Short films: Block IV. We Need To Talk

“The Communion of My Cousin Andrea”
dir. Brandán Cerviño / 2021 / Spain / 13 min
cinematography: Brandán Cerviño
producer: Sabrina Zimmermann, Brandán Cerviño / Filmes de Pedra
selected festivals and awards: 2021 – IDFA Amsterdam

Andrea has made her first communion. However, the ceremony lacks glamour. For Andrea, things without sparkles are not things. Also, there is another problem: does God exist?

„You Are Always 20”
dir. Christer Wahlberg / 2020 / Sweden / 15 min
cinematography: Emma Järvenpää
producer: Christer Wahlberg / Intermundos
selected festivals and awards: 2022 – London Short FF; 2021 – Euregion FF

In a film from the early 2000s, Christer finds his 19-year-old self. In the film, which has the fattest sound effects and the title Drugs, he and his best friend play adult versions of themselves.

One winter evening, everything changes. Grand visions of the future are shattered and the film becomes a melancholy memory of immortal youth and a friendship that has been lost forever.

„Happytrail”
dir. Jakob Werner, Thea Sparmeier, Pauline Cremer / 2021 / Germany / 5 min
cinematography: Hannes Schulze
producer: Jakob Werner
selected festivals and awards: 2021 - DOK Leipzig

Hair on women’s bodies – a topic that inevitably occupies a woman as soon as the first hairs sprout.

Franka had a lot of hair on her legs, armpits and belly – like many women. Depilation hurts and doesn’t feel right. But is there another alternative accepted by the society? Franka tells about her experience and her decision to let her body hair grow freely.

„I Am Trying to Remember”
dir. Pegah Ahangarani / 2021 /  Czech Republic, Iran / 16 min
cinematography: Pegah Ahangarani
producer: Kaveh Farnam / Europe Media Nest
selected festivals and awards: 2021 – IDFA Amsterdam

Pegah talks about Gholam, a man who’s not like her father, mother, uncles, or aunts, even though he’s always present at family gatherings. Gholam films these everyday scenes with his own camera.

At the time, Pegah can’t imagine what the purpose of these films might be, but she’s happy to pose before the lens of this family friend, who she’s certainly very fond of. It is as if Pegah, the film’s director and chief protagonist, is reading from a children’s book; as if we are looking over her shoulder at Gholam’s films of the family and the old photos.

The large family radiates great warmth as we see them shoveling snow or just sitting around at home. But then comes the chapter about Gholam and the Iranian revolution, heralding a plot twist in the story that comes to symbolize thousands of Pegahs and Gholams inside and outside Iran.

„Cheating Is Good for You”
reż. Catarina Diehl / 2021 / Finland / 11 min
cinematography: Tommi Seitajoki
producer: Tommi Seitajoki / Impressio Films
selected festivals and awards: 2021 – Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival

This intimate film combining photography and animated drawing puts on screen the confessions of a middle-class woman, whose family life – with the always absent truck driver husband and children growing more and more distant – consists of moments of solitude. She attempts to overcome them via an extramarital affair. The leading role is played by the famous Finnish actress Kati Outinen, known from Aki Kaurismäki movies. 

„Tapes – Tell Me Everything”
dir. Smilla Khonsari / 2021 / Denmark / 16 min
cinematography: Shila Sloth
producer: Smilla Khonsari
selected festivals and awards: 2021 – CPH:DOX

Smilla’s mother died when Smilla was little. Her father took care of her with love and affection.

Today, she returns to the tragic loss to understand who her mother was and how her father experienced being abandoned by her. Old video and audio recordings from the 1990s bring back shared memories and strengthen the bond between father and daughter in a moving but warm and funny film about an exceptional relationship. Her father’s story of how he met Smilla’s mother is almost an entire film in itself, told with a twinkle in the eye by an incredibly likeable man.