Vista Mare
Vista Mare is a poetic and surrealist documentary revealing the hidden labour behind ‘a holiday in the sun’ on Italy’s Northern Adriatic Coastal resorts. Shot over an entire working season (Feb to Oct), it takes viewers on a journey through an artificial landscape built to amuse vacationers. Vista Mare’s camera purposefully watches a multi-national army of seasonal labourers toiling from dawn to dark. Workers test remote-controlled umbrellas, meticulously prepare meals, and most importantly, jolly the patrons into having a good time. Meanwhile on the shoreline, thousands of guests paddle in the waves and enjoy carefully scheduled fun. Little wonder the demands of their jobs drive the workers to chant “Slaves? Never!” in a protest carefully overseen by the Police. In an absurdist loop, Vista Mare watches the workers, who watch other workers play, until the sky turns cloudy, the beaches empty, and the last umbrella closes.
"a surreal and poetic documentary that reveals the hidden work behind “sunny holidays” in the tourist resorts of the northern Italian Adriatic coast." - Locarno Film Fest
Rosinha and Other Wild Animals
In 1934, the 'New State' took to the world stage with the Portuguese Colonial Exhibition. There, the Portuguese Empire displayed the ultimate symbol of its virility in Rosinha, a native of what was then Portuguese Guinea. ROSINHA AND OTHER WILD ANIMALS questions the idea of Portugal's so-called "gentle racism", by looking back at more than a century of colonial discourse.
"Throughout this documentary the history of fascist propaganda appears like a dark mirror that we find it hard to look into. Portugal is a country with an untold History, and this film is a beautiful way of countering this silence." - IndieLisboa, *Winner* Árvore da Vida Award
Ladies Only
“What makes you angry?” asks the filmmaker. A small film crew enters the ladies compartments of the local trains in Mumbai. Chance encounters and acquaintances are invited to reveal their opinions, their confessions and their stories in a ‘public’ space. Their diverse answers thread themselves into an unfolding tapestry of details and observations. The light on the faces, the figures in the background, the driving noises of the train and the interactions between the travellers bring the space alive. Black and white images distill the essence of the space. A poetic rhythm takes us across Mumbai and it's mix of cultures, languages and faces, providing insight into how urban Indian women see and shape their lives. Through a feminist lens, the filmmaker explores what ambitions and freedoms mean for women in a hyper-industrial, wealth-driven and complex world.
"a tapestry of faces and voices emerges beautifully, highlighting the challenges faced by women in Indian society....de-glamorises Mumbai, while carving poetry out of the hidden intricacies of women’s emotional lives" - Guardian
Up the River With Acid
Standing in front of the open window, a soft breeze playing through the curtains, an elderly man strangely sways to and fro. It is, for the most part, a puzzling behaviour, but one that still suggests some basic pleasure of the senses: feeling the stroke of the wind, joining in its dance. Another thing we know: the two senses by which the viewer experiences the scene are absent from this curious dance. The filmmaker’s father, Horst, has almost lost his senses of sight and hearing as a result of a decline that is also chipping away at his memory. Once a loquacious professor, he has withdrawn into the semi-seclusion of his diminished mind. He has become an “enigma”, a “winter lake”, as his wife puts it.
"It isn’t often that we encounter films that are simultaneously incredibly personal and deeply resonant on a universal level, but through the unforgettable imagery and profound honesty of this film, Hutter achieves it in this powerful and profound examination of the most precious human connections.” - International Cinephile Society
Anqa
The film narrates the story of three women who are connected to each other through the invisible string of trauma and isolation. In the absence of motion, the spectator deep dives into a manic silence, into the expansive loneliness of the trauma and alienation. The images investigate the entire time and timelessness of human existence in an isolated space and the enigmatic territory between fiction and reality. With a lucidity that is both daring and tragic, the film explores the extremity of a woman‘s inner life and the painful traces of memory when the outer world is at an impasse. The women of the film constantly ruminate on the determined embrace of life in all its complexity and confusion on one hand, and on the idea of death on the other, where the absolute limits of survival are tied to the sense of the border between two. A border that does not exist.
"Helin Çelik does not tell these women’s stories, but rather sketches their post-traumatic situation in impressive, poetic film imagery" - Berlinale