Practical information

Tickets for this compilation programme cost 28.50 euros. It is not possible to buy tickets for individual screenings. Free access for Cineville members.   

  The films (in screening order):

Life Is Beautiful
Mohamed Jabaly, Norway, Palestine 2023, 90 min., Arabic, Norwegian, English spoken, Dutch subtitles.

The young Palestinian filmmaker Mohamed Jabaly was on exchange in Norway when the border of his home in Gaza were closed for an unspecified period.

This posed several problems, one being that the Norwegian government would not accept his Palestinian passport, meaning that Jabaly was now stateless. Then his application for a work permit was rejected, because being a self-taught filmmaker meant he didn’t have the necessary qualifications. It meant he was trapped with his host family in the arctic city of Tromsø, and couldn’t travel. One of the consequences of this situation was that he was unable to attend the screening of his 2016 debut film AMBULANCE at IDFA.

While awaiting a decision from the court – and following the dismal paths of political and bureaucratic logic – Jabaly films himself and his Norwegian friends and colleagues in the snow-covered serenity of the spectacular Norwegian landscape. These scenes contrast starkly with the agonizing images and messages he receives from family and friends in Gaza. The close-knit artistic and film community in Tromsø, meanwhile, is making every effort to support Jabaly.

Winner of the IDFA Award for Best Director in the international competition.

Sister of Mine
Mariusz Rusiński, Poland 2023, 30 min., Polish spoken, Dutch subtitles.

Young filmmaker Mariusz Rusiński turns his camera on his desperate parents and his drug-addicted seventeen-year-old sister Zuzia. How did it come to this? And what is his own role in the dysfunctional family dynamic?

If as a filmmaker you focus on your own family, inevitably you’re also part of the picture. Mariusz Rusiński initially seems like a fly on the wall of his comfortable parental home. He observes the arguments between his sister Zuzia and their mother, who never could imagine that parenthood would involve testing her underage daughter’s urine for traces of drugs. He records the altercations between his parents, in which despair is wrapped up in blame.

The underlying question is how it is possible that a gifted, intelligent seventeen-year-old could have gone off the rails so badly. And how can you get addiction under control and function as a family?

To investigate, Rusiński becomes an increasingly visible part of a complex reality that sometimes resembles a nightmare. Strikingly, although Zuzia is unable to control her substance abuse, she can still fire off analyses of their collective mess like machine gun salvos at her parents and brother with painful precision.

Winner of the IDFA Award for Best Youth Documentary (category 13+)

1489
Shoghakat Vardanyan, Armenia 2023, 76 min., Armenian, Russian spoken, Dutch subtitles.

When her brother goes missing during the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, Shoghakat decides to film the search and emotional process of herself and her parents – even at times when others might have put the camera down.

When soldiers are killed, they often end up as anonymous numbers in news reports. But behind every number there is a person who leaves behind heartbroken family members. The title 1489 refers to the anonymous number of a ‘body of an individual missing in action.’ It was the number assigned to Soghomon Vardanyan, a twenty-one-year-old student and musician who was close to completing his mandatory military service when the conflict between Azerbaijan and his home country Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh flared up again in September 2020.

On the seventh day of the war, Soghomon goes missing. Using her phone camera, his sister Shoghakat decides to film her and her parents’ search process. After six months, bones are found, but DNA research is needed to show whether the remains are those of Soghomon, and the family will have to wait a year and a half for the results. All the while, Shoghakat continues to film, even in the most intimate and vulnerable moments, which sometimes makes for an uncomfortable viewing experience. But at the same time, it makes the intense sadness and loss of a human being of flesh and blood even more tangible.

Winner of the IDFA Award for Best Documentary in the international competition.

Queendom
Agniia Galdanova, France, USA 2023, 98 min., Russian spoken, Dutch subtitles.

Born and raised in Magadan, a city notorious for its gulag past in Russia’s far east, 21-year-old non-binary Gena pairs radical performance art with activism. At the risk of her own life.

Gena uses duct tape, trash and make-up to make outrageous creations for her performances and social media accounts. In incredibly high heels, she moves like an alien through the streets and metro stations of Moscow, protesting the imminent war in Ukraine and violence against the LGBTQI+ community. In a country where being openly different is quickly regarded as clandestine ‘gay propaganda’, this is life-threatening.

In QUEENDOM we follow Gena from her hometown of Magadan to Moscow and witness the difficulties she faces every day. We see her in drag, or as a student at a beauty academy, and listen in as she calls her grandparents, who raised her. These poignant conversations speak of both incomprehension and unconditional love. Images from Gena’s dark and evocative performances permeate the story, providing an extra emotional layer. Sometimes they almost literally take your breath away.

Queendom was among IDFA’s audience favourites, ranking third in the audience award ranking.