Rhythms Beyond Borders
International Shorts
Friday October 6th, 6 pm
PWYC
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*ALL FILMS HAVE ENGLISH SUBTITLES*
This year, our international shorts program explores “rhythms”. Life’s rhythms. Our world is surrounded by rhythms and our international short film program is full of them. From the power of an accordion in The Torrencial Melody, to the dream in Fantasma Neon, to a woman’s fight in Mermaids in the Mist, and to the magic of the drums in Soul Beats, this program is sure to wake you to the rhythms that surround us!.
THE TORRENCIAL MELODY
José Luis Saturno
2022 - Mexico - 7’- Animation
Toronto Premier
Best Short Animated Film at Fantasia International Film Festival in the section "Les Fantastiques Weekends du Cinéma Québécois." (Canada)
Best Animated Short Film at Festival Internacional de Cine de Ciudad Madero (Mexico)
Best Animated Short Film at Festival Internacional de Cine de Taxco (Mexico)
Best Animated Short at Nottingham International Film Festival (Mexico)
Special Mention at Muestra de Cine de Coahuila (Mexico)
ADP Prize for Best Photography at SMOF: Stop motion our fest (Argentina)
Special Mention at Nieve Roja, Festival Internacional De Terror, Ciencia Ficción, Fantástico Y Bizarro (Argentina)
First Prize for best short at Muestra Internacional De Cortometraje Contemporáneo 5C (Mexico)
Nominated for Best Animated Short Film Award by the Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences.
A town suffering a long drought entrusts its destiny to a wandering musician who has the power to bring rain with his accordion´s music.
About the Director:
Majored in Film Animation at Concordia University, Montreal. Founder of Enjambre Hexagonal. His career oscillates between animation and live-action, and his life between Canada and Mexico. With his filmography, he has participated in over 130 film festivals in at least 37 countries. For The Torrential Melody he is currently nominated for an award for best Animated Short Film by the Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences.
MERMAIDS IN THE MIST
Daniela Narváez
2023 - Colombia - 18’ - Fiction
Canadian Premier
At the entrance of a cold village located in the mountains of Cundinamarca, in front of the lagoon, rests a calendar that proclaims: "183 Days of Peace". The inhabitants put it there to prevent the appearance of a siren that stalks the lake when it smells blood in the air, and that has not taken any young person since peace was signed. Mariela and her son Amilcar go out every morning to fish in their boat. One day, they find shrouded among seaweed, with shiny and scaly skin, the body of a child that someone or something hid in one of the islets of the place. The villagers fearfully accept the return of the creature, but Mariela is the only one who recognizes that it is the war that has returned. Life proves her right when her grandson disappears and her tireless search brings her face to face with a reality that surpasses the legends of her village.
About the director:
Daniela Narváez, film and art director with more than ten years of experience in audiovisual media. She specialized in Costume Design at IED Barcelona. In Cuba, she attended the international course for directing actors at the school of San Antonio de Los Baños. Winner of several screenwriting awards with her project MATUNA, among them: the Film Development Fund 2019 screenwriting award, Torino film lab grant at the same year, and the "Cine en las aldeas" grant from Film Afro 2023. She was selected for the BAM stories 2020 and was the winner of the Cine Qua Non Lab Mexico 2020 grant with her second feature script "Killa Punchay". As a director, she directed the micro web series "Distant Encounters of the Third Kind" in 2021 for "Great Stories". Writer and director of "Silvia Selva", a short film currently in distribution. "Mermaids in the Mist" is her most recent fiction short film premiered in New York during the Colombian Film Festival 2023 and at Alucine Toronto 2023. Co-director of the music video "Como el amor" by Socorro Lira, shot in Havana. She is currently in the development stage of her first feature film called “Matuna".
NEON PHANTOM
Leonardo Martinelli
2022 - Brazil - 20’ - Fiction
A delivery man dreams of having a motorcycle. He was told that everything would be like a musical film.
About the director:
Leonardo Martinelli is a filmmaker from Rio de Janeiro. In 2021, his film Fantasma Neon won the Golden Leopard for Best International Short Film at the Locarno Film Festival. His films have been selected at festivals worldwide, including Locarno, TIFF, San Sebastián, BFI London, Clermont-Ferrand, Palm Springs, Montreal, Biarritz, Toulouse, Poitiers and others. He also holds a Master's degree in Communication from PUC-Rio and is currently developing his first feature film, which was selected for the Locarno Residency
SOUL BEATS
Eduardo Bunster
2022 - Chile - Documentary
North American Premier
Best Short Film at 17th IN-EDIT, Chile
A musical road trip documentary across the Atacama desert in the north of Chile. The jazz drummer Pedro Greene, founder of historical bands in the southern country, explores the landscape in an inspiring trip having encounters with the sacred and ritual sense of drums, its construction and the symbolic links with the sonority of the landscape.
About the director:
Eduardo has dedicated himself to film and photography since avery young age, first as a Photographer and later as Director of Photography and also Director in fiction, animation and documentary projects. He has collaborated with artists in their audiovisual works and participated in experimental works, working in different parts of the world (India, Bangladesh, Japan, Turkey, Jordan, Canada, Colombia, Brazil and Bolivia, etc) and learning from the interaction with other cultures and narratives. He was co-founder and partner of the production company Quijote Films between 2008 and 2015, and currently is working as Director of Photography and Independent Director in projects in Chile and abroad.
Co-presented by:
