Two more traditional programs will be presented at the 18th Pacific Meridian International Film Festival of Asian Pacific Countries which will be held in Vladivostok from October 10 to October 16.
Moving Forward program will include films with an experimental approach to filmmaking and film production.
The topic of In Focus: Solitude. No Need to Save Anyone program was inspired by the pandemic around the world and life in isolation.
Program:
As Above, So Below, Director: Sarah Francis (Lebanon)
People wander over a field at the foot of a mountain range. Here and there, swings have been set up, and the people queue up to sit on them for a few rounds. The director returns to this scene again and again. In between, we follow a creation story from the beginnings of humanity to the establishment of religion, culminating in digital clouds that weave together facts and myths surrounding the moon, which is shaped by the same discourses of power, ownership, territory and nationality that determine life on earth.
Sibelius Continuum, Director: Aarni Vaarnamo (Finland)
Aino, a pilot intern in her small plane, is assigned on a mission to locate a mysterious lost space probe that has fallen down to earth near the arctic circle. Events make an absurd, surreal, maybe a dadaist turn after which to reach her objectives, Aino and her peers are obliged to search for the answer to the mysteries of the modern human condition. Thus follows a satirical, antimodernist continuum of monologues, mixed media footage and introductions of modern subjectivity.
The Year of the Discovery, Director: Luis López Carrasco (Spain)
In 1992 in Spain the Barcelona Olympic Games and the Seville Universal Exposition were held, linked to the celebration of the 5th Centenary of the Discovery of America. Spain is presented to the international community as a modern, developed and dynamic country. Meanwhile in Cartagena, the protests caused by the industrial crisis became increasingly violent and would result in a mass uprising.
Labyrinth of Cinema, Director: Nobuhiko Obayashi (Japan)
The Setouchi Kinema movie theater is about to close its doors. Its last night of existence is an all-night marathon screening of Japanese war films. When lightning strikes the theater, three young men in the audience find themselves thrown back in time into the world inside the screen. The trio are thrust into the Boshin War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Battle of Okinawa and then finally Hiroshima on the eve of the atomic bombing. There, they meet the traveling theater troupe “Sakura-tai”. But can they alter the course of destiny to save the troupe?
«IN FOCUS: SOLITUDE. NO NEED TO SAVE ANYONE» — the theme of the film program is inspired by a pandemic around the world and life in isolation.
A Shape of Things to Come, Director: J.P. Sniadecki, Lisa Malloy (USA)
A SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME is a borderlands Western that follows Sundog, an herbalist and hunter who lives off the land in the Sonoran Desert. As Border Patrol encroaches on his relative freedom, he becomes increasingly unnerved and ventures beyond the bounds of his survivalism. The figure of Sundog raises provocative questions about humanity’s relation to the environment — and to itself — amidst the specter of global collapse.
Själö, Island of Souls, Director: Lotta Petronella (Finland)
For centuries, a closed institution at Själö, an isolated island in the Baltic Sea, served as a final destination for socially transgressive women. They were kept there in detention, to be observed, studied and measured — in much the same way as the surrounding nature is by scientists at the now converted research center. While a young scientist is collecting samples around the island, the past emerges in the whispers of the unsent letters and empty rooms. Whose stories are remembered and whose are forgotten?
143 Sahara Street, Director: Hassen Ferhani (Algeria, France, Qatar)
In the heart of the Algerian Sahara, in a small shop, a woman writes her History. She welcomes, for a cigarette, a coffee or eggs, truckers, wandering beings and dreams… Her name is Malika.
Salka in the No Man’s Land: Xavi Herrero (Spain)
Salka is a young Mauritanian who decides to migrate to Europe for a better future. Disguised as a boy, she will have to cross the entire Sahara Desert on the world’s longest train journey to reach the Atlantic coast. This 700 km route borders the so-called “No Man’s Land”, the troubled border between Mauritania and Western Sahara, with Morocco constantly invading the area. Director Xavi Herrero, who has become the first westerner to make the return journey on the Sahara train, becomes a silent witness to Salka’s journey.
Sòne: : Daniel Kemeny (Switzerland)
Forty years ago, 2000 people lived there, today Pietrapaola, in Calabria, is home to 200 people. Daniel Kemény returns to the place of his childhood twenty years later. In search of lost time, the filmmaker collects musical accounts, brings together their protagonists and gives these memories a new life, thus playing the generous transmitter who helps keep alive the oral history of a world whose popular traditions are dying off.