Short Film Competition # 4
14. Internationales Festival Zeichen der Nacht / Signes de Nuit
Till Day's End
Amitai Ashkenasi
Israel
2014 / 0:19:00
Seventeen-year-old Elay is working with his brother at the fishponds of the kibbutz. After he gets saved from thieves by an Arab kid from the village, he tells a lie that will come back to haunt him
Aokigahara
Joaquin Manuel Ramos Carvallo
Spain
2015 / 0:09:00
Suicide in Japan: between normality and enigma, poetry und cruelty.
Jonathan's Chest
Christopher Radcliff
France, United states
2014 / 0:14:35
Everything changes one night for Alex when he is visited by a boy claiming to be the brother who disappeared years earlier.
Sea of Ash
Michael MacGarry
South Africa
2015 / 0:12:00
The form of the film is one of a fable, that grafts Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, to the contemporary issue of African refugees and immigrants in Italy. The film takes Mann’s book as a nexus point and expands upon a number of themes inherent in it. In Sea of Ash, Mann’s character Tadzio is an immigrant to Italy from West Africa (Senegal) who has survived the treacherous and often fatal journey by sea. While the lead character of the original – von Aschenbach – is embodied in the unseen filmmaker himself. The narrative of the film follows Tadzio on a short journey from the remarkable Brion Cemetery at San Vito in the mountains of Northern Italy to the coastal area of the Venetian lagoon. On Lido Island he visits the famous Hotel dés Bains as featured in Luchino Visconti’s 1971 film version of Death in Venice. The film concludes on the dés Baines beach, with Tadzio embarking on a doomed attempt to return home.
Fernweh
Ena Sendijarev
Netherland
2014 / 0:14:00
A young girl explores the unknown world of her new foster family and cautiously tries to make this new place her home. However, she seems to keep longing for something else.
Sub
Enzo Cillo
Italy
2014 / 0:13:00
Winter is long-lasting, as night is. From the window, some shadows are glimpsed among the trees. An old print of Friedrich’s painting “Der Abend” (The evening) on the wall, in the entrance. Outside, darkness surrounds the home, downline of an awe-inspiring mountain. Winter is long-lasting, as night is. From the window, some shadows are glimpsed among the trees. At morning, fog comes from the wood and hides everything.
Memento Mori
Nina Schiena
Germany
2015 / 0:13:15
Do you fear death? Don´t be frightened...´ A boy spends hours on a busy holiday-beach. His impressions and thoughts intertwine to a current perception, that is concerned with transience. The cinematic essay `Memento Mori´ aims to understand life and death as a unit and questions the fear of death