HKAFF Spring 2016
23 March 2016 - Hong Kong Arthouse Film Festival Spring 2016 winners:
Best Narrative Feature Film: Wintergast (Winter Guest) (Switzerland) by Andy Herzog, Matthias Guenter. “It's been seven years since film academy graduate Stefan Keller released his celebrated short film. Ever since, Keller has been in a creative crisis. Although he already filled 2000 pages with notes for his first feature film, the rough draft is far from finished. Much to the disappointment of his girlfriend Christina whose biological clock is ticking. Now, living in a basement room and in financial distress, Keller takes on a job as an anonymous tester of youth hostels. It's the beginning of a mad odyssey: Keller desperately fights for his film idea, tries to save his relationship and encounters strange characters and ordinary folk, all searching for the meaning of life.”
Best Narrative Short Film: Dichterliebe: Poetlove (United States) by David Paul. “'Dichterliebe: POETLOVE,' is an adaptation of Robert Schumann's 19th century art-song cycle, which tells the story of a young man who experiences his first love and heartbreak, throwing him into deep despair, until he finds his conduit through art.”
Best Documentary Feature Film: Free (Croatia) by Tomislav Zaja
FREE is following a group of people with intellectual disabilities that are locked away in Croatian institutions and their path to freedom. One day our characters are informed that they will be released. After decades spent in institutions their dream will finally come true. But this is not the end - it�s just a beginning. Ivan always wanted to be a police officer, Enes buys a video camera and starts to document his everyday life, Tina and Kruno wants to get married, Mirko and Tomo are dreaming to become football coaches in their favorite local club, Silvia starts singing in the church choir, Andjelko is trying to find a girl and the job...
Best Documentary Short Film: Joseph Samuel Jacques Julien (Canada) by David N. Bernatchez
Jacques is 59. Seller by profession, he has been working in Quebec City all his life. In this French Canadian part of the world, it is weather, sport and hunting taht keeps many people busy. The last months though, have been particularly difficult for Jacques: bereaved of his wife, he is slow to recover. Change of life? Shed of skin? The political context might confuse it's situation, but the narrator insists : Jacques can still hope.
Best Animated Short Film: Scent of Geranium (United States) by Naghmeh Farzaneh. “Immigration is a new chapter in one's life, a chapter with unexpected events that can take one's life down paths different from the one imagined. This film is an autobiographical account of the director's experience with immigration.”
Best Underground Film: Sunny star (France) by Maxence Vassilyevitch. “At a strange villa six young people come together lazing under a summer sun. They are children of the night, children of dreams, coming from everywhere and nowhere, they are here, united like a tribe.”
Best Experimental Film: Kaleidoscope (Germany) by Telemach Wiesinger
By land, air and sea: an audio-visual travelogue in twenty-one chapters Weaving together numerous journeys across Europe and North America shot in his signature deadpan style, Wiesinger opens up a wondrous world of movements and structures. This heady adventure of discovery is brought together by an innovative soundtrack that envelopes the black and white 16mm images in a kaleidoscope of contemporary musical compositions and abstract sounds.
Best Music Video: Pattern Repeating (Norway) by Daniel Howlid. Elliot Moss music video.
Best Hong Kong Film: Flip Flops by Haolu Wang. “Young Hong Kong couple Anna and Thomas are having a fight during one afternoon in the nature of Hong Kong. Hurt by her boyfriend's wrongdoing, the proud Anna has trouble forgiving the inexpressive Thomas despite his awkward efforts to make it up to her. Thomas goes for a winter swim in the Hong Kong ocean to clear his mind, while Anna falls asleep on the beach. Time passes as the beach crowd gradually leaves the beach one after another. Anna wakes up around sunset to the sound of a boy kicking beach ball, and finds Thomas disappeared. The beach is now empty. Has he left her? She panics.”
Official selection Spring 2016:
With Hammer & Scalpel (U.S.) by Axel
The Poland Journey (Israel) by Hila Timor Adhur
JR Senmō Main Line (Japan) by Michito Tanaka
Scent of Geranium (U.S.) by Naghmeh Farzaneh
Genesis (U.S.) by Timur Orge
Seven Days After My Death (Hong Kong) by li bin
That Called Love (Argentina) by Victoria Chaya Miranda
Wintergast (Winter Guest) (Switzerland) by Andy Herzog, Matthias Guenter
The Nude (France) by Brian Zahm
Ogris Debris – See The World (Austria) by LWZ
Zombiehagen (Denmark) by Jonas Ussing
Marzipan Flowers (Israel) by Adam Kalderon
Sleepwalkers (U.K.) by Altea Claveras
Lead and Shrooms (U.S.) by Max Wehner
Guao (Dominican Republic) by Eduardo Velázquez
House on the Edge of the Planet (Ukraine) by Alex Sobolev, Misha
Cecil (New Zealand) by Chin-Ann Teh
Fruitcake (U.K.) by Harriet Francis Croucher
Home Away From Home (Austria) by Markus Ortner
Dodgem (France) by Christophe Karabache
Joseph Samuel Jacques Julien (Canada) by David N. Bernatchez
Ridden by Nature (U.S.) by Kathi Von Koerber
Kaleidoscope (Germany) by Telemach Wiesinger
I will be better (Serbia) by Aćim Vasić
In the Wind (China) by Lan Shuzhang
The Notion of Mistake (Canada) by Nicolas Krief, Jean-François Chagnon
The Banisher of Thought (Norway) by Andreas Daugstad Leonardsen
Pia, no (Germany) by Victoria Maria Rehm
The First Meditation (France) by Mahmoud Jaber, Amer Heneini
#Beings 2015 - poetic film (Romania) by Andrei Stefanescu
Axiom (France) by Geoffrey Crété
Grounded (U.K.) by Will Hooper, Jack Snelling
K-SHOP (U.K.) by Dan Pringle
Un Condor (Greece) by Yiannis Kolozis
Salt (Norway) by maria lloyd
Lifeline (China) by Bin Li
Nail House (China) by K. S. McMullen
Flip Flops (Hong Kong) by Haolu Wang
Ophelia Did Not Drown (Italy) by Francesca Fini
Pigeons shit everywhere (Belgium) by Fred De Loof
Sparrow Duet (U.S.) by Steve socki
Married (U.S.) by Junnan (Heather) Chen
After Work (China) by mengna Lei
God is dead (South Korea) by Hye-jin Kim, Hye-ryung Kim
The Blue Room -al-ḥamdu Li-Llāh (Morocco) by Bettina D'mello, Dr:Khan
Diary of a Girl (U.S.) by Sara Marandi
O - The Movie (Norway) by frank aron gårdsø
Adam Minus Eve (Réunion) by Aurélia Mengin
No pain (Spain) by Mürfila
Pattern Repeating (Norway) by HochR
Meatball Boom (Japan) by Akihiro Tanioka
Sunny star (France) by Maxence Vassilyevitch
Stationary (U.K.) by Seb Whyte
Ukraine will win! (Not Specified) by Timofey Landrev
Dichterliebe: Poetlove (U.S.) by David Paul
"The Keys" - Music Video (Switzerland) by Sonia Benarab, Archie Thomas, Joe Hoster
Winter (U.S.) by Firas Aladai
Reza Abdoh, Theatre Visionary (U.S.) by Adam Soch
Free (Croatia) by Tomislav Zaja
Time Rojak (Singapore) by Isaac Kerlow
Pink Smoke (Finland) by Sevgi Eker
Beirut Of The Balkans (Lebanon) by Nicolas Khoury
The Disharmony of Flesh (Turkey) by Emir Ziyalar
Malice (Spain) by Javier Barcala
The Vanitas (Hong Kong) by Wong Ngo Kwan
The Lovely Rejects (U.S.) by Judy Phu
Kurung Manuk (Bird Cage) (Indonesia) by Sigit Pradityo
Vacant (Australia) by Elle Marsh
"Athens From Beneath" the documentary of the newly poor (Greece) by Takis Bardakos
The Terminal Position (U.K.) by Marc Blackie
Don't Forget Me (U.S.) by Justin Ehrlich
Narcissus (U.S.) by Santiago Echeverry
Aijo (U.S.) by Hart Ginsburg, Sze-Chin, Schmudde
Red Egg (Hong Kong) by Hoi Chiu
Odd Beholder - Landscape Escape (Switzerland) by Andrea Grambow, Joscha Kirchknopf
Anima Radix (Australia) by Fernando Silva De la Cruz
Heis / Paralysis (la guerre des coudes) (France) by Anais Volpe
Sun Valley (U.S.) by Sasha Gransjean
A man : Amen, What Leads Life (South Korea) by Hyungbo Son
Golden Genes (Austria) by Ursula Hansbauer, Clemens Stachel, Wolfgang Konrad
Inner Revolution (France) by Alexandre Ferrini
Awakening (Finland) by Rolf Lindblom
Johannes Moser plays Dvořák (Netherlands) by Zoe D'Amaro, Marco Della Coletta
On the road, somewhere (Dominican Republic) by Guillermo Zouain
Masha Qrella - DJ (Germany) by Diana Naecke
Pierpaolo (Spain) by Miguel Angel Barroso
A Young King Must Die (U.S.) by Alexander Roman
Devastator (U.S.) by Adolfo Cantu-Villarreal
True Love (Taiwan) by Johann Schulz
Darkness Falls (Sweden) by Jarno Vinsencius
The Calling (U.K.) by Chris Boyd
[cthorsion scrypt fantomsens] (U.K.) by Chris Boyd
Sino Philes (long) (Hong Kong) by Cassandra Chan
The Other woman', Zizi's dream (Ireland) by Zizi Rincolisky
Pages 321 Part-1 (India) by
Brunfelsia (Australia) by Anna Constantinova