Eye For Film >> Festivals >> BIFF >> 2023 >> Encounters
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Samsara and Orlando, My Political Biography
Absence (Xue yun)
(Country: China; Year: 2023; Director: Wu Lang; Stars: Lee Kang-Sheng, Li Meng, Ren Ke, Liang Wanling)
World premiere
After ten years in prison, Han Jiangyu returns to Hainan Island. Housing construction is booming, his childhood friend is now rich. Searching for traces of the familiar, Jiangyu meets his old love who now has a daughter.
The Adults
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Dustin Guy Defa; Stars: Michael Cera, Hannah Gross, Sophia Lillis)
World premiere
The plan to make a trip back home as short as possible begins to unravel when Eric has to balance his addiction to poker with the challenging relationships with his two sisters Rachel and Maggie.
Bad Living (Mal Viver)
(Country: Portugal, France; Year: 2023; Director: João Canijo)
World premiere
Five women are running an old hotel. A long-standing, perhaps irreparable conflict weighs down on them. When the young Salomé arrives, old wounds are reopened.
The Cage Is Looking For A Bird (Kletka ishet ptitsu)
(Country: France, Russia; Year: 2023; Director: Malika Musaeva; Stars: Khadizha Bataeva, Madina Akkieva, Fatima Elzhurkaeva, Rita Merzhoeva, Magomed Alhastov)
World premiere
Yakha, 17, lives in a village in Chechnya and loves roaming the fields with her friend Madina. She is open to life and knows what she wants, but there are limits to her ability to make her own choices.
Eastern Front (Shidniy front)
(Country: Latvia, Czech Republic, Ukraine, US; Year: 2023; Director: Vitaly Mansky, Yevhen Titarenko)
World premiere
Documentary about a first-aid batallion in Ukraine.
The Echo (El Eco)
(Country: Mexico, Germany; Year: 2023; Director: Tatiana Huezo)
World premiere
In a remote and solitary valley, punished by winter and drought, the children learn to gaze upon death, illness and love.
Family Time (Mummola)
(Country: Finland, Sweden; Year: 2023; Director: Tia Kouvo; Stars: Ria Kataja, Elina Knihtilä, Leena Uotila, Tom Wentzel, Jarkko Pajunen)
World premiere
Comedy drama set during an annual family Christmas get-together.
Here
(Country: Belgium; Year: 2023; Director: Bas Devos; Stars: Stefan Gota, Liyo Gong)
World premiere
Stefan, a Romanian construction worker living in Brussels, is about to move back home. He cooks up a big pot of soup as a goodbye gift for friends and family. Just then, he meets a Belgian-Chinese doctoral student who specialises in mosses.
In The Blind Spot (Im toten Winkel)
(Country: Germany; Year: 2023; Director: Ayşe Polat; Stars: Katja Bürkle, Ahmet Varlı, Çağla Yurga, Aybi Era, Maximilian Hemmersdorfer)
World premiere
A political thriller set between sinister organisations and existential insecurity.
In Water
(Country: South Korea; Year: 2023; Director: Hong Sangsoo; Stars: Shin Seokho, Ha Seongguk, Kim Seungyun)
World premiere
A young actor decides to make a short film on Jeju Island. Searching for an idea, one day he notices a figure amid the rocks at the foot of a cliff. Finally, he has a story to tell.
The Klezmer Project (Adentro mío estoy bailando)
(Country: Austria, Argentina; Year: 2023; Director: Leandro Koch, Paloma Schachmann; Stars: Leandro Koch, Paloma Schachmann)
World premiere
Argentinian cameraman Leandro makes a living from filming Jewish weddings. At one of his jobs, he falls in love with Paloma, the clarinetist of the wedding band. To seduce her he pretends to be shooting a documentary film about klezmer. What Leandro does not know is that his “fake” film project will take him on an unscripted journey throughout Eastern Europe.
My Worst Enemy (Mon pire ennemi)
(Country: France, Switzerland; Year: 2023; Director: Mehran Tamadon; Stars: Zar Amir Ebrahimi)
World premiere
Mehran Tamadon has lived in France for many years. As an experiment, he asks exiled Iranians to interrogate him as if they were an agent of the Islamic Republic. A renowned actor with first-hand knowledge of such mistreatment takes up the challenge. Documentary.
Orlando, My Political Biography (Orlando, ma biographie politique)
(Country: France; Year: 2023; Director: Paul B Preciado; Writer: Paul B Preciado; Stars: Paul B Preciado)
Docufiction interpretation of Virginia Woolf's novel.
World premiere
Samsara
(Country: Spain; Year: 2023; Director: Lois Patiño; Writer: Lois Patiño; Stars: Amid Keomany, Toumor Xiong, Simone Milavanh, Mariam Vuaa Mtego, Juwairiya Idrisa Uwesu)
Samsara is the Buddhist cycle of death and reincarnation. From the temples of Laos, alongside with teenage monks, we will accompany a soul in its transit from one body to another through the bardo.
World premiere
The Walls Of Bergamo (Le mura di Bergamo)
(Country: Italy; Year: 2023; Director: Stefano Savona)
World premiere
Story of the pandemic as seen through the lives of the town.
White Plastic Sky (Műanyag égbolt)
(Country: Hungary, Slovakia; Year: 2023; Director: Tibor Bánóczki, Sarolta Szabó; Stars: Tamás Keresztes, Zsófia Szamosi, Géza Hegedűs D., Judit Schell, István Znamenák)
World premiere
Animation. In a not too distant future without animals and plants where the price of human survival is high, a young man breaks every rule to save his wife.
59th New York Film Festival early bird highlights Futura, Jane By Charlotte, James Baldwin: From Another Place and The Velvet Underground
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