#MFFPollenzo, Films in Competition

8 Shorts

Pollenzo, Agenzia building – 9 pm

Spain
NO JUNGLE by Carmen Menéndez (Spain, 2016, 16′)
Through the stories of Syrian refugees camped in Calais, not far from the “Jungle,” the filmmaker explores the hope of reaching the UK and the constant violation of human rights being perpetuated.

Slovenia
A NEW HOME by Ziga Virc (Slovenia, 2016, 14′)
What is the gravest danger facing Europe: the crisis on its borders or its own paranoia and fear? The main character, driving to work, passes through tent cities set up by refugees in the park. She has no intention to hurt them, nor do they want to hurt her. So why, when their paths cross, do things end up taking a bad turn?

UK
DISTANCE by Cristian Perez Scigliano (United Kingdom, 2015, 20′)
This is a story of immigrants, a portrait of people in search of opportunity. Raul arrives in London in search of a better future. He is all alone in one of the biggest cities in the world. Far from family and home, he lives in a shared house where everyone has the same needs. Soon he will have to leave the house and find his own way.

Switzerland
BUNKERS by Anne-Claire Adet (Switzerland, 2016, 14′)
A sensorial and first-person immersion into the suffocating experience of an old WWII shelter dozens of meters underground where asylum seekers are stowed away. It invites the viewer to live the anguish of one of them, Mohammad, who recalls his experience of subterranean life.

France
LES MISERABLES by Ladj Ly (France, 2017, 15′)
Tensions between youth and police in the French city suburbs, and a particular form of impunity: abuses by the police.

United States
NEW NEIGHBORS by  E.G. Bailey (USA, 2016, 9′)
The story of an African-American mother who moves to a new, mostly white neighborhood with her two children. Here she must confront a series of problems and discrimination caused by prejudice as she seeks to ensure her family’s safety.

Slovenia
PEACE. PLEASE. by Tina Lagler and Blaž Miklič (Slovenia, 2016, 7′)
Hidden from the eyes of the public, over 1,200 men live in the huge spaces of the old train station in Belgrade, in Serbia. Most of them are from Pakistan and Afghanistan and have fled their homes due to political problems or simply to seek a better life. The film immerses us in their life in Belgrade in the middle of a terrible winter as they struggle with the cold, the snow and their unfortunate circumstances while trying to keep their spirits up. These courageous men and boys have left behind their old lives, their families and all that they know and love.

Albania
CHEATING FOR PAPERS by Valmir Tertini (Albania, 2016, 19′)
Merita agrees to her husband Azem marrying a German woman in order to obtain his papers, even though they have a daughter together. This phenomenon is well known in Kosovo because there are few other ways to enter Europe. After four years, Anna, Azem’s German wife, insists on coming to Kosovo to see where her husband used to live.

6 Features

Pollenzo, Agenzia building – 9 pm

Sweden
IZABELA by Ylvaa Johansson (Sweden, 2017, 35′)
Ylvaa meets Izabela in a public park in Oslo in summer 2012. Izabela is 18 and lives in the park, trying to raise money to support her family in Romania. Three years later they meet again in Sweden by chance: Ylvaa is studying at university, but Izabela’s situation is little better. Now she lives in a van with her mother, brother and cousin, selling magazines to send money to her twins. When Izabela decides to take a trip to her hometown of Berbesti, Ylvaa goes with her.

France
LOZA by Jean-Sébastien Desbordes, (France, 2017, 31′)
Loza is five years old and was born in Sudan. In May 2016 she left her country with her brother and her mother, Nada, to flee the dictatorship. The migrant traffickers promised a safe journey to Europe for 2,500 dollars, but the crossing proves a nightmare.

Sweden
PRISON SISTERS by Sarvestani Nima (Sweden, 2016, 90′)
The story of the journey of two young women who have come out of prison in Afghanistan. Once out, the respite they had found in prison gives way to death threats and violence. As women and former prisoners, Sara and Najibeh have no right to exist.

Spain/Ukraine
SASHA by Joven Fèlix Colomer (Spain/Ukraine 2016, 54′)
Sasha is an eight-year-old boy living in the Ukraine with his mother and five siblings. Their everyday life is marked by poverty and made even more complicated by the on-going war in the country. Sasha leaves the Ukraine to spend the summer with a family in Catalonia.

Denmark
LES SAUTEURS by Moritz Siebert, Estephan Wagner and Abou Bakar Sidibé (Denmark, 2016, 80′)
On Mount Gurugú, close to Melilla, a Spanish enclave in Morocco, thousands of Africans wait to try to climb the fence that separates the two continents. Abou, originally from Mali, is given a video camera to document this community’s stories, plans and fears.

Italy/Sri Lanka
PER UN FIGLIO by Suranga Deshapriya Katugampala (Italy/Sri Lanka, 2016, 74′)
Sunita, a middle-aged Sri Lankan woman, lives with her teenage son on the outskirts of a northern Italian city where she works as a caregiver. The relationship between mother and son is fraught with tension and silence. Having grown up in Italy, the boy is a cultural hybrid his mother struggles to understand, as she fights to live in a country to which she does not want to belong.