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
What resonates in silence
Marine Blin
8'
2021
France
Hiding death does not make it disappear. A little girl who suffered from the silence of adults felt dispossessed of her right to mourn.
As an adult, she recounts the tender gestures that bind her to the dead.
The Snowman
Zadoc Nava
10'
2021
United Kingdom
Spanning several decades, The Snowman is a unique portrait of the filmmaker’s father, the Afro-Mexican artist José Nava, and a moving meditation on loss and memory.
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.
Some Manifestations of the South
Zhiyi Wang
15'
2021
United Kingdom
A young man runs an errand service visiting and cleaning ancestors’ cemeteries of his clients on their behalf on festivals and anniversaries.
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.
Some Kind of Intimacy
Toby Bull
6'
2021
United Kingdom
The filmmaker tries to communicate with the sheep living where his parents are buried.
Step into the river
MA Weijia
15'
2021
China
Lu and Wei are two young girls living in a village nestled on the banks of a river. As the one-child policy has led some families to drown baby girls, they both have a special relationship with this river, which looks like a cradle of tragic stories.
The Last Days
Dipo Baruwa-Etti
13'
2021
United Kingdom
In a near-future world where you can discover your Death Day, an apolitical woman (BRIDGERTON's Adjoa Andoh) learns that she and many Black people have been given incorrect dates and seeks justice before her time runs out - that same day.