06/08/2024
This Monday the 5th, DokuKino hosted four competing films in the International Short Documentary. The four films from this category look at the way in which different lives take shape before us, unveiling in various ways, lights, and forms. All the stories share the same penchant for coming alive in front of the camera through the act of looking.
Have We Made It Across the Plain of Night – Cozy everyday life during nighttime: home interiors and cooking together. Dinner time, with food and a bit of love on the table, in the kitchen sink, on the bed, and under blankets. Shared kisses, watery interiors, and soft jazz music. Tarot card readings, makeup moments, sleeping, hair-dyeing, domino playing, gentle touches, and late-night phone conversations. Multiple lives unveiling inside different apartments, as people simultaneously share life without knowing they are all experiencing it together. If you ever dream about what your neighbor is doing right now, chances are it will not differ much from what you are doing yourself.
We Were No Desert – The color of the desert is golden dust, and although the characters of this film are not a desert, their hearts shine with a golden dust hue as well. A history of beautiful hair, a hidden-away photo in an unknown wallet, half-spoken conversations, a map of all the things you wish you had done throughout a “Yes” day. Colorful clothes and dancing feet; a history of acceptance, a history of what happens when people are allowed to take the place they deserve simply by being in the world.
My Father – Through family photos and archive footage, Pegah Ahangarani tells an intimate story interweaving personal life and one’s own shield within the larger picture of history. Images of an almost unlived existence mesh together with the telling of a life experienced, carrying the weight of a political context that continues to open like a wound on the global stage. The ultimate act of love, which is sharing, includes watching sunset pictures together, despite the distance.
Replacement Service – Filming from his window, every visual person’s daydream during COVID. Interactions with people outside, and life happening inside. Words of loneliness, suffering, and trying to cope by people-watching. While the same frontal view of the street is observed, despite how life unfolds in front of it, the audience is invited to imagine a whole new, hidden, and strangely intimate world happening behind the camera. There is comfort in looking at other people, but there is also comfort in knowing that the film camera stands still between the inside and outside world, allowing for mixing and matching as needed.
By: Enxhi Noni
Photo: Luka Knežević Strika
