12th Chennai Int Doc & Short Film Festival 2023 : International Documentaries - Non Competition

12th Chennai International Documentary and 

Short Film Festival 2024

20-29 February; multiple venues, Chennai

 International Documentaries : Non Competition 

Finding Enok, Coping with Our Colonial Past
Dir: Dorna Xandre van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal; 01:06:10; Netherlands; Documentary; Non Competition 

In 1911 in the Dutch Indies, Emile van Rouveroy, a young Dutch planter, fathered a daughter with his housekeeper Enok, a local Sundanese girl of 15 years old. He legitimized her and raised Nelly, as she was called, in his (white) family. Nelly and her mother never saw each other again.110 years later, 2 of his grandchildren, Dorna van Rouveroy and Maurice Boyer, are looking for traces of Enok, her fellow sufferers and descendants.

Sospesi
Dir: Martina Dall & Ara; 01:29:33; Italy; Documentary; Non Competition

IN SUSPENSE is a collection of faces, voices and stories from 50 countries around the world. Through the director’s extensive research and sociological lens, one hundred different experiences of Italians living in foreign lands reveal the perceptions and states of mind of an unexpected quarantine spent between uncertainty and hope for the future. This window to the world aims to piece together the most important and overwhelming phenomenon of 2020.

Moments with Mujica
Dir: Ken McMullen; 47:00; United Kingdom; Documentary; Non Competition

A documentary interview with former president of Uruguay Jose & Mujica in which he discusses art, literature, philosophy and the global challenges that face humanity.

LANDEN
Dir: Vanessa Nica Mueller; 01:04:30; Germany; Documentary; Non Competition

An essay about Lebanon (mainly) and Germany (also), about coastlines and plants like the marsh samphire, the milk thistle, the angel trumpet or the crimson bottlebrush. About adaptation and transformation as well as resistance, about changes desired and dreaded, the city of Beirut and its unexpected revelations, modernism and time passing by, and, of course, the hopes and fears of its inhabitants, many of whom sense that their future might wait for them across the sea, even if they don’t want to leave.

Anna is angry and Buddha laughs
Dir: Lian Ram; 11:00; Israel; Documentary; Non Competition

Anna is torn between the well-being that the Buddha gives her during meditation and her anger at the violence that is rampant in society, she sets out to see if she can let go of the anger

Time of Seeds
Dir: Suan Seol; 01:41:00; Korea, Republic of; Documentary; Non Competition

The Two farmers, Yoon Gyusang and Jang Gui-deok, have been Two farmers, Yoon Gyusang and Jang Gui-deok, have been saving and planting their own seeds for decades. They have been working on the same things every year according to the natural and physical time flow. Their surroundings change and their ordinary labor for lives became special. There are people who look for the seeds preserved by their special labors. The cycle, in the end, doesn't end that easily.

Meteorite Hunter
Dir: Natalia Anisimova; 01:01:00; Russian Federation; Documentary; Non Competition

Meteorites are the oldest unchanging substance, that a person living on Earth can hold in his hands. Almost all meteorites are the same age as the Solar System. They are about 4,6 billion years old. More ancient particles, pre-solar matter, can often be found in some meteorites. However, there are also younger meteorites, primarily dislodged from Mars, where the processes of rock formation ended not so long ago by astronomical standards.

Mentawai - Souls of the Forest
Dir: Joo Peter; 01:15:00; Indonesia; Documentary; Non Competition

The last indigenous people of Mentawai, a small archipelago south-west of Sumatra, are fighting with creative resistance to preserve their ancient culture and rainforest.A culture on the verge of extinction - with the latest geopolitical developments, the destruction of their habitat reaches the point of no return. Smashing the hopes of thirty years democratization in Indonesia, Jakarta in relapse to authoritarian rule is enforcing deforestation in Mentawai.

Quest for a home
Dir: Moksh Krishnan; 16:30; United States; Documentary; Non Competition

This documentary directed by Moksh Krishnan observes the life of an exiled Kashmiri cartoonist, as he navigates his new life in New York, grappling with the loss of his homeland. The story delves into the complex themes of exile, diaspora, freedom, and the search for identity.

JAZZ MY HOME
Dir: BERAAT GOKKUS; 01:39:22; France; Documentary; Non Competition

AFRICA, CRADLE OF HUMANKIND AND MODERN CIVILISATIONS
Dir: Benita Jacques; 01:49:06; Canada; Documentary; Non Competition

For a long time, Benita Jacques has always had questions about her origins to which she never got any answers from her parents. Today, the young mother from Montreal wants to bring answers to her children who ask her the same questions that she herself could not have. So, she decided to leave for Africa, in search of her origins. 

Ice love
Dir: Katy Araiza; 16:15; Mexico; Documentary; Non Competition

Ten years after her last use, Katy investigates her memories through the photographic archive, creating a self-exploration journey with which she reflects on her addictive relationship with pain, love and drugs. From the distance that only time provides, she revisits the endless parties, the immediate joy, the deepest fall and her recovery, along with other two women who, like her, lived the “Ice love”.

The illusion of abundance
Dir: Erika Gonzalez Ramirez, Matthieu Lietaert; 60:25; Belgium; Documentary; Non Competition

Despite a deeply unbalanced game, Maxima, Bertha and Carolina share a common goal: they are leading today';s environmental fight against modern corporate conquistadors. Whereas governments and corporations are trapped in a global race to get the cheapest raw materials, these three women tell us a story of tireless courage: how to keep fighting to protect nature when your life is at risk? When police repression, corporate harassment, injuries or even death threats are part of your daily routine? 

If Not Now
Dir: Jill Daniels; 15:00; United Kingdom; Documentary; Non Competition

If Not Now is a documentary essay film addressed to my Jewish great-great grandmother, Rebecca, who lived and died in Brick Lane in London’s East End. Her death haunts my memories. Brick Lane has been home to successive immigrant communities, Huguenot weavers, Jews, Bengalis; today it is semi-gentrified with hipster clothes shops, street food, beigel bakeries, Indian restaurants and sari shops. 

Things Will Be Different
Dir: Lucie McMahon; 50:00; Australia; Documentary; Non Competition

Things Will Be Different documents two neighbours’ experiences of displacement as they are forced to relocate from the Walker Street public housing estate in Northcote, Melbourne when it is sold for private redevelopment. The film explores the impact of losing one’s home and the important role public housing plays in our communities. The film is made by local filmmakers Celeste De Clario Davis and Lucie McMahon.

A Letter To Lanka
Dir: Ilakkiya Mariya Simon; 28:00; Norway; Documentry; Non Competition

A Letter To Lanka moves between memories of the civil war to the present political turmoil. Told through a poetic and personal journey of the filmmaker`s reconnection to land, soil and people, it invites the audiences into existential questions of belonging in a chaotic world.  What does it mean to be at home in the world? What binds people together, and what can break them apart?

Piblokto
Dir: Anastasia Shubina, Timofey Glinin; 37:49; Russian Federation; Documentary; Non Competition

On the Arctic Ocean coast of Chukotka live a people cut off from the world. Their life revolves around hunting walruses and whales and protecting villages from bears coming from the tundra. This theme turns the film into a reflection on death. 

Complete Portrait Wanted of Markéta Ledererová
Dir: Joshua Richard van ’t Hoff; 50:00; Netherlands; Documentary; Non Competition

A quest through the unknown history of a Czechoslovak-Jewish refugee. Markéta Ledererová (1915-1987) fled from the expanding Nazism in Czechoslovakia in 1939 and settled in the Netherlands, where she started a family during World War II; her escape story and unknown Jewish origins prompted a daughter and two granddaughters to embark on an investigative quest spanning the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic and Israel decades after her passing.

Face Cover
Dir: Ashfaque Mohamed; 01:10:00; Sri Lanka; Documentary; Non Competition

Taking the cataclysmic Easter Sunday Bombings of Churches and Hotels in April 2019 by ISIS inspired Islamists in Sri Lanka as the point of departure, the film follows the life of Asifa in Kattankdy, in Eastern Sri Lanka, as she navigates the complex social forces shaping her and other women's stories. The film tells the story of the town, as a woman's tale.

Auto, Auto, Auto
Dir: David Helfer Wells; 5:55; United States; Documentary; Non Competition

An experimental film looking at the Auto (auto-rickshaw) one of the most recognizable icons of modern India. In a densely populated country with lower rates of car ownership, the sputtering motorized three-wheeler found all across India, is the backbone of transit for millions. 

THE SAVIOURESS THE MYSTERY OF A BUDDHIST ICON
Dir: Anna Koryakovtseva; 40:00; Russian Federation; Documentary; Non Competition

Tara means savior from Sanskrit, and thangka means icon. One of the main relics of the Stavropol State Museum-Reserve is the icon of the Indian deity Green Tara. At the end of the thirties of the last century, this icon disappeared. It seemed like forever. But then she was miraculously found. The film tells about why the thangka of the Green Tara is one of the most revered in Buddhist iconography.

The Guardians
Dir: Kira &Boyle; 6:00; United States; Documentary; Non Competition

Two brothers in Mexico work to conserve the ancient Maya practice of raising stingless bees.

The Taste of Mango
Dir: Chloe Abrahams; 01:15:00; United Kingdom; Documentary; Non Competition

In this hypnotically cinematic love letter flowing through time and generations, director Chloe Abrahams probes raw questions her mother and grandmother have long brushed aside, tenderly untangling painful knots in her family’s unspoken past.

Blue crab (and a wooden camera)
Dir: Daniel Martínz-Quintanilla Pérez; 20:00; Peru; Documentary; Non Competition

This is an unfinished documentary, a reverse account of a story that was abruptly interrupted by the corrupt police of one of the most authoritarian regimes in South America.

Homesick Lungs
Dir: Felix Klee; 14:39; Germany; Documentary; Non Competition

You can't bring back a dead horse, but there are ways to step into a place that was lost. "Homesick Lungs'is an experimental farewell. The film delves into the lungs of Sheila, the dying horse, and the history of a sold family farm. 3D animations, screen recordings and documentary footage combine to form an essay on reconstructed memory. In the end, the wind brushes through virtual nettles.

Fucking Paradise
Dir: Shahar Shabtay; 23:57; Israel; Documentary; Non Competition

When Covid hits worldwide, Carmel is stuck on the cruise ship where she works, in the middle of the ocean, without a clue about when she’ll be able to return home.

The Bus Savior
Dir: Fanny Ben David; 15:13; Israel; Documentary; Non Competition

Amit Shahar collects old buses. He grew up in Hatzeva and when his parents divorced, he left with his mother. As a child, he traveled by bus to visit his father. Collecting buses symbolize a complex, magical period that shaped him to be the man he is today.

Sew to Say
Dir: Rakel Aguirre; 01:09:00; United Kingdom; Documentary; Non Competition

42 years ago, in the summer of 1981, a group of 36 women left their homes and marched from Cardiff, the capital of Wales, to Greenham Common near London to protest against the American Cruise missiles that were going to be deployed in the UK as part of the Cold War response.

In Plain Sight
Dir: Ruvin De Silva; 30:00; Sri Lanka; Documentary; Non Competition

‘In Plain Sight’ is a glimpse into Sri Lanka’s complicated socio-political history that led to strategic disappearances and the existence of mass graves in the country. The documentary features seven mass grave locations and focuses on the different oral histories and narratives that have been affected by these sites: from families and loved ones, to activists, researchers, actual histories, and unanswered questions that continue to haunt Sri Lanka’s past, present, and future.

PARALLELS
Dir: Benoit; 01:05:00; France; Documentary; Non Competition

A wandering documentary. Images, lives and words in voiceover. Artists, workers, political prisoners, migrants, farmers, women and men wonder what they are doing with their lives. Ask, contemplate. Facing the animal world, the power of nature. Dream. Seek balance.

Mekong Apocalypse
Dir: Michael Buckley; 55:35; Canada; Documentary; Non Competition

The Mekong River is the most productive in the world in terms of fish catch and supply of nutrient-rich sediment. It is the most important river in Asia. But all that is rapidly changing. This is a satirical personal take on ecosystem collapse along the mighty Mekong, with the biggest threat being Chinese megadams in Yunnan, SW China.  The filmmaker shot this on the run, getting undercover footage of megadams and illegal sand-dredging. Drawing inspiration from water puppetry theatre in Vietnam, this film features characters like a talking glacier in Tibet, waltzing fish in Laos, and a talking sunflower in Vietnam to get complex concepts across.

Drifting
Dir: Somnur Vardar; 01:07:00; Turkey; Documentary; Non Competition

Covered in dust, a city by the sea loses its identity and memories while drifting apart from sea and sky. The notable daytime “silhouettes” on construction sites become real characters at night with their longing for home, anxieties for unclear future and their young burned-out bodies. While watching the dramatic changes in urban texture, we meet two young Kurdish cousins working in constructions, just like their fathers and grandfathers did for decades. Ferhat is a teacher, waiting to be assigned while working in constructions. His cousin Emrah plans going to university also to become a teacher. They both dream of a different life, wanting to break the vicious cycle of construction work.

Without Stratos
Dir: NIKOS KATSOS; 5:01; Greece; Short Fiction; Non Competition

...a while ago they lived together... now it's different...