08/08/2023
Yesterday evening the audience of DokuFest went to see the International Shorts selection (a few of them, find out more short films and many events happening here). The selection of international shorts always brings newer perspectives on how we can act or reflect on themes and questions that sometimes exceed our power and the same approach can be implemented and followed through because the desire to change the system is inherently human.
Starting with “Our Males and Females” directed by the Emmy-nominated director Ahmad Alyasee explores an intricate and tough story of two parents whose transgender daughter had died and they restrain themselves to wash her. Their belief system requires a body to be washed upon death, and navigate the difficulties of doing this honoring ritual, while not accepting the reality their daughter wanted to live life by.
Following up on dealing with the troubles of self-doubt and self-sabotage we saw “The Garden of Heart”, the story of a painter in a round of job interviews to the Academy of Fine Arts while reality twists itself. The director Olivér Hegyi presents us with a story of how a landscape disturbed by unwanted tiny, but surely disturbing residents such as pests, infiltrate a field of flowers. It is not only a metaphor, or a reflection of the main character’s thought process, but rather a journey of self-discovery and overcoming troubles even at times when creativity is being put on the spot.
From an animated touch to the program, we went on to see “Invisible Borders”, directed by Mark Gerstorfer, with whom we had the chance to talk more after the screenings.
The film reflects a touching and difficult story of deportation, while a clash of events takes a toll on the future of an Albanian family living in Vienna. The plot has a certain irony to it, the police commanding the deportation are also people who came as immigrants to Austria. And the question resides on the difficulties of navigating in troubled waters of negating a person, the same thing you feared others would do to you.
Gerstorfer was invited to speak more on his film “Invisible Borders”, and explained more on the origin of the story: “I made this story around 2016 because a lot of people came from Afghanistan or Syria to Germany and also Austria and a lot of people from Albania or Kosovo had to go because of this case. So we have people who lived or grew up in Austria and it was a strange situation. So I came up with this idea from the police perspective who had to deport people, but also themselves come from other places to Germany or Austria.”
He later went on to explain his experience as an actor in this film and his collaboration with his colleagues while trying to portray as meaningfully and carefully this story, which is the reality of many immigrants.
The last film of this selection was “Drunken Boat” directed by Xueqi Wang, whose work involves understanding the living conditions in the spiritual world, as an intersection of practicality and idealism. The story goes like this: a young filmmaker escapes from her busy routine to the countryside where she meets a poet. The poet intrigues the filmmaker and decides to do a documentary about him. This journey though comes with strong decisions about life and death. Quite the escape.
If you want to see this rendition of International Shorts, be at Sonar Cinema, today (08/08) from 22:00.
By: Blerina Kanxha
Photo: Furkan Celik
