colorblind girl sees color through playing the piano.
WILD HOPE: REBUILDING A FOREST
Theatrical Premiere • Documentary • 16’ • USA, Brazil • 2024
Director: —
Language: English, Portuguese
Subtitles: English, Greek
In Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, Mauricio Ruiz has turned his love for nature into action by working with the community to reforest a critical stretch of the nation’s most endangered forest, and by using drones to help him reach his goal of planting 15 million new trees. WILD HOPE is a series that highlights the conservation changemakers who are sparking new hope for the future of our planet.
SMALL SELKIE
Premiere • Drama, Environmental • 15’ • UK • 2023
Director: Matilda Harding-Kemp
Language: English
Subtitles: Greek
SMALL SELKIE follows Skye, a young girl with a vivid imagination who yearns to become a mermaid. Against the backdrop of the loss of her mother, Skye finds solace by the sea. While collecting shells on the beach, she encounters a trapped “selkie” entangled in plastic pollution, which sparks a deep determination within her to protect the ocean from this harm. Despite her father’s initial disapproval of her hoarding the collected plastic, Skye transforms it into magnificent sea creatures.
POPUP SHORTS
Sunday, 21 July • 23.00 • Patmion Starfish Cinema • 90'
NYANGA
Animation • 20’ • Mexico • 2023
Director: Medhin Tewolde Serrano
Language: Spanish
Subtitles: English
During the colonial era, Nyanga was kidnapped off the coast of Africa, brought to Mexico, and enslaved. Though forced to work on the master’s plantation, he never stopped dreaming of freedom. Based on historical fact, and using shadow theater and handmade cinema, ‘Nyanga’ is an homage to resistance against colonial chains.
THINGS UNHEARD OF
Premiere • Fiction • 16’ • Turkey • 2023
Director: Ramazan Kılıç
Language: Kurdish
Subtitles: English
A little Kurdish girl tries to put a smile back on her grandmother’s face after the disappearance of her television, her only window into the world.
IMPORTANCE OF HYDRATION
International Premiere • Fiction • 6’ • Latvia • 2023
Director: Toms Skele, Janis Abele
Language: None
Subtitles: None
A man brings back to life a mythical being or possibly it’s just a lucid sombre dream about saying goodbye to someone he loves.
THE FAMILY PORTRAIT
Animation • 15’ • Croatia • 2023
Director: Lea Vidakovic
Language: None
Subtitles: None
As Austro-Hungary teeters on collapse, Andras and his daughter are taken aback by the visit from Andras’ unpredictable brother, Zoltan, who comes accompanied by his large family.
THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
Mystery, Coming-of-Age • 17’ • Germany, France, Italy • 2023
Director: Francesco Sossai
Language: Italian
Subtitles: English
December 1999. I remember that, amidst the Millennium Bug anxiety, I went to the birthday of Enrico, a kid who lived with his family in an old and isolated farmhouse.
THE SUMMER THAT NEVER GREW OLD
Drama, Mystery, Romance • 16’ • Greece • 2023
Director: Spyros Mavraganis
Language: Greek
Subtitles: English
During a late-summer getaway to the Pelion guest house where he spent most of his childhood holidays, Stefanos (Dimitris Kapouranis) realises there’s something wrong with his girlfriend, Sophia (Georgina Liossi). As the past catches up with them, the couple are forced to confront buried memories and inconvenient truths.
AEGEAN SHORTS COMPETITION A
Tuesday, 23 July • 23.00 • Patmion Starfish Cinema • Q&A with the Filmmakers
ELDORADO
Premiere • Drama • 19’ • Belgium, Italy • 2023
Director: Mathieu Volpe
Language: Beti, French, Italian
Subtitles: English
Originally from Cameroon, Awa works as a snow groomer operator in La Thuile, the last Italian town before France. One night, at the end of her shift, she encounters a young migrant desperately trying to cross the border. Assisting him might be Awa’s only way to silence a constant and haunting sense of guilt.
A BEAUTIFUL DAY
Premiere • Documentary • 19’ • Germany • 2023
Director: Stefano Obino
Language: Kurdish
Subtitles: English
The end of a war is never an end. A mother’s private diary takes us on a poetic journey through the lives of the many children who have fled the ISIS war and whom the world has forgotten.
BYE BYE, BOWSER
Premiere • Fiction • 20’ • Austria • 2023
Director: Jasmin Baumgartner
Language: German
Subtitles: English
Luna rebels against the indifference of her artsy friends by writing a punk song about Laugo, the construction worker from across the street. The song goes viral and she decides to get to know him. When he stumbles into her reckless world with flowers in his hands Luna and her friends are amazed by his natural naive honesty. Will the clashing worlds of affluent neglect and working life lead to the collapse of their romance?
HIBERNATION
Premiere • Drama, Fantasy • 30’ • South Africa • 2023
Director: Leandros Brown, Daniel Howells
Language: Afrikaans
Subtitles: English
During a never-ending winter, an old man descends from a mountain into the valley of oblivion. There he stumbles upon two sisters who live amidst ruin and search for any sign of salvation. Set in the late nineteenth century, this tale blends the historical scars of a land’s past with apocalyptic fantasy.
CICADA
International Premiere • Documentary • 13’ • USA, Greece • 2023
Director: Matteo Moretti
Language: English, Greek
Subtitles: English
After losing his wife, Papou reconciles with a changed sense of belonging as he returns to his home village without her.
PASTA AND TEST SCORE
Premiere • Coming of age • 7’ • Taiwan • 2023
Director: Stanley Xu
Language: Mandarin
Subtitles: English
One day, Luigi receives full marks for his first school test. Excited, he decides to spend the night waiting for his mother’s return so he can share his results.
AEGEAN SHORTS COMPETITION B
Wednesday, 24 July • 20.30 • Patmion Starfish Cinema • Q&A with the Filmmakers
AT THAT VERY MOMENT
Premiere • Documentary, Experimental • 12’ • Argentina, Germany • 2023
Director: Rita Pauls, Federico Luis
Language: Spanish
Subtitles: English
A child raised in the mountains yearns to squeeze reality. The inner and outer world get blurred in his mind as he evokes his obsessions and captures his surroundings with a camera.
KINDERFILM
Premiere • Experimental • 12’ • Austria • 2023
Director: Total Refusal | Adrian Jonas Haim, Robin Klengel, Michael Stumpf
Language: English
Subtitles: English
It’s an ordinary day in the game Grand Theft Auto V: The streets are crowded with cars; people follow their routines, barbecue in their gardens or sunbath on the beach. And yet the game world is marked by a grave absence: a missing future that was suspended out of safety concerns. Unable to name the void, protagonist Edgar follows the traces of what is missing in the algorithm of his reality. Exploring the uncanniness of his normality, he rediscovers a beautiful yet nightmarish world.
IN THEIR DREAMS ALL JELLYFISH ARE WET
Premiere • Fiction • 27’ • Austria • 2023
Director: Marie Luise Lehner
Language: German, English, Portuguese
Subtitles: English
This film is a manifesto for the fact that the rules by which we behave can be changed and transformed. The rules that determine the course of a sauna visit provide the structure. Orlando, who tries to master an inconspicuous visit to the sauna does not know the rules. After he has to leave the sauna during the infusion because his nipple piercings get too hot, he settles down hidden on a lounger and falls into a strange dream in which Laura’s beautiful cousin dances as a devil in an empty pool.
LA PANADELLA
Premiere • Documentary, Experimental • 17’ • Spain • 2023
Director: Joel Jimenez
Language: Spanish, Catalan
Subtitles: English
La Panadella, an emblematic small road town in decline located in Catalonia, is awaiting the arrival of visitors from a mysterious tower. While its inhabitants and passersby follow their monotonous routines, a strange signal manifests itself.
THE POEM WE SANG
Premiere • Experimental • 21’ • Canada, Palestine, Jordan • 2024
Director: Annie Sakkab
Language: Arabic
Subtitles: English
The Poem We Sang is an experimental documentary that meditates on love and longing – the love of family and the longing for home, contemplated through overcoming the trauma of loss, transforming lifelong regrets into a healing journey of creative catharsis and bearing witness.
YOU LAND
Premiere • Drama • 16’ • UK • 2023
Director: Debora Maité
Language: English
Subtitles: English
In the remote Scottish countryside, a downtrodden woman finds herself entangled in a newly-discovered influencer culture, whilst in search of respite from the humdrum of rural living and the impending weight of caregiving duties.
AEGEAN SHORTS COMPETITION C
Wednesday, 24 July • 23.00 • Patmion Starfish Cinema • Q&A with the Filmmakers
WHY ARE YOU IMAGE PLUS?
Premiere • Fiction, Documentary • 9’ • Portugal • 2023
Director: Diogo Baldaia
Language: English
Subtitles: English
In a small and poor village, a local Saint controls the realm of the abyss, making it impossible for dead people to talk to their loved ones who are still living. Ima, a curious dead child, tries to meet the Saint, so he can let her talk to her beloved grandmother.
HOW I LEARNED TO HANG LAUNDRY
Premiere • Comedy, Drama • 23’ • Slovenia • 2023
Director: Barbara Zemljic
Language: Slovenian
Subtitles: English
After a chance encounter, Oli and Miha become friends, or something more. Or less.
SHORT CUT GRASS
Premiere • Comedy • 26’ • Croatia • 2023
Director: David Gašo
Language: Croatian
Subtitles: English
An early summer evening begins with a game, while one kid counts to three thousand, the others hide in a row of suburban gardens. During that time, a young father spends the rest of his day with someone else’s child, an old man awaits a call that will change his life and the future of a year-long friendship becomes uncertain. The game ends when mosquitoes start rising from the grass.
VENUS IN RETROGADE
World Premiere • Drama • 15’ • Slovakia • 2024
Director: Štefánia Lovasová
Language: Slovak
Subtitles: English
Video footage shot by two sisters portrays their escape from the real world through their phone while living with their mother escaping the same world but with the help of alcohol. Their nice memories are interwoven with the struggles of the family.
KITTEN OR REFUGEE?
Premiere • Documentary • 29’ • Netherlands • 2023
Director: Tina Farifteh
Language: Dutch, English
Subtitles: English
Why do we pick up some refugees in our own cars, while allowing others to drown in the seas around Europe? In the short documentary Kitten or Refugee? visual artist Tina Farifteh dissects the mechanisms behind empathy and the dangers of empathy erosion, and submits the viewer to an experiment: who gets our empathy in life-or-death situations?
BEFORE THE MOONRISE
Premiere • Drama, Experimental • 19’ • Portugal • 2023
Director: Mário Patrocínio
Language: Portuguese
Subtitles: English
A wise grandmother, a 9-month pregnant warrior mother, and a little girl live in a dry world. Water is scarce, but they are resilient and have found a way of surviving. The moonrise is approaching, which seems to influence their relations and dreams…
NOMADS SHORTS
Thursday, 25 July • 22.30 • Patmion Starfish Cinema • Q&A with the Filmmakers
LEMONS
Drama, Romance • 16’ • Greece • 2023
Director: Nikos Pavlineris
Language: Greek
Subtitles: English
Louisa no longer believes in herself. They convinced her that she can not accomplish many things, because of her visual impairment. A small incident in a bus station, related to her vision, will make her make a difficult decision. Will she manage to believe in herself?
UNTIL YOU SEE ME
Drama • 15’ • Greece • 2023
Director: Eleanna Santorinaiou
Language: Greek
Subtitles: English
Petros struggles to find the right way to grief as he attends the funeral of a loved one. He is in denial. As the ceremony progresses, he gets more isolated into his own world, filming everything with his Hi8 camera. People “demand” of him to be more normal, but he only wants to be on his own. When he arrives home, exhausted, he must face reality.
STAY
Comedy, Drama • 24’ • Greece • 2023
Director: Nikos Vittis
Language: Greek
Subtitles: English
In Athens, during the financial crisis, a young man and a young woman had no other choice but to stay in the same apartment for a few days. When each one’s plans for the future collapsed someone had to make the move to change their fate.
MERCI, POPPY
International Premiere • Comedy, Drama • 15’ • USA • 2024
Director: Hanna Gray Organschi
Language: English
Subtitles: English
A scrappy assistant reaches her breaking point when her charismatic filmmaker boss blows off her request for a promotion.
THE FIRST SETTING SUN OF SUMMER
Drama • 22’ • Greece • 2023
Director: Asteris Tziolas
Language: Greek
Subtitles: English
In the heart of summer, a young boy takes a moment to stare, for the first time in his life, into the light of the setting sun.
FACES OF THE PAST - BEHIND THE DOORS OF PATMOS
World Premiere • Documentary • 6’ • USA • 2024
Director: George Skaroulis
Language: English
Subtitles: English
This documentary features the historical photographs of Patmos through the eyes of two generations of Patmians. The photography in the film is woven together showcasing the people of Patmos and the amazingly colorful doors that are the portals to the history on the island.
THE WINNING SHORTS
Screening of the 4 winning short films selected by the AegeanFF Jury: Best Aegean Short Film, Jury’s Special Mention, Sustainability Award, Best Greek Short Award – Powered by ERT.
Friday, 26 July • 23.00 • Patmion Starfish Cinema
The Jury
Mathias Chelebourg (1992) is a French Emmy-award-winning writer, director, and producer best known for his pioneering work in innovative storytelling.
His collaboration with Chanel on Rencontre(s) earned great recognition at the 79th Venice Biennale with an immersive installation guided by Marion Cotillard. His exhibition Views of a Room, co-created with (La)Horde and composer Rone, questions modern audiences in the age of digital doubles. Mathias teamed up with animation veteran Eric Darnell to write and co-direct Baba Yaga with Kate Winslet, Glenn Close, Daisy Ridley, and Jennifer Hudson. This adaptation won three Emmy Awards and attracted a UN partnership for its ecological angle. Previously, Mathias directed the BBC’s first interactive VR episode of Doctor Who, The Runaway, with Jodie Whittaker. His documentary The Real Thing VR, co-directed with Benoit Felici, received international acclaim. His installations Alice, The VR Play and Jack: Part 1, voiced by Lupita Nyong’o, premiered at Tribeca, merging immersive theater, video games, and animation. Mathias now leads a Paris-based studio exploring AI and emerging technologies in art and design.
Victoria Marotta is a film producer from Argentina. She co-founded Un Puma, a production company dedicated to independent films by directors with unique perspectives. Un Puma has produced a range of critically acclaimed features and short films. Recent works include “About Thirties” by Martín Shanly, premiered at Berlinale; “The Human Surge 3” by Eduardo Williams, premiered at Locarno; and “The Practice” by Martín Rejtman, premiered at San Sebastián Film Festival. This year, “An Odd Turn” by Francisco Lezama won the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at Berlinale, and a retrospective of Un Puma’s short films was featured in the latest edition of Bogoshorts. Victoria was selected for Berlinale Talents in 2018, participated in the Rotterdam Lab in 2019, and completed EAVE Puentes in 2022.
Film curator, film lecturer and film producer, Nico Marzano has been head of the film department of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London for ten years; under the ICA Cinema label, led the acquisition, presentation and distribution of multiple Cannes winner titles and Oscar-nominated films both in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and both in theaters and on the VoD circuit. Currently collaborating with the Rome Film Fest, he has served on the juries of prestigious festivals such as Sundance, Venice Film Festival, London Film Festival and Cinema du Reel. He has held workshops in Cannes and at important institutional venues worldwide. Nico has advised and collaborated in various capacities on numerous indie film productions.