Screening Schedule

“I saw a man who had lost his way, I saw a man who was begging for his life,” describes the narrator, and these words could apply to any of the lonely hearts and lost souls that parade before our eyes, like exhibits in a tatty museum of human curiosities. An oddball comedy of devilish wit, which makes the humdrum seem unique and the mundane otherworldly, offering a sad but tender antidote to estrangement and disorientation. A series of lingering vignettes, in cafés, bars, train stations, apartments, and offices, made up of pale human buoys, yearning for our empathy and understanding.

Leningrad, 1945. World War II is over; nonetheless, the atmosphere is far from being cheerful or hopeful. After the long exhausting siege, the city is devastated and the people are left in tatters, physically and mentally. Postwar Leningrad has become an endless graveyard, where survivors walk around like ghosts. Amongst the ruins, in a scenery of dust and death, two young women struggle to rebuild their lives. A powerful period drama, depicting the absolute ruination brought by war on the psyche of an entire nation as well as the iron will to start over amid the rumble.

The story of a minor scam becomes the subject of a complex film, on the verge between documentary and fiction, based on a true story and featuring its actual protagonists: the desperate and penniless Sabzian, an aspiring film director, who introduces himself to a wealthy family as the famous Mohsen Makhmalbaf and tries to convince them to finance a film to be shot in their home and starring the family’s son. When the scam is revealed, Sabzian is arrested and jailed. And then Kiarostami comes along with his film crew, to shoot an interview with Sabzian without his knowledge. The film explores the multi-faceted relationship of perpetrators and victims with the cinema, but also with truth and lies.

Victor is a grumpy 60-year-old cartoonist who indulges in self-pity, convinced that his best days are behind him. Strained, weary and – most importantly – kicked out by his wife, Victor contacts a high-end troupe that stages insanely convincing reenactments of previous times, in order to relive the most significant moment in his life: the day he met his wife in a Lyonnaise café. A playful homage to cinema’s magical and cathartic powers that reminds us of fundamental universal truths; life’s beauty lies in its imperfections, love always depends on a willing suspension of disbelief, time is meant to slip through our fingers…

Alice is a plant breeder who has created a unique flower named after her boy: touched and spoken to, the red hybrid releases a perfume that makes people happy. Alice,racked with guilt for neglecting her son, but also wrestling with an unconscious yearning to escape from the burden of motherhood, offers the red flower to Joe. Yet, something seems a bit off. Playing with the mechanisms of a horror film in the vein of Frankenstein, an out-and-out chiller that reflects on the nature of human feelings and the disheartening lack of understanding towards ourselves, others and life itself.

After her newborn daughter is taken away from her in a fake health clinic, Georgina – a young indigenous woman from the Andes – is driven to the desperate search of her offspring. Her only ally, a reserved reporter who takes on a painstaking fight for justice, attempting to shed light upon this obscure case. A striking true story of baby trafficking in 1980s Peru; the haunting struggle of two kindred spirits in a country politically hostile to minorities, depicted in an atmospheric black-and-white cinematography. It’s worth mentioning that, in reality, the reporter who exposed the trafficking network is none other than the director’s father.