Despite the genre mix of the selected films and a slight rebranding of the name for the international competition - OKO GLOBAL - our love for cinema and desire to share it with the audience remain unchanged. Although it is said that cinema is not a sport, the element of competition is the best way to stimulate and keep filmmakers in a good shape so that they can delight us with their creations. The main arbiter in this competition is the audience. However, the marks from a professional jury are no less important.
This year's international feature film competition program includes 8 fiction and 8 non-fiction feature films, 11 of which will have their premiere screenings in Ukraine!
Traditionally, the program will open up the customs of other countries to the audience. It will tell us about the problems and hopes of people from all over the world, make them laugh and cry. We are going to visit a snowy village in Nepal, ride a surfboard made of cigarette butts, feed deer and take part in a talent show, and become guests at an Israeli-Moroccan wedding together with the heroes of the competition films. We will also think about the fate of Christmas trees, visit the Museum of Natural History in Vienna, follow the 12 years of the life of a Hungarian outlaw, go to the Carpathians and Ternopil region, and learn about terrible and shocking things from the Soviet past... Our guests will be able to see all this and even more during the screenings of the films of the international feature competition of the 5th anniversary edition of the OKO in Ukraine and Bulgaria.
By the way, a film from this section will close our Film Festival in Sofia on November 15, 2024. The closing film is a work by Israeli director Ayelet Menahemi called Seven Blessings.
The director of the OKO Film Festival and filmmaker Tetiana Staneva does not hide her delight at this year's program:
Do you know why I adore our festival? I explore the cultures of the world through films almost directly: I am not shown a false tourist facade and am not imposed ideas and prejudices based on old Soviet textbooks. I simply enter the house, the kitchen, the bedroom, the mind and the heart of a certain people. I may "talk" with these people about the painful present, immerse myself in every story and feel the heart of our Planet beating. In five years, I've watched thousands of films, but some of them, which particularly resonated with me, I still remember and think of them when life immerses me in the relevant context. They became therapy and shock for me, broadened my horizons and taught me lessons of tolerance. I felt the pain and hopes of their characters.
When are we afraid of something? When we know nothing about it. When we know, we realize that we are all so different and so similar at the same time. It is very interesting to see similar customs, traditional crafts typical of peoples living on the other side of the planet. We have different hair types, eye shapes, and skin colors, but we all want the same things - safety, security, health, peace, and happiness. We dream of preserving our family, memory, and identity. This troubled world urgently needs a dialog. We are creating it with our festival and this section in particular. And a little spoiler: I was crying during watching four films.
The following films were selected to participate in the competition:
1. Archive of the Future / Archiv der Zukunft, dir. Joerg Burger | 2023, Austria – Non-Fiction
At the Natural History Museum in Vienna, everything that is found on earth and in outer space and that humans can get their hands on, is collected, archived, and studied in the name of evolutionary research. Archiv der Zukunft captures the aesthetic appeal of the natural-history collection and its working process, illuminating the mammoth project of knowledge preservation and production hidden behind the building’s imperial façade.
2. The Cigarette Surfboard, dir. Ben Judkins | 2024, USA – Non-Fiction
An impassioned surfer creates a surfboard with 10,000 littered cigarette butts collected from California beaches. The Cigarette Surfboards become a platform to spark ocean stewardship and the symbol of a campaign to hold Big Tobacco accountable for their toxic, plastic waste.
3. Diagnosis: Dissent / БожеВільні, dir. Denys Tarasov | 2023, Ukraine - Fiction
The protagonist Andriy Dovzhenko finds out a horrible truth, that has been hidden in USSR for years - most of those accused of «anti-Soviet propaganda» were never sent to prison, but to special psychiatric hospitals with a diagnosis of "slow progressive schizophrenia". Andriy finds himself in a real hell of punitive psychiatry and faces a difficult choice - to cooperate with the KGB and return to his family, or to reveal the truth about dissidents tortured in such psychiatric hospitals
4. KIX, dir. Dávid Mikulán, Bálint Révész | 2024, Hungary, France, Croatia – Non-Fiction
It is a 12-year odyssey following Sanyi's journey from a rowdy street kid in Budapest to a disillusioned young adult.
5. Life and Death of a Christmas Tree / Kalėdų eglutės gyvenimas ir mirtis, dir. Arturas Jevdokimovas | 2023, Lithuania, Denmark, Georgia – Non-Fiction
The Christmas tree, the well familiar festive plant, the princess of all the trees travels through countries and cultures, while the joyful hustle and bustle hides a billion-dollar business and the characters’ daily struggle for survival.
6. Mountain Boy, dir. Zainab Shaheen | 2024, United Arab Emirates, Great Britain - Fiction
A young Emirati boy with Autism ventures with his new friend Barakah, an Arabian Saluki to find acceptance, family, and redemption.
7. Mountains, dir. Mónica Sorelle | 2023, USA - Fiction
While looking for a new home for his family, a Haitian demolition worker is faced with the realities of redevelopment as he is tasked with dismantling his rapidly gentrifying Miami neighborhood.
8. My Place Ozerna / Moja Ozerna, dir. Karina Bedkowska | 2022, Poland – Non-Fiction
Karina, the director, escapes London to Ukraine, where she meets her 84-year-old aunt Slava. Meeting of two women who lost will to live but mutual closeness and love restore their meaning.
9. No Winter Holidays / Dhorpatan, dir. Rajan Kathet, Sunir Pandey | 2023, Nepal, South Korea, Romania – Non-Fiction
Two lifelong rivals Ratima and Kalima have been appointed caretakers of their empty village. Now in the twilight of their lives, they must forget their past and help each other survive a long and harsh winter.
10. Once Upon a Time in the Andes / Érase una vez en los Andes, dir. Rómulo Sulca Ricra | 2023, Peru - Fiction
The Peruvian Andes. Margarita, an Andean shepherdess, finds Lautaro, a dying Chilean soldier who has fled from a battle, she decides to take him home and take care of him. His father, aware of this, agrees to hide the enemy, putting his family at risk, on the condition that he leaves when he gets better. Despite their language differences, the shepherdess and the soldier begin to develop a relationship.
11. Oxygen Station / Киснева станція, dir. Ivan Tymchenko | 2023, Ukraine, Czechia, Sweden, Slovakia – Fiction
1980, USSR. Human rights activist and political prisoner Mustafa Jemilev is exiled to Siberia, where he works at the oxygen station. 3 people are headed to him across the huge country with different goals - to meet, to destroy, to protect.
12. Plague / Чума, dir. Ivan Vladimirov | 2023, Bulgaria - Fiction
Early 19 th century. A wealthy man, chorbadhzi Yordan, and his son return from a pilgrimage. They find the plague raging on Bulgarian lands. The villagers are frightened and famished. The Black Death brings out our innermost fears and recalls atavistic instincts for survival.
13. Rap and Reindeer / Revontulten räppäri, dir. Petteri Saario | 2023, Finland – Non-Fiction
An 18-year-old Sámi rapper on his journey towards a career in music and stardom. A film about the urge to create one’s own version of Sámi culture.
14. Seven Blessings / Sheva Brachot, dir. Ayelet Menahemi | 2023, Israel - FictionMarie travels from France to Israel, where her family now lives, to marry her one true love. This film is a week of festive meals in honor of the bride.This week turns into a sad comedy about family crimes, forgiveness and loss.
15. That They May Face the Rising Sun, dir. Pat Collins | 2023, Ireland, Great Britain (Northern Ireland) - Fiction
That They May Face the Rising Sun is an adaptation of the final novel from John McGahern, one of Ireland's greatest novelists. Joe and Kate Ruttledge have returned from London to live and work among a small, rural, lakeside community in Ireland near to where Joe grew up. Now deeply embedded in the life around the lake, the drama of a year in their lives and those of the memorable characters that move about them unfolds through the rituals of work, play and the passing seasons as this enclosed world becomes an everywhere.
16. Weightless / Невагома, dir. Marta Hryniuk, Nick Thomas | 2023, Netherlands, Ukraine – Non-Fiction
Khrystyna Bunii travels solo across remote south-west Ukraine in pursuit of her anthropological research. As she encounters people and digitises their family photo archives, conversations and interconnections emerge, but finding people who want to talk about the region’s past is not an easy task.
The winner of the Jury Grand Prize in OKO GLOBAL International Feature Competition will be announced at the closing ceremony of the Film Festival in Bulgaria and will receive a prize of 1000 euros. Besides, in this section, jury members will also award Jury Special Prizes for the best fiction & non-fiction feature films and ethnographic representation. All winners will also receive a diploma and a festival trophy “Cehlynka”.
Comentários