European Competition'20

 

The selection of films for this year’s European Competition was exceptionally difficult, as we have received a numerous amazing submission. All in all, we have chosen 23 films from 13 countries. The production stage of all films we will present was concluded in 2018-2019. As always in the main competition, although the films had been shot all around the world, there were European artists involved in the production. Just like every year, the topics vary a lot, from issues of the highest importance to professional entertainment. Many of the presented pictures are special, often crossing the boundaries of documentary classics. As is tradition, the screenings will be followed by discussions with the authors of the competing films. We find this very important, as the direct meeting of the viewer and the author is always a particularly inspiring experience. This year’s competition includes seven films from Poland, three Spanish films, two productions from France and from Germany, and one film for Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary, Norway, Serbia, Great Britain and Sweden. There are also co-productions with the participation of the United States.

 

EVENT ONLINE: https://www.facebook.com/SzczecinFilmFestival/live

FILM:  http://www.szczecinfilmfestival.com/en/880/seff_online


Past events


Filmy poprzednich edycji

  • Blue Eyes and Colorful My Dress54'

    Full of curiosity and self-confidence, three- year-old Zhana explores her surroundings over the course of several summer days. Making discoveries as she bravely goes on her small adventures, she skips through puddles, gets to know some cats and a dog, and freely interprets the games of the older children. Zhana’s own little magic world is on the playgrounds and small peaceful streets and squares of a Bulgarian housing estate where time seems to have stood still. Told intimately through the child ‘s-eye view, this documentary accompanies its curious little protagonist through her everyday life and creates a portrait of poetic simplicity.

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  • Broken head / Zepsuta głowa42'

    Andrzej has serious problems with drugs. He is locked in prison, at special unit for old offenders. In order to fight for relationship with his girlfriend, he decides to start therapy. During this journey, he discovers his own emotions, and realizes, existence of the different layers of his own internal life. A fight for a girlfriend, becomes also fight for himself. Will he succeed in this struggle?

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  • Chrishna Ombwiri12'

    Chrishna became a woman again. As the water goes by, she remembers and tells us. The spirits of the river are keeping a watchful eye…

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  • Dark Matter19'

    A trace of regularly ordered mounds of earth. In the twilight a dump truck is being loaded. A thick veil of mist hangs over the tops of the trees. Dark earth is excavated, loaded and transported off the scenery. In “Dark Matter” (2020), via the situative arrangement of different picture elements a visual friction surface is created, which is shaped by the figurations of a post-apocalyptic landscape. The images are determined by the processes of extracting raw materials. Without the mineral resources from the numerous diamond and gold mines in the so-called Russian Federation subject Yakutia, the Soviet Union would never have been able to exist until the 1990s.

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  • Hell / El Infierno23'

    Chennu committed his first crime when he was 15 years old: being a street child. And he entered hell: Pademba Road. In Freetown Adult Jail, ran by Mr. Sillah, the prisoners abandon all hope. Chennu got out after 4 years. Now he wants to go back to Pademba.

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  • How to Disappear20'

    “How to Disappear” is an anti-war movie in the true sense of the word, searching for possibilities for peace in the most unlikely place of an online war game. It’s a tribute to disobedience and desertion - in both digital and physical-real warfare. Shot in the picturesque war landscapes of “Battlefield V,” the hyperreal graphics become the backdrop for an essay-like narrative. The film revolves around the history of deserters - a part of human history, which has hardly been illuminated. Performances and creative interventions explore the scopes and limits of the audiovisual entertainment machine.

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  • I Am You Are / Ja jestem ty jesteś30'

    “I Am You Are” is a lyrical portrait of a moment in time. It depicts a few lazy summer days in the long-term friendship between Natalia, a filmmaker and author of this picture in her 20’s, and Andrzej, a painter in his 60's, as they unravel their experiences with death and memory. Is it possible to reconcile with death?

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  • I Wait / Espero16'

    Is already 40 years since the Saharawi population became refugee in Algeria because of the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara. While the POLISARIO government tries out to solve the conflict with institutional help, Saharawi youngsters advocate for the option of an armed conflict. While they wait, cinema will be their only weapon.

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  • In the Company of Insects10'

    Prompted by the death of his grandfather, a filmmaker comes to terms with his feelings of loss by focusing on something smaller.

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  • Karla and Nordahl20'

    Karla is 6 years old and has a big brother named Nordahl.  Why does she consider him both as a big and a little brother?  We get an insight into Karla`s world and how she deals with having a big brother with learning difficulties. The director followed her own children through a winter showing the everyday life, including both demanding situations and heartfelt love.

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  • Kostya Proletarsky / Костя Пролетарский30'

    The animated documentary movie is based on a true story of Kostya Proletarsky, a drug user and HIV activist who died as a result of mistreatment and torture at a Russian prison. The animation featuring the original audio interview with Kostya and his mother Irina, aims to commemorate Kostya and many others who had not survived prisons around the world.

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  • Let Go / De berde2'

    A story about people of flesh and blood, torn apart by illusions named border, nations and race.

     

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  • Minor Accident of War10'

    “Minor Accident of War" is based on a true story written and narrated by the man who lived it – Edward Field, 95-year-old WWll veteran. In 1945, at 20 years old, Field was the navigator in the 8th Air Force during the war. On his 3rd mission over Germany, his plane lost all four engines after being hit by flak and crash landed in the North Sea. Hanging on to one of the two rafts in the freezing cold water, a decision was made that to this day has affected Field.

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  • My Country So Beautiful / Mój kraj, taki piękny30'

    A documentary portrait of Poland, in which we see a clash of two forces representing completely different worldviews. The left-wing vision of the country against the homogeneous Poland built by the extreme right. Among these ideologies there are people who fight in the name of their own values and principles. There is one main disagreement – nationalism.

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  • Navras15'

    Experimental documentary about memory, exploring the vision of life and death in Asia.

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  • Opus magnum35'

    I found the autobiography of my great-uncle Waclaw at my parents’ attic. He wrote about a secret underground organization he started in Lodz City during WWII. Nobody in the family knows much about his mysterious life, and what they do know clashes with the image of the man emerging from the pages of the book. I decide to stage a one man show to present Waclaw’s incredible past to the family. But then my horrible memory puts the project in jeopardy.

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  • Outside the oranges are blooming / Lá Fora As Laranjas Estão A Nascer20'

    A misty mountain range. A few mistrustful looks and a disquiet of an absolute silence. Holy chants echoing from the church while a man endures alone between the walls of his dark house. He wanders through the splendid nature, bewailing on his condition as a man doomed to serve the surroundings he has rejected.

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  • Passengers71'

    Sometimes people want to go somewhere else, where things are different and better. Poor area in north western Bulgaria by the Danube river. On an abandoned ship friends are having a birthday party. A homeless man who lives in the river station is the captain. Everyone is speaking about imaginary trip to Norway. They talk about the future and the past, their everyday hardships and dreams, speculate on reincarnation, love, cows, horses, Michelangelo, Prometheus, peacocks, the stratosphere, the universe, God and life in general. This is a portrait of ordinary people who are also extraordinary daydreamers. It is a visual and poetic account of the state of affairs in the “other world” of the characters in which they live their better and happier lives.

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  • Something BEAUTIFUL from Mother Teresa / Coś PIĘKNEGO od Matki Teresy 11'

    Does God exist? Trying to understand the genesis of evil, in an autobiographical documentary film the maker faces his weaknesses and traumas from childhood.

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  • The American / L’américaine25'

    Emilienne could have been my grandmother if she hadn’t had a taste for travelling. In her home village in the heart of the Jura Mountains, she remembers the years she spent in New York. I discover scraps of her unsuspected life there in the super8 films that she has entrusted to me. Yet something else captures my attention…

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  • The CoRaven (with apologies to Edgar Allan Poe)2'

    Locked in the loneliness of self-isolation, our Poe-tagonist receives a dark visitor.

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  • Under the Sky / Pod niebem13'

    An old man in a twilight of his life longs for his greatest passion – flying. He does not remember people or events from the past anymore, but his feelings remain the same when he looks up at the sky. The former ace, now all that he has left are memories.

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  • Waste No.4 NEW YORK, NEW YORK20'

    New York revisits the history of the City in twenty minutes through twelve cemeteries and one landfill. The short documentary is the fourth, independent episode from the ten-part Waste series.  

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