Seats
UNLIMITEDMY HEART BACKWARDS
Sarah Gouret, Belgium
18′
Anastasia, 27 years old, decides to provoke a meeting with Jef, 54 years old. Together, they will experience the suspended and intense moment that only the first meeting between a father and his daughter can provoke.
Director Biography – Sarah Gouret
Sarah Gouret was born in 1982 in Chalon-sur-Saône (France) where she lived until 2000. She studied sound at the Institute of Broadcasting Arts in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium) and has been working as sound mixer on set and sound designer since 2004 for documentaries and fiction. In 2019 she graduated in photography from the Agnès Varda school in Brussels and started working on her own projects. In 2022 she directed her first short film, Mon Cœur en Arrière, produced by Velvet Films, which she also (co-)wrote.
EUROPEAN MAN AMERICAN BEACH
Rex Shannon, United States
7′
A European man goes naked to an American beach. A clothed American beachgoer takes offense and a brawl ensues.
Director Biography – Rex Shannon
Rex Shannon began his artistic career as a fiction writer and literary scholar. His first three creative productions were a short story called “Come Up Here” published in Alaska Quarterly Review, an academic article on James Joyce’s “Ulysses” published in Joyce Studies Annual, and an internet novel published on web3. Since 2022, Rex has turned his narrative productions to film. “European Man…American Beach” is his first narrative short: a drama/comedy about a brawl between a naked European and an American who’s deeply offended by the European’s nudity.
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BEYOND THE SEA
Hippolyte Leibovici, Belgium
25′
Lady Casca, a drag queen in her sixties, is about to go on stage at her cabaret for the last time. The next day, retirement by the sea awaits her. But her son Thomas, whom she has not seen for a long time, interrupts the festivities. He has sad news to tell her.
Director Biography – Hippolyte Leibovici
Hippolyte Leibovici is a Franco-Belgian film director. His relationship with cinema began at the age of thirteen when he would often hand out coffee on film sets in Paris. Gradually abandoning his schooling, his experiments with his camera would become the roots of his approach to filmmaking. He started making short films with minimal budgets, exploring both his technical skills and his desire to direct. At the age of eighteen, he began studying film directing at Belgian film school INSAS, where he met the team with whom he now works. He had his first success with the documentary MOTHER’S, which won close to forty festival awards and the very first Magritte for best short documentary. In 2023, he directed Beyond the Sea, a musical comedy that joins the arena of his previous film: the backstage of a cabaret. He is currently developing his first feature film.
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STAY
Nikos Vittis, Greece
24′
In Athens, during the financial crisis, a young man and a young woman had to stay in the same apartment for a few days and this cohabitation changed their lives
Director Biography – Nikos Vittis
After his engineering studies he studied film music at Berklee College of Music. He has written music for more than fifty theatrical plays, short and long films, documentaries and installations. He was involved in cinema productions early on in various positions. He has directed another short film, many music videos and received a grant from the Greek Film Center for writing a screenplay for a feature film. Ηe has produced or co-produced four short films. In recent years he has been working as a Location Manager and/or assistant production manager mostly in action movies.
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MEANTIME
Guillaume Scaillet, France
12′
Marc, a young city dweller, goes into the countryside where he stays on his own in a lonely house. He is expecting his girlfriend Louise who is supposed to come and join him soon, but she is late showing up. Marc is keen on keeping fit and becomes obsessed with the healthy daily routine he has set up for himself, but the silence grows heavier and heavier, and Louise hasn’t arrived yet. In the anxious surrounding calm, Marc gradually falls prey to the assault of all kinds of sounds that are usually ignored and sounds that are not usually heard.
Director Biography – Guillaume Scaillet
Graduated from the screenwriting department of La Fémis, Guillaume now works on his projects as a writer and director. He’s currently writing the script of his first feature Jeanne Dark produced by Caïmans Productions. He also works as a scriptwriter and consultant on diverse movies and series projects.
ISTINA
Tamara Denić, Germany
28′
A committed photo journalist is threatened in Serbia, whereupon she flees to Germany with her daughter. But then she also experiences increasing hostility and violence in her new home due to her work…
Director Biography – Tamara Denić
Tamara Denić is born in former Yugoslavia 1992 In 2016, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in art and multimedia and a minor in media informatics at LMU in Munich with an interactive, experimental short film. After that, Tamara worked as a dubbing recording manager, film production and editorial assistant and video editor in Berlin. At the same time, she acted in independent theatre groups and experimented with video performances. However, Tamara soon devoted herself increasingly to narrative and documentary short film projects. Along side her film projects, paintings and photographs, Tamara experiments with animations and VJing. 2022 she graduated with a master’s degree in film directing at Hamburg Media School with a scholarship from Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation.
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ALLEGORIA
Hakan Ünal, Turkey
14′
A prisoner woman learns the true world of her reality and her role in the male dominated system.
Director Biography – Hakan Ünal
Independent filmmaker Hakan Ünal is a native of Turkey and has worked for past 8 years as a writer/director. After graduating the university, filmmaking became the overpowering passion in his life. He wrote short stories. His debut short film ‘Orange’ participated in over 30 festivals and won 15 awards. His second short film project entitled ‘Crack in the Wall’ was selected to Cinephilia Shorts Lab in 2017. The same project won first place at the 13th Cyprus International Film Festival. Crack in the Wall made its world premiere at the 15th Reykjavik International Film Festival and participated more than 20 festivals. Ünal was selected to the Reykjavik Talents in 2018. His third short film project entitled ‘Rabbit Still Hiding’ was selected to the 6th Drama Pitching Forum at the 42nd Drama International Film Festival and to the Undeveloped Global Short Lab Pitching Forum at the 10th Oaxaca International Film Festival. His latest short script named ‘The Shell ‘ won the first prize Best International Script at the 38th International Film Festival and Best Psychological Drama at the 7th Firenze Filmcorti International Film Festival.
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THE HOUSE WITH NO DOORS
Marina Akarepi, United Kingdom
7′
A man gets lost in the woods and is attacked by various monsters. As he desperately tries to escape he realises he is turning into a monster himself.
Director Biography – Marina Akarepi
Marina Akarepi was born in Athens. She started painting and playing music from a very young age. Her education on classical art, mythology and theatre ignited her passion for storytelling and she soon fell in love with conceptual art and film.
She studied Audio and Visual Arts and worked as a writer for independent magazine 3pointmagazine.gr, where she introduced a cinema- themed column, and later published a poetry collection.
Marina is currently residing in the UK, where she studied Film Production and made her directorial debut with the experimental short film The House With No Doors. She is currently completing a MA in Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester.
She is a writer, musician, poet, filmmaker and animal rights activist.