Part of SFFILM Festival
Shorts 1
Description
Travel to a quartet of far-flung locales with this eloquently cinematic program of documentary and narrative short films. From refugee children in Sweden beset by a mysterious illness to a remote mountain schoolhouse in Kyrgyzstan to a faith-healing session in Kashmir, these works offer extraordinarily compassionate views of families and individuals facing internal and external hardships with grace and humor.
Total running time 93 min
Titles are listed alphabetically rather than in order of play. All films are in competition.
Ad Astra
There’s no such thing as a snow day in Kyrgyzstan as a teacher and her students together forge a path to the schoolhouse in this stunningly shot observational documentary.
(Aisha Sultanbekova, Kyrgyzstan 2018, 20 min)
Brotherhood (Ikhwène)
Tensions arise between a Tunisian father and his sons when the elder returns from Syria with a mysterious new wife.
(Meryam Joobeur, Canada/Tunisia 2018, 25 min)
The Dispossessed
A Xerox technician in Kashmir moonlights as a faith healer renowned for ridding people of spirits that are overwhelming them. From the director of Valley of Saints (Festival 2012).
(Musa Syeed, India 2018, 8 min)
Life Overtakes Me
The strange and sad illness known as Resignation Syndrome, where children of asylum seekers withdraw completely to the point of catatonia, is delicately and movingly profiled in three separate cases by Bay Area filmmakers Haptas and Samuelson.
(John Haptas, Kristine Samuelson, USA/Sweden 2018, 40 min)
This is a Cinema by the Bay film.
