Shots for Monday Morning(2021)

Tangled Roots(en)

An intimate look into Demers family's experience raising children while dealing with the societal stigmas around disabilities and the consequences of Alberta's forgotten experiment in eugenics.

Answer the Call(en)

When a firefighter comes to your house, chances are that their lives were just like yours not too long ago. 70% of all firefighters in Canada are volunteers, meaning in most cases, they were just eating dinner, coaching a team, or even at their actual job. To raise awareness of the need for volunteer firefighters, "Answer the Call" will showcase the unique lifestyle of volunteer firefighters, and have them shed light on the risks and rewards of living a double life.

Storyline(cs)

An interplay of horizontal and vertical lines, as well as other types of lines, found in in the public space, evokes a lyrical narrative combining them into a visual continuity in one image. Among found objects, events, and spaces, new relationships and continuations are created.

The Gordon Affair(en)

As a small liberal arts college on the North Shore, Gordon College has not been without its issues. Budget cuts in 2019 resulted in the downsizing of several departments which impacted students' college career. In 2020 during the heat of the pandemic, racial tensions rise after hate crimes are committed on campus. This is the story of the class of 2022.

Spirits and Rocks: An Azorean Myth(pt)

From the ocean, a volcanic island rises into steamy mist. The black rock of the earth stands in sharp contrast to the billowing vapor that hovers and drifts above the surface. A narrator describes how the island’s first inhabitants sought to explain the violent eruption by attributing the devastation to the wrath of angry gods. With breathtaking black-and-white cinematography, this poetic exploration considers the human relationship to this volatile land, where residents live alongside the looming threat of eruption with reverence, fear, and awe. A collection of scenes where dark and light miraculously coexist illuminates both the physical and spiritual landscapes of this extraordinary place, where life endures the perils of the natural world.

HORIZONTE EM RUÍNAS(pt)

to boyhood, i never knew him(en)

Archive footage from 2006 - 2010 of a young girl growing up during the ages of four to eight. Only fragments of what is remembered exists. Words from a transgender man float to the surface as fleeting memories go on.

Rat Race : A Short Documentary(en)

Join College Student Parker Bennink and he interviews four of Rowan University's most prolific filmmakers, to uncover what life as a student filmmaker is really like in today's day and age.

Healing Me(cs)

Director Tereza Tara fell ill at the age of twenty-five. She captured her ten-year-long journey to recovery, which took her deep into the past and to the edge of the abyss, in the form of a personal and poetic video diary. With her weakened kidneys, she visited doctors, psychosomatic experts, and an alternative healer who urged her to surrender herself into the hands of God. Gradually, she began to see the condition of her dual organs as a reflection of her unbalanced relationship with her mother, her partner, and her own body. She finally understood that if she wanted to find a cure for her diseased kidneys and start living a better life, she needed to understand herself better first.

Letter to L.Y(en)

Letter to L.Y is Stephanie Mavi Garcia Panclas' second experimental film for their class. The film surrounds the feeling of nostalgia shown through the layering of video.

A Little Love(en)

Through interspersed conversation and prose, this experimental documentary follows a poet and a neuroscientist as they explore the definition of love, what it means, and why it matters.

As Janelas Me Diziam Que Os Carros Cor De Lembrança Ainda Percorriam as Movimentadas Ruas do Esquecimento(pt)

Passportless Mess(cs)

An idiot for some, a genius for others. Zoran is an urban legend of a Serbian block of flats who allegedly travelled the whole world without a single ID on him. After that, he went nuts due to politics, war and MDMA. “I saw it with my own naked eye,” nodded a half-blind old man. Though a clear answer to the question who Zoran really was is not to be expected at the end of this semi-serious manhunt, it is more than sure that even if he did not exist, the locals must have had to think him up.

how much is it uncomfortable for dogs to step out on a highway?(cs)

The primary motif of the documentary is the journey. A metaphorical journey, a spiritual journey, a tangible journey, a forest path, a road, a sidewalk, a drug trip, or a journey abroad. The director pastes together a collage of micro-stories of people and places that comment on the journey. Her documentary oscillates between playful absurdism, existentialism and existential questions, environmentalism, and social commentary. The dynamism and rhythm of the narrative are then determined by the jumps between different forms of video, such as analogue film, digital film, and mobile phone filming.

My Paradise Is Darker Than Your Hell(cs)

Theatre director Jan Kačena poisoned himself in 2019 by inhaling fumes and suffered irreversible brain damage. While his partner makes a film as a declaration of love, he lies unconscious. In the film, the director follows moments in the everyday lives of three people close to him: Czech rapper Tyler Durden, painter Tadeáš Pochman and film director Helena Papírníková. In a naturalistic way, it captures drug addiction, self-destructive tendencies and family problems, which are the subject of intimate, often uncomfortable conversations. The result is a diary-style probe into the fate of the artistic bohemia of late capitalism.

Creature of the Sun(cs)

Childlike imagination, naive playfulness and an enchanted view of the world are at the centre of this poetic film. The child protagonists talk about their dreams, fantasies and experiences while touching on metaphysical questions of body and soul, life and death. Magic permeates every frame of this colourful collage.

VALE TUDO(sk)

Lucia "Pretty Beast" Krajčovič is a 34-year-old professional MMA fighter and mother of two children. Shortly after giving birth, she is determined to become a champion in both disciplines - sport and motherhood. With a baby in her arms, she is preparing for her next fight. Under the immense pressure of her two identities, exhausted from lack of sleep, she wrestles with a question to which she had a clear answer not long ago. How to be both Pretty and Beast and for how much longer?

Gen A: Do What You Love(cs)

Jakub Strach aka NobodyListen is a successful Czech DJ and music producer. A portrait of his life and work can be seen as a manifesto of the millennial club-going generation. After hundreds of shows and preparations for the upcoming, renowned Addict party, the DJ must deal with the consequences of inflicting a wound scarring his image. Footage from the club backstage mingles with scenes of everyday life in which NobodyListen ponders the dark sides of the club scene, like drugs and misogyny. During the shooting, the Covid pandemic strikes, revealing the insecurities of work in culture.

Good Living(en)

On the edge of the idyllic Lake Windemere, Richard runs a café. After a long past in the forces, he has had a dramatic shift in lifestyle, and has had to adjust to an immensely different environment. Shot in Ambleside in 2022, Good Living is an exploration of new paths and opportunities.

Taurophilia(xx)

Through rhythmic re-composition of fragmented images, semi-surreal situations are explored in a documentary style of observation of a man's obsession with a powerful animal, the black horned bull, and the Spanish process of taxidermy through which he attempts to embody its beauty and strength, turning into a Minotaur. The subdued basement space in which the man meticulously studies the motionless flesh of the animal is preceded by a sunlit, empty arena in Spain, the stage in which the bull is presented in its full glory before facing man.