Escuro da Alma (2024)

Anomalisa

An inspirational speaker becomes reinvigorated after meeting a lively woman who shakes up his mundane existence.

Kino Kopf

Born from steel and glass Kino Kopf is created by two inventors. They are assembled by their mother, a nurturing artist, and their Father a greedy entrepreneur. Kino Kopf is the first of its kind a sentient humanoid VHS camera. They are given a life by their mother but presented to the world by their father. Kino Kopf is the next big sensation and spurs a technological revolution. They are soon forgotten and alone as new models surpass them. Kino Kopf is left alone to contemplate if they ever had a soul, as visions of an electric cowboy dance through their dreams.

Days, Months, Years and Nothing Else

This short film, built around a randomly chosen name and composed of scenes shot within a single room over the course of three hours, features an introspective monologue that was shaped and adapted during the editing process. The narrative aligns closely with the emotional tone and visual rhythm of the piece, particularly in harmony with the non-original music selection, Maggot Brain by Funkadelic.

Charlotte

The true story of Charlotte Salomon, a young German-Jewish painter who comes of age in Berlin on the eve of the Second World War. Fiercely imaginative and deeply gifted, she dreams of becoming an artist. Her first love applauds her talent, which emboldens her resolve. When anti-Semitic policies inspire violent mobs, she escapes to the safety of the South of France. There she begins to paint again, and finds new love. But her work is interrupted, this time by a family tragedy that reveals an even darker secret. Believing that only an extraordinary act will save her, she embarks on the monumental adventure of painting her life story.

Garden State

Andrew returns to his hometown for the funeral of his mother, a journey that reconnects him with past friends. The trip coincides with his decision to stop taking his powerful antidepressants. A chance meeting with Sam - a girl also suffering from various maladies - opens up the possibility of rekindling emotional attachments, confronting his psychologist father, and perhaps beginning a new life.

Summer in Berlin

An intimate study of two women friends who come to each other because of troubles with everyday life and with men and thus try to enjoy a life based on their ideas.

8½

Guido Anselmi, a film director, finds himself creatively barren at the peak of his career. Urged by his doctors to rest, Anselmi heads for a luxurious resort, but a sorry group gathers—his producer, staff, actors, wife, mistress, and relatives—each one begging him to get on with the show. In retreat from their dependency, he fantasizes about past women and dreams of his childhood.

Sissi: The Fateful Years of an Empress

After a wonderful time in Hungary Sissi falls extremely ill and must retreat to a Mediterranean climate to rest. The young empress’ mother takes her from Austria to recover in Madeira.

Requiem

Michaela, an epileptic, enrolls in college to study education. She goes off her medication and soon begins hearing voices and seeing apparitions that tell her to avoid religious objects, although she is devoutly Roman Catholic. One priest scoffs at the idea that Michaela could be possessed by demons, but a younger pastor arranges an exorcism for the young woman.

Amelia 2.0

After his wife Amelia suffers an aneurysm that leaves her bedridden and slowly dying, police officer Carter Summerland searches for a way to revive her. He's approached by Wesley Enterprises pioneering a new program to extend life through robotics, they get caught in a public debate over human’s relationship with technology and her right to exist.

The Savages

A sister and brother face the realities of familial responsibility as they begin to care for their ailing father.

The Curtain of Emotions

Plot unavailable

FASCISM(s): A Film in Six Parts

Six sequences about Fascism and its segments throughout history.

Hotel Chevalier

In a Paris hotel room, Jack Whitman lies on a bed. His phone rings; it's a woman on her way to see him, a surprise. She arrives and the complications of their relationship emerge in bits and pieces. Will they make love? Is their relationship over? (A prequel to The Darjeeling Limited, 2007.)

Borgoño

Sienna struggles with dreams of an unknown and scary place after receiving a dress that belonged to her late grandmother, who commited suicide years ago

Punch-Drunk Love

A socially awkward and volatile small business owner meets the love of his life after being threatened by a gang of scammers.

Charlie Bartlett

Awkward teenager Charlie Bartlett has trouble fitting in at a new high school. Charlie needs some friends fast, and decides that the best way to find them is to appoint himself the resident psychiatrist. He becomes one of the most popular guys in school by doling out advice and, occasionally, medication, to the student body.

Three Walls and a Window

A nuclear family sits in front of the television. The phone rings.

Absit

A lonely priest must find a way to connect with an irreverent teenager after the boy confesses his plans to commit suicide.

The Quiet

After her widowed father dies, deaf teenager Dot moves in with her godparents, Olivia and Paul Deer. The Deers' daughter, Nina, is openly hostile to Dot, but that does not prevent her from telling her secrets to her silent stepsister, including the fact that she wants to kill her lecherous father.

Happiness

The lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts which society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.

House Viewing

Welcome Home.

Synecdoche, New York

A theater director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse as part of his new play.

Helen

On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her friendship with Mathilda, a kindred spirit struggling with bipolar disorder.

Mr. Jones

The story about the relationship between a manic depressive man, Mr. Jones, and the female doctor who takes more than a professional interest in his treatment.

Go Forget Me

Robert Estragon has worked his way to the top of the food chain as a doctor in the city, but it has driven him to self-imposed delusion. Here, we listen as he sits and projects himself onto the mad world he observes. It all comes to a head when Willie Krapp, a young colleague, invades this world, hoping to teach Robert that it was wrong to let his own daughter die in the operating room.

Princesses

Caye is a young prostitute whose family is unaware of her profession. She meets her striking Dominican neighbour Zulema, an illegal immigrant, after she finds her in the bathroom, badly beaten up. They strike up a close friendship unbeknownst to Caye's xenophobic co-workers.

Dilution

Dilution is an experimental short film that explores the transit between resistance and (di)ssolution, between holding and releasing and a path towards obsessive repetition. They are layers, exposed pores, matter that oscillates between remaining or disappearing. The sound is not a background, but a puncture: friction, tearing, water that drags what still persists. A sensorial testimony of what refuses to vanish completely.

Same Old Song

Odile is a business executive looking for a new, bigger apartment. Her younger sister Camille has just completed her doctoral thesis in history and is a Paris tour guide. Simon is a regular on Camille's tours because he's attracted to her. Camille has fallen for Marc, and they begin an affair. Nicolas is also looking for an apartment, since he hopes to eventually have his family join him in Paris.

Jack & Sarah

Jack always lands on his feet. He lands on his feet when he marries the beautiful Sarah. He lands on his feet when he buys a luxurious new home. However, when Sarah goes into labour, he takes a tumble down the stairs and lands on his head. When he comes around he discovers he is the proud father of a baby girl, but deficient in the spouse department to the tune of 1.

We Shall Overcome

A drama about a boy who's inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and challenges repressive school authority in 1969 Denmark.

If Only

On a rainy afternoon, Martha discovers an old Polaroid in her bedroom. She then spends the whole afternoon conversing with someone deeply familiar and significant from her past.

Dinosaur Farm

A political assassination leads to division and chaos.

The Men

Ken, a WWII GI, returns home after he's paralyzed in battle. Residing in the paraplegic ward of a veteran's hospital and embittered by his condition, he refuses to see his fiancée and sinks into a solitary world of hatred and hostility. Head physician, Dr. Brock cajoles the withdrawn Ken into the life of the ward, where fellow patients Norm, Leo and Angel begin to pull him out of his spiritual dilemma.

SIN PIEDAD

Under the relentless sun, a killer stalks through the mountains, where the innocence of a young couple becomes prey. With no shadows to hide their fate, the hunt is a macabre game in broad daylight, where fear is not hidden in the darkness, but burns with the rawness of the unperturbed noon.

November

Sophie Jacobs is going through the most difficult time of her life. Now, she just has to find out if it's real.

Your Mind Matters

When Roger Lee slips on his front steps, he has no idea the fall will send him spiralling into the darkest chapter of his life. Injured, and drowning in despair, he hits rock bottom—until he discovers the power of his own words. Through pain, he finds purpose, turning his struggle into wisdom that inspires millions. Now, as a world-renowned speaker, he lifts others the way he once needed lifting. A raw and uplifting story of resilience, reinvention, and the unexpected ways we rise.

De Civitate Rei

Costante dies and leaves his wife Torella his computer discovery. Torella entrusts the disk to her husband’s friend Gervasio, a lazy man scorned by his family. Twenty years later, Torella tries to get back the disk but Gervasio, who has become rich thanks to the discovery, agrees to go to court over it and comes away the winner. He therefore summons divine misfortune: he loses his third son, suffocated by wealth; kills his wife in a blind rage; and is executed by his first-born son who, after a violent panic attack and reckoning with his conscience, chooses life.

Il Mosè di Michelangelo

Moses searches for history into palletes.

Reflection

As she keeps watching old home movies isolated in her hotel room, the screen becomes a mirror from which she tries to see herself. Levels of subjectivity, narrative, and reality entwine into a surrealist fever dream of scopophilic cinéma pur. The final layer of meaning is all of us watching the film on the screen-mirror in the theatre.

The Heart Is a Dark Forest

A woman's life is destroyed when she discovers that her husband has another family.

¿Por qué la gallina cruzó el camino?

A hen questions the meaning of her life on a farm.

Lux Æterna: The Art of Filmmaking

An experimental shortfilm in line with "Lux Æterna", showcasing the footage from Cecil B. DeMille's "King of the Kings". A voiceover pronunces word "Relax" in a hypnotic tone, which was Lux Æterna's working title. It was shown only once in Paris at L'Étrange Festival, at the opening of "Lux Æterna".

A Sad, Sad Ghost Picking at the Hairs of Their Knuckles

A wandering young woman explores the crevices of her apartment, of her corporeal creases, as well as the shadows made up of those things. Through her journey, she comes into contact with fellow vagrancies: a nondescript man of around similar age; a young girl with similar, even familiar, eyes; streets that can only exist during those brief moments of glazing stares. The rain comes and goes, but the A/C never turns off.

The Beast

To rescue his daughter, an unstable Special Forces veteran unleashes his inner beast as he pursues her kidnappers — and soon becomes a suspect himself.

Reprise

Phillip and Erik have been best friends since childhood. Both young men share a passion for the works of reclusive novelist Sten Egil Dahl, and both harbor literary ambitions. However, fate deals differently with the friends as each strives to make his dream come true.

The Artist and His Canvas

An experimental film revolving around how an artist perceives a man and a woman.

Arjun Reddy

A brilliant but impulsive young surgeon spirals into self-destruction after a painful breakup, struggling to cope with love, loss, and the consequences of his own temper.

Falsely Accused

When a young woman is falsely accused of murdering her brother, she must catch the real killer to prove her innocence. Along the way she encounters unexpected love, sadness, and hardships, as well as deep insights about the crime, herself, and her destiny.

A Man Walking Backwards and Forwards

Plot unavailable

Magpies

A depressed man, dressed as a gorilla, performs a stand-up comedy set.

Dolores Claiborne

Dolores Claiborne was accused of killing her abusive husband twenty years ago, but the court's findings were inconclusive and she was allowed to walk free. Now she has been accused of killing her employer, Vera Donovan, and this time there is a witness who can place her at the scene of the crime. Things look bad for Dolores when her daughter Selena, a successful Manhattan magazine writer, returns to cover the story.

Christmas, Again

Noel travels from upstate New York every year to sell Christmas trees in New York City. Returning without the help of his long-time girlfriend, this year Noel finds it impossible to do the one thing he knows so well: sell Christmas trees. As Noel begins to spiral downwards, alienating co-workers and customers in the process, it turns out this same community of people may be the only ones capable of saving Noel from self-destruction.

Rosewater

A solitary man struggles to cultivate beauty in a desolate urban world. Lonely and dislocated, he drifts in and out of a dream state envisioning the promise of regeneration. ROSEWATER tells a story of hope sustained through perseverance, ritual and, ultimately, revelation.

Ploy

A husband and wife are locked inside a single hotel room with a stranger named Ploy. Subtle suspicions build up to jealousy as the young woman triggers devastating consequences for the couple.

LIMINAL

Plot unavailable

House of Sand and Fog

Behrani, an Iranian immigrant buys a California bungalow, thinking he can fix it up, sell it again, and make enough money to send his son to college. However, the house is the legal property of former drug addict Kathy. After losing the house in an unfair legal dispute with the county, she is left with nowhere to go. Wanting her house back, she hires a lawyer and befriends a police officer. Neither Kathy nor Behrani have broken the law, so they find themselves involved in a difficult moral dilemma.

Cake

After having visions of a member of her support group who killed herself, a woman who also suffers with chronic pain seeks out the widower of the suicide.