7th Chennai Film Festival 2019 : International films

7th Chennai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2019

International Films

1) Nimble Fingers (Dir: Parsifal Reparato; 52 min; Vietnam / Italy)

The film brings out the living and working conditions of migrant women from the rural districts of Vietnam, in Hanoi working at one of the biggest industrial production sites in the world, through their eyes, dreams and fear, and also by their drawings that become animations.

2) Second Income (Dir: Gal Kedem; 54 min; Israel)

M, a 40-year-old divorcee and a mother of a 9-year-old girl, works by day as a sales manager while at night she chooses to supplement her income through sexual encounters with men in order to make it through the month.

We accompany her for a year as she ponders about her life and face an important decision. At a time when women's rights in general and sexual harassment, in particular, are on the international agenda every week, this film is more relevant than ever.

3) Bakurov (Dir: Yuliya Kiseloyova; 55 min; Russia)

He went through the war from Leningrad to Germany. He was awarded two medals of valor and the Order of The Patriotic War of the 2-nd Class. Vladimir lives in a small village of the Irkutsk region. Sometimes he goes to the city to his son, grandson and great-grandchildren by the train. But sometimes there are the moments of silence to sit and remember all the living and the dead. And the more silence, the more the memories, the ghosts of war.

4) Madman's Conspiracy (Dir:Algis Arlauskas; 50 min; Spain)

He wants to build a theatre with his own hands using no machine in a far-away village in Spain. His family, friends and well-wishers believe him. He achieves it finally and has a grant inauguration too.

5) Humans Display (Dir: Lam Can-Zhao; 59 min; China)

There are many animals in the zoo, most of them are human. This documentary pointing camera at humans in the zoo, tries to re-examine the relationship between human and other animals from a new perspective

Contemporary German Films : presented by Goethe-Institute, Chennai

1) Happy

(Dir: Carolin Genreith, colour, 85 min., 2017)

Since separating from his wife, Dieter Genreith has escaped his loneliness once a year by going from the Eifel to Thailand. There, he got to know Tukta, who is about the same age as his own daughter, Carolin. Carolin has serious problems with the relationship: What differentiates her over-60-year-old father from the countless German sex tourists? In an attempt to understand her father, his longings and his fears, she has made a very personal documentary in which both sides are open, honest and tolerant enough to learn from each other. In Thailand, Carolin ends up as her father's maid of honor – whether the marriage can survive all the existing differences and preconditions remains to be seen.

2) Mein Wunderbares West-berlin

(My Wonderful West Berlin)

Dir: Jochen Hick, colour and b/w, 98 min., 2016/17

Germany's infamous Paragraph 175, which had made sexual acts between men a criminal offence since 1872, was only officially repealed in 1994. However, since the 1960s - with West Berlin being the only place were men could at least dance with other men - there had been public locales there, which became a refuge for young gay men from the Federal Republic. Using hitherto unpublished and often provocative archive material, and with support from many contemporary witnesses, Jochen Hick in this documentary film is researching the historical development of the gay scene from its antecedents until today.

3) Friedland

Dir: Frauke Sandig, colour, 85 min., 2015

Friedland is an idyllic town in Lower Saxony. Its claim to fame goes back to 1945, when the British military occupation administration established a camp for internally displaced persons and war returnees here. It has welcomed people ever since, from Hungary, Chile, Vietnam and the former east German GDR. Today it is a reception camp for asylum seekers mainly from Syria, Eritrea und Afghanistan. Documentarist Frauke Sandig lets former German inmates narrate their experiences of fleeing and of life in the immediate post-War era, and she confronts their memories with the experiences of today's refugees. The result is a moving document of hardship, hope and humanity.

4) Geheimsache Ghettofilm

(A Film Unfinished)

Dir: Yael Hersonski, colour and b/w, 89 min., 2010

Secretly filmed extracts from the Warsaw ghettos are critically revisited by witnesses from the era.

During the month of May in 1942, a few weeks before deportations to the extermination camp Treblinka began, secret films were ordered to be shot in the ghettos of Warsaw, on the orders of the SS. The barely touched original footage survived the war, to then emerge from the film archives of the GDR. Up to now, the material has provided detailed insight into the everyday life of the ghettos. The images show the gatherings of the Jewish security services set up by the SS, the work of the Jewish Ghetto Police, the kosher butchering of a hen, death on the streets and burials in mass graves. The filmmaker Yael Hersonski, granddaughter of a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto, sets the 60-minute long, silent, black and white images in the context of comments from witnesses of the era.

5) Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht

(If I Think of Germany at Night)

Dir: Romuald Karmakar, colour, 105 min., 2015-17

Impressions and reflections of a music scene that is probably only truly familiar to insiders, but which nevertheless enjoys international regard: German techno music. Karmakar observes and interviews five prominent DJs: Ricardo Villalobos, Sonja Moonear, Ata, Roman Flügel and David Moufang. The focus is on the fluid evolution of former "disc jockeys" into sovereign, experimental musicians whose activities keep them moving between seemingly makeshift studios full of barely recognisable electronic equipment and glamorous gigs at diverse clubs.