From animation to intimate documentary, technological hybridity to coming-of-age tales: Orizzonti’s second selection of short films navigates uprooted identities, family bonds, and new visual geographies from Lebanon to Colombia, by way of Hungary and Ukraine.
OUT OF COMPETITION
SOUNDS FROM HOME
Nathan Silver (France, USA, 7’)
When Nathan Silver and his wife Nicole Fuentes move to France, the director’s parents take up birdwatching and begin sending them audio recordings of birds. In those sounds, nature intertwines with fragments of conversation about life in the United States, distance, and the couple’s ageing.
COMPETITION
QUELQUES INSTANTS DE BONHEUR (A FEW MOMENTS OF HAPPINESS)
Shaden Safieddine Tazi (France, UK, 18’)
By recounting the intimate experience of a young Lebanese filmmaker who has fled Beirut for Paris, the documentary reconstructs the experience of a generation forced to witness the destruction of its country from afar.
SASSO, CARTA, FORBICI (ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS)
Virginia Mori (Italy, France, 9’)
In an amusement park suspended between play and unease, an evocative and symbolic animation explores the relational dynamics of coming of age. The short film portrays desires, tensions, and fragilities with an ironic, grotesque gaze.
TESZTPÁLYA (TEST TRACK)
Lydia Cornett (Ungheria, UK, USA, 15’)
At dawn, fourteen-year-old Hunor and his family take their greyhounds to clear ZalaZONE, a test track for self-driving vehicles, of wildlife. Against the rural backdrop of western Hungary, the director explores the surreal contrast between cutting-edge technology and tradition.
TROPIKOS TOU THRINOUNTOS GKEKO (TROPIC OF THE MOURNING GECKO)
Stavros Markoulakis (Greece, France, The Netherlands, 19’)
An unexpected encounter with a young man, shortly before his military service, awakens a forbidden desire in eighteen-year-old Yorgos from Crete, shattering the future already mapped out for him. In the final days of summer, his dreams begin to change shape.
HEAD OF A CAMEL
Shannon Lee (USA, 4’)
Seeking a connection to her roots, a Korean American woman raised in the West summons a mystical creature from an ancient Taoist recipe, confronting fractured family ties and language barriers.
LOS PODERES
Salim Jaller (Columbia, France, 20’)
Eighteen-year-old Marco, struggling with drug use, feels his life has been put on hold. Expelled from school, he faces being sent to rehab by his mother, but asks for one last chance to get back on track.
SILENCE
Pavlo Shpegun (Ucraina, 15’)
After a failed performance, young stand-up comedian Luka meets a mysterious girl in a bar. As they try to keep their distance, their conversations grow increasingly intimate, until only silence remains.
