If you’re looking to binge on a curated selection of new short films from around the world, look out for the 2nd edition of the Long Distance Film Festival next week. It will be streaming a diverse mix of shorts from May 28th to May 31st ranging from Sundance-award wingers such as Bambirak and The Touch of The Master’s Hand to a one minute long iPhone film of a seagull eating a chicken wing. From the early peek we got of the festival’s ‘Future’ segment (streaming May 31st) we can definitely confirm that you’ll get an eclectic mix of shorts. It’s like a film fan’s lucky dip. Plus, the best part of the festival is that it’s all free to watch from wherever you are in the world. All you have to do is tune in to the stream at the right time.
We’ll be watching and reporting on the event. From the early previews we saw, we recommend looking out for Raspberry and Shadows in a Landscape from the Future segment and the Intimate Views special presentation. Raspberry has one of the most memorably comedic undertaker scenes in cinema, Shadows in a Landscape’s storytelling in the British midlands feels incredibly ghostly, whilst Intimate Views captures what feels like a dystopian vacation service. Just go into the screenings with an open mind as, sticking to it’s roots in supporting art and media made under quarantine’s limitations, the Long Distance Film Festival’s 2nd edition continues to support personal films made with smaller budgets and crews.
Ahead of the launch, please find more information on the films and when to watch them on the Long Distance Film Festival’s website linked above. We’ll check back in after the festival with an overview of what we saw.
In the city of Zinder, Niger, in the heart of the Sahel, young people form gangs to deal with the lack of work and prospects. These groups called “Palais” come from the Kara Kara district, historically home to lepers and outcasts. Zinder-born director and activist Aicha Macky returns to her hometown to tell the story of this disenfranchised youth. She talks with these men, whose bodies and the territory in which they live are scarred by the violence that has passed through them – a pervasive violence – the roots of which go back to the time of colonisation.
Zinder focuses on Siniya Boy, a member of the “Palais Hitler”, who wants to set up a security company with his fellow bodybuilders; and Bawa, a former Palais leader who turned taxi driver, haunted by memories of the atrocities committed. They live off black market petrol, smuggled from the Nigerian border.
The first scene is intended to shock the western viewer. It’s not everyday you see black men flying Hitler’s name surrounded by swastikas. That’s exactly what the “Palais Hitler” gang does, however not for the reasons we’d expect. They ‘heard he was an invincible warrior from America,’ which if it were true would make him a pretty good choice for weightlifting gang’s mascot. The director doesn’t correct them on their oversight. Just as viewers from outside of Africa probably don’t know much about Niger, it’s weirdly refreshing to find out that these Nigeriens don’t know much about U.S/European history and aren’t stuck on the U.S./European news cycle.
They’re definitely not perfect people. The taxi driver recounts his memories along the lines of the Indonesian genocide perpetrators in The Look of Silence. He speaks of the terrible crimes he committed and the young girls he and his gang raped. However, they’re also portrayed reformatively in the present. In this sense, the characters are a bit more like the life imprisoned inmates in The Prison Within. We see them for the crimes they committed as well as the reformed person they are now. By entering their feared neighborhood and giving them space to talk, Aicha Macky humanizes them.
In the present, they’re still being imprisoned, but imprisoned for their identity: both their past life and where they come from. They’re labeled as criminals because they’re from the Kara Kara neighborhood. The scars they carry from their previous lives only help the police and others to mark them. They inhibit their ability to get medical treatment, move across the city in taxis, and find work. Just because they were born in a rough neighborhood.
The personal tone of the documentary shows the failure of society to recognize them as anything but criminals. Their fierce reputation conflicts with how the director portrays them. Through the unrestricted access to their stories, we see that they’re just regular people forming ‘gangs’ for community and friendship. They seem warm and eager to talk and tell their story. We don’t see any fights or violence on screen, just many close up scars from the past. The only current proof of crime are the palais members currently in jail, but even this is up for debate as they argue they’ve been rounded up for past crimes.
Aicha Macky’s Zinder is an intimate tribute to the youth of her country. It offers a hopeful portrayal of those marked by the neighborhood they were born into.
In Simshar, 11 year old Theo’s first trip with his Maltese fisherman family goes terribly wrong when the ship sinks far from land in the Mediterranean Sea. Meanwhile, Alex a medic on a Turkish merchant vessel that rescues a group of migrants in trouble gets stuck on the ship as the surrounding countries wage a bureaucratic war over who should take them in.
There’s plenty going on in Simshar. Perhaps too much. Instead of focusing on the Simshar incident or the migrant crisis, it tries to connect both in two separate stories. However, their connection never feels strong enough to make Simshar a compelling melodrama or political drama.
Instead of being a movie that examines the migrant crisis through the Simshar incident, this movie is a dramatized depiction of the Simshar incident featuring another narrative tied to the migrant crisis. Whilst they both are related to the sea and Malta, the director doesn’t nearly do enough to tie the two stories. It feels like the migrant crisis pieces are included to make the film more relevant to the political climate in which it was made.
Even the dates of the film feel off. Whilst the Simshar incident happened in 2008, the migrant crisis didn’t fully explode until slightly later in the 21st century. This is not to say that there weren’t African migrants traversing the Mediterranean in 2008 – there were – but it was not nearly as well covered in European news in 2008 as in 2014 when this film was made. Making this movie about an international immigration crisis, and not just about a fishing tragedy, probably made Simshar a lot more marketable on the film festival circuit than if it just focused on the fishing tragedy.
However, if you’re into Mediterranean melodrama, the Simshar incident narrative might appeal to you. It’s sepia tinted scenes backed by a slightly whimsical accordion soundtrack evokes a romanticized depiction of Maltese life. It almost feels a bit nostalgic too, as if it’s looking fondly back on a time in Malta before the migrant crisis and foreign rules (fishing restrictions) threatened it. The no-nonsense Maltese family that clings onto their way of life despite national and international fishing restrictions runs against the change caused by the migrant crisis.
The romanticized portrayal of Maltese life feels slightly problematic in contrast with the underdeveloped migrant characters in the migrant crisis narrative. The Maltese characters are given screen time to build their characters through dialogue and actions, whereas the migrants are only spoken to. It means that viewers naturally sympathize with the traditional Maltese people and not the migrants as they’re actually humanized on screen. This is most evident in a scene in which one black migrant shouts “you don’t know what we’ve been through” to white Maltese hecklers. We, like the Maltese characters don’t know what they’ve been through, and unfortunately the film never tries to answer this either. As a result, Simshar’s attempt to cover the migrant crisis, whilst also dramatizing the Simshar incident feels half hearted, leaving both narratives feeling flat.
What to Watch Next
If you like warm portrayals of quaint Southern European life, check out Cinema Paradiso and The Courtyard of Songs. Both fully immerse the viewer without trying to make political statements. Or if you’d really like to see film that does manage to integrate a political statement into a small town Mediterranean film, try the gentrification narrative of Montenegro’s The Black Pin.
5 months into the year and we’ve already had a bunch of great international films premiere at film festivals and virtual cinemas across the world. With film festivals such as Sundance and the Berlinale going virtual, viewers have had the chance to watch World Premieres that they might not have otherwise been able to see if the premieres were confined to theater screenings. It’s a bittersweet plus for film fans. Read on to find 10 of the best international films from 2021 so far. Some are already available at cinemas physically and virtually, and look out for the rest in the near future.
10 Best International Films of 2021 So Far
1. Night of the Kings (Cote d’Ivoire)
Night of the Kings follows Roman, the latest arrival to an Abijan’s infamous MACA prison as he is forced to engage in a storytelling ritual with his life on the line. It’s got high stakes, theater, and even an appearance from shapeshifter Denis Lavant. But the focus is always on the story – a story that Roman has to keep telling to survive. It’s brilliantly original and beautifully simple, whilst offering plenty to analyze.
In Pebbles one angry father takes his young son out of school to visit his mother’s village. However, when they find out his mother has already left, they begin a long walk home under the burning sun. It’s simple storyline is hard to look away from as the camera brilliantly captures both the inhospitable landscape as well as the tension between the unpredictably violent father and his cautious son. So, if you’re looking for a film which compacts pure cinematic energy with a hot and arid environment in 75 minutes, you need to watch this film.
Pebbles premiered at the 2021 edition of the Rotterdam International Film Festival where it won the Tiger Award.
3. Softie (Kenya)
If you’re looking for an observational documentary that follows a political activist trying to change a corrupt system by running for government whilst showing the effects this has on their family, Softie is the film for you. Boniface “Softie” Mwangi was drawn to political activism during his time photographing the post election violence in 2007. Now, he’s running for office in a regional Kenyan election. To succeed, he has to radically change a democracy tainted by corruption, violence, and mistrust.
Taming the Garden is a slow documentary about a billionaire’s project to create a garden of the grandest trees in his country. Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire, and former Prime Minister of Georgia, is the invisible villain of this film, as we follow his construction teams uproot trees from around the country to be transported across the seas to his home. The focus is not on his garden though, but the sublime images of the trees being transported and how they happened; the huge efforts of the construction teams and the locals caught in-between.
Dogs are everywhere. Before the pandemic, ownership seemed to be rising. Everyone either had a dog or knew someone who did, whether it was a neighbor or a colleague who brought their dog into work. Now, with everyone mostly still stuck at home, they’ve become even more popular. It’s within this context that The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet is set, a perfectly relevant, quietly funny Argentinian satire along the lines of Martin Rejtman.
If there’s ever a movie that perfectly envisions the pandemic and quarantine, it’s The Pink Cloud. Made before COVID times, it follows Giovanna and Yago as their one night stand turns into a lifetime stuck together indoors as a poisonous cloud descends on the world. It’s probably one of the best portrayals of a relationship in lockdown.
If you’re looking for an inspirational documentary that features a group of trailblazing women in India, watch Writing with Fire. It follows a group of Dalit women – Dalits being the lowest caste in the Indian caste system – that start a newspaper in Uttar Pradesh, one of India’s largest and most politically important states. The newspaper, Khabar Lahariya, stands out from others both because its written only by women and because of the emphasis on seeking out the truth no matter the stakes. It’s a great documentary for anyone interested in learning a bit about the current state of India and how to run a newspaper.
If you’re looking for a documentary that examines racism in the Dominican Republic’s past and present through two women campaigning at either end of the political spectrum, Stateless is the film you’re looking for. Like Softie, it’s another observational documentary that captures an activist outside the system fighting against corruption. However unlike Softie, it shows both sides of the fight against racism to highlight the contradictions of the ‘nationalists.
Come Here is not the easiest film to follow. It’s slow art cinematic style isn’t conducive to a firm storyline. However, this doesn’t really matter as this is a film which you experience more than you follow. The unique soundscape and stylish black and white contrasts gives it a meditative tone. It feels like you’re just a dreamy fly on the wall following these four friends on holiday.
Come Here premiered at the 2021 edition of the Berlin International Film Festival.
10. Emptiness (Ecuador)
Emptiness is not a new story. The themes of the immigrant experience and human trafficking have been portrayed before in films such as I’m No Longer Here, Buoyancy, and Maria Full of Grace. However, the story in Emptiness just feels more authentic. There’s less melodrama and no violence or gangs which are intertwined into the stories of the films above. The immigrant’s experiences in Emptiness look less threatening, which highlights the invisible ordinariness of many human trafficking cases.
Emtpiness was selected as the Ecuadorian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards.
Let us know what your favorite films are by getting in touch with us on Twitter or by email.
Life is Fare is a Tigrinya/English feature film exploring three different experiences of the Eritrean diaspora living in the U.S. It uses different styles (drama, documentary, animation, fantasy) to construct a range of views on what it means to be Eritrean and living abroad. So, if you’re looking for a unique exploration of the immigrant experience in the U.S. Life is Fare is a movie to add to your watch-list.
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