Things of a Lifetime, Intimate Archeological Exercises(2024)

Los Felices(es)

A love letter to Mar del Plata made of images, times and a road trip. "The Happy Ones" is an experimental short documentary composed of past and present family footage. It portrays a place in the summer, the city of Mar del Plata, with a span of 20 years between past and present images (January 2000 and 2020). Despite the time that passed by, it's beaches, essence and people remain, always willing to keep dancing.

The Story of a Butcher Shop(ja)

The Kitades run a butcher shop in Kaizuka City outside Osaka, raising and slaughtering cattle to sell the meat in their store. The seventh generation of their family's business, they are descendants of the buraku people, a social minority held over from the caste system abolished in the 19th century that is still subject to discrimination. As the Kitades are forced to make the difficult decision to shut down their slaughterhouse, the question posed by the film is whether doing this will also result in the deconstruction of the prejudices imposed on them. Though primarily documenting the process of their work with meticulous detail, Aya Hanabusa also touches on the Kitades' participation in the buraku liberation movement. Hanabusa's heartfelt portrait expands from the story of an old-fashioned family business competing with corporate supermarkets, toward a subtle and sophisticated critique of social exclusion and the persistence of ancient prejudices.

Our Baby: A Modern Miracle(en)

What's it like starting a family when you're both transgender? This intimate film follows Hannah and Jake Graf on a journey through prejudice and surrogacy to birth during lockdown.

A Thousand Pines(en)

In this tale of labor and family that shines a light on the precarity of temporary work visas, Raymundo Morales leads a crew of workers who have to make the challenging decision to leave their families in rural Mexico to plant commercial pine forests in the United States.

Double Exposed(en)

Filmmaker Julie Buck explores her grandfather’s collection of Super 8 footage; the revelations behind the captured moments of joy reveal dark truths.

Carnalismo(es)

In the heart of Durango, the Low Biker community has forged a unique bond through a shared love for cumbias and custom bicycles, uniting neighborhoods across the city in a vibrant, collective passion. Amid the joy of their culture, they face the harsh realities of discrimination and prejudice, navigating daily challenges from a society that struggles to accept their way of life.

Slay the Gender(fr)

Through testimonies from people who practice the art of drag, this short film offers an intimate insight into this world of rhinestones and glitter.

WICCA(en)

I was scrounging around the neighborhood for inspiration. Within a block from my apartment, I found a wild mushroom in the grass, and an advertisement for a psychic named Sara.

My Brother Ted(sv)

For Ted, music and creation are the most important things in life. And around him he has a small group of friends who never hesitate to do everything they can to help him. My Brother Ted is a touching declaration of love from a big brother to his little brother.

A vouezh uhel(fr)

Milestone No. 1(en)

High school graduation doesn't come around often. Not only is it a day of celebration, but also a day of tears and apprehension. Milestone No. 1 follows Jack, a senior at the local high school, who is getting ready for his day of graduation, and the various tasks he needs to complete before arriving at the venue.

Ines, Memories of a Lifetime(en)

When Ines died, she left a very particular legacy, 10 books that read 'For my children'; it was the story of her life. Marked by a youth idyllic love, Ines was forced to marry a violent and womanizer man with whom she had 20 children. In the 50s, she managed to get divorce and 20 years after her death, Luisa, great-granddaughter of INES, reads, rescues and makes visible her history.

Augusta(en)

This short documentary is the portrait of an 88-year-old woman who lives alone in a log cabin without running water or electricity in the Williams Lake area of British Columbia. The daughter of a Shuswap chief, Augusta lost her Indian status as the result of a marriage to a white man. She recalls past times, but lives very much in the present. Self-sufficient, dedicated to her people, she spreads warmth wherever she moves, with her songs and her harmonica.

Ten Pound Poms(en)

In 1947, the Assisted Passage Scheme began, devised by the Australian government to bring in white British settlers. For just 10 pounds, they could start a new life in a sun-drenched land of opportunity, and over the next 25 years, more than a million people took up the offer. The scheme's pioneers tell their story.

Nan(zh)

A portrait that follows Nan, my uncle and the last two years he and his parents live together. In long, tightly framed shots, a picture emerges of three intimately interwoven lives: the gentle and touching bickering between Nan and his mother, the evenings in front of the television when time seems to stand still, and the minutes ticking by as Grandpa silently peels an apple. In the film, disability is not only seen as symptoms on individual bodies, but as social, physical, and temporal relationships. It is a meditation on time, disabilities, and the economies of care in contemporary China.

2 or 3 Things I Know About Him(de)

What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)

My Life Part 2(de)

By means of objects, photos, tapes and films, director Angelika Levi, half-German, half-Jewish, examines the story of her family. The film deals with trauma and the way history is produced, filed away, turned into discourse and ordered on macro and micro levels.

Inhabitants(fr)

Le Lignon: a long building with two towers, below it the Rhone River and its forest, habitat to many birds. Two microcosms that influence and inspire each other. From their windows, the inhabitants watch the woods. What do they see? The film shows the human need for closeness to the animals that surround us, and the ambivalent relationship between humans and nature.

Laurent Ruquier, on ne demande qu'à le connaître(fr)

An Intervention(en)

Chelsea Bledsoe and her husband Graig throw a surprise intervention for her old high school boyfriend, Henry, with a mismatched group of acquaintances from back in the day to fill out the guest list.