Seats
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Fivos Imellos, Greece
17’33”
A woman receives a startling phone call from her son, while waiting for him and his girlfriend over for lunch.
Director Biography
Fivos Imellos was born in Athens, Greece in 1998. He is a distinguished BA graduate in the sector of Film Studies at Greenwich University. He has already started a postgraduate (MPhil) program in directing at Bolton University. His film studies are done through New York College of Athens. During his student years, he completed two short film projects as producer, writer, director, and worked on creating many short films, feature films and TV series. His graduation film “Violetta” was screened and distinguished in the student section of the Drama Short Film Festival in 2020 with the Best Νewcomer Director Award “Dinos Katsouridis” and in 2021 it won the newly established Iris Award “Best Student Short Film” of the Hellenic Film Academy Awards. It also won the “Best Greek Short Film” Award at the 15th Cyprus International Film Festival – Golden Aphrodite. His latest short film is “Wings”.
Director Statement
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Chico
Enzo Lorenzo, France
22′ 32”
Jojo, a clumsy and bumbling young gay squatter, sets out to repair a washing machine in order to satisfy Lucien, whom he desires. He roams Brussels in a frantic quest, ready to take any risk to achieve his goals.
Director Biography
Enzo Lorenzo was born in Lyon in 1997. After having followed a course in optional scenario within the first promotion of the CinéFabrique, he went into exile in Brussels, the city that inspired a documentary and his first fiction short, Chico. In parallel, Enzo Lorenzo continues to work as a co-screenwriter projects on short and feature films. Exploring alternative media, he draws on marginal and crazy characters to explore topics such as precariousness, desire and violence.
Burning away
Romane Lepage, Canada
14’50”
After a long trip abroad, Aurelie reunites with her friend and her memories, but above all with Arnaud, whom she had left without warning.
Director Biography – Romane Lepage
At the end of her studies at UQAM in cinema, Romane Lepage won the award for best graduation short film. Since then, she works as an assistant director and explore the in-between areas of human relationships in her projects of short films.
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Bye Bye turtle
Selin Öksüzoğlu, France
24’35”
Inci’s mother is dead. That day, while maundering in the deserted plateaus of the Black Sea, the young Inci meets Zeynep (30). Back in the region after a long absence, Zeynep carries a bulky black bag. Even if they are total strangers, Inci and Zeynep join their solitude for a while, wandering over the foggy and sunny mountains, from one father to the other, from dawn to darkness.
Director Biography – Selin Öksüzoğlu
Selin was born and raised in Turkey. In 2010, she arrived in France and studied psychology. She works as a psychologist with people in exile and youngsters in foster care. In parallel, auto-didact, she joined in 2019 the writing residency La Ruche Gindou Cinéma thanks to which she developed her first screenplay “Bye Bye Turtle”.
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No Future Kids
Eleni Poulopoulou, Greece
20′
Alex and her friends go on a trip away from Athens. Soon she will realize this decision is bringing her closer to everything she hoped to escape from.
Director Biography
Eleni Poulopoulou is a multidisciplinary artist based in Athens, GR. She studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts, with photography and video art as her main disciplinary practices. She has worked as a photographer in multiple fields and has participated in various exhibitions internationally. Her work as an art director in film projects led to her directorial debut with “No Future Kids”.
Director Statement
«No Future Kids» is a short film about the difficulties that young people face in Greece, a country lacking real opportunities (no future generation). In an environment where young people are considered a threat to the moral values of an outdated society, they are violently pushed to its’ margins. Unemployment, high cost of living, social, financial and gender inequality create real and imaginary fears, affecting mental health and building walls around the protected social values. The story is told from the point of view of femininities, and how they deal with these matters throughout the film. Alex and her friends try to escape this reality by taking a road-trip. However their problems will follow them, emphasizing the futility of their efforts. In the end, Alex’s only escape is maintaining her own point of view through her video diaries. This is also my own means of expression as an artist and queer person. “No Future Kids” is exactly that, an action of resistance by rewriting our history and experience.
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Swallowing Dust
Achille Bocquier, France
16’37”
A young man drives aimlessly searching for someone to spend the night with, carrying with him the fires and smoke of past summers. But he is not alone; from his bedroom window, he can see a tree, the only witness to his wandering.
Director Biography – Achille Bocquier
Born in 1998 in the west of France, Achille Bocquier moved to Paris in 2016 to study film. While working as an assistant set designer, he has been developing his own fiction and documentary projects that focus on desire and its fantastic deviations. With “Swallowing Dust”, his first short film produced by the GREC, he evokes the solitary summer wanderings of a provincial boy.
Getaway
Nikita Bigdan, Russian Federation
17’22”
Ann got used to rely only on herself. As soon as she faces aggression from her husband, she decides to save herself by her own. She runs away to a place, where no one can find her, without telling anyone. But he won’t let her go so easily. He tracks her down and knows how to bring her back.
Director Biography – Nikita Bigdan
Born in Moscow. In 2017 graduated from engineering university. Several years worked in his specialty. Lives and work in Moscow.
Director Statement
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KELSEY
Yorgos Sakarellos, Greece
8’36”
A woman’s contemplative moments before a long awaited meeting.
Director Biography
Yorgos Sakarellos is a film director from Athens, Greece. He studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Manchester and Film Directing at Stavrakos Film and Television School in Athens, Greece. He has worked as an editor for projects in film, TV, and music videos. Additionally, he recently became a member of Blink GFE, further showcasing his involvement in the Greek film industry. In his directorial approach, Yorgos aims to narrate stories that explore the emotionally conditioned human experience through the creation of a sense of intimacy.
Director Statement
While I was studying at the school of engineering I was deeply fascinated by the term “quasi-static”, referring to processes that take place at an extremely slow rate whilst maintaining equilibrium. It wasn’t until I listened to Ligeti’s “Atmospheres” featured in Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” that I truly felt how art deconstructs and adapts its form from such terms, retaining the elements that best suit the art piece and its perspective. The cafe scene from Louis Malle’s “Le Feu Follet” is an unquestionable source of inspiration for the film as it displays the internal static experienced moments before Alain, a former alcoholic, breaks sobriety.
I later on came to realise that all those influences shaped what came to be “Kelsey”, a title derived from the artist model in the 1920s and 1930s Marguerite Kelsey who was famous for her ability to hold a pose for a very long time. The film is a portrait of internal static, moments before an anticipated meeting, an experience that vividly survives throughout many of my personal memories. It’s a translation of the collective of these memories through the language of cinema.
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