Every year, some 60 works are screened in the world’s oldest short film competition, selected from around 4,000 entries. This programme showcases some of the best and most interesting works from the 2016 International Competition.
One of the filmmakers represented, Lav Diaz, is regularly celebrated these days for works lasting up to eight hours. In the film featured here, though, he needs less than 17 minutes to expose the brutality and absurdities of everyday life in the Philippines – with the help of Shakespeare. Elegance gives us a glimpse of the parallel world of the Finnish upper class. The rigid and stylish rituals of the pheasant and partridge hunt are portrayed in refined and elegant images. George Barber by contrast launches a Russian nuclear-powered submarine whose captain transmits love messages into space while devoting himself to shamanist drumming. When Earth calls, the answer must come swiftly.
Films screening as part of this package are:
The day before the end
(Ang araw bago ang wakas)
Dir Lav Diaz/PH 2015/17 mins/Various wEng ST
Malevolent Mountains
Dir Helen Michael/GB 2015/4 mins
Elegance
(Eleganssi)
Dir Virpi Suutari/FI 2015/26 mins/Finnish wEng ST
Akula Dream
Dir George Barber/GB 2015/26 mins
Pussy
(Cipka)
Dir Renata Gąsiorowska/PL 2015/9 mins/No dialogue