
New Shorts: Mourning Rituals
Monday, 17 January 2022

Image: Donkey, Balbina Bochuzynska, 2021
What do we do when Death pays a visit? How do we cope when it leaves, bearing friends and family away with it? With video eulogies and phone-call farewells, absurd animal apparitions and sinister sci-fi bureaucracies, eight filmmakers face the void head-on in this programme, each with their own way of saying goodbye. Featuring directorial work from Dipo Baruwa-Etti, Zadoc Nava, and Ma Weijia, as well as performances from Adjoah Andoh (Bridgerton) and Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn (Small Axe).
Curated by Sylvie Dumont
Donkey
Balbina Bochuzynska
10'
2021
United Kingdom
On the way to her grandmother’s funeral, Paulina and her British-Polish mother Martha, stop by the late grandma’s flat. Paulina waits as her mother heads up and after a few long minutes she decides to check on her. She enters the flat to find her mother inside with a live donkey. Martha claims it is Paulina’s grandmother reincarnated. While Martha refuses to go to the funeral, Paulina must convince her mother, and herself, of what is real.
In Absentia
Adriana Monteforte Lahera
9'
2021
Mexico
Who knew him best? A seemingly lost poem on a note found in one of the director's grandfather’s old books triggers a magical journey through unreliable memories and half made up stories. An animated documentary portrait of an absent grandfather (a writer) through the charged objects he left behind, the stories of those who knew him, and the imagination of those who didn’t.