Mellowing, 17:00

STIFF2024-Mellowing

The growing up of an individual is a result of a complex set of circumstances, but the backbone is made by our loved ones, with whom we go through this process. Every story is unique, as is the person who lives it, and Mellowing brings together those that are particularly impressive. The animated film Stribor’s Forest by Ana Despot brings a modernized and witty reading of the classical Croatian fairy tale. Serbian feature film Ghosts You Draw on my back by Nikola Stojanović thematizes the personal grief of a teenage girl Sara at the intersection of family and socioeconomic changes.

In the Croatian documentary Thank you mother, the author Izidor Bistrović tries to establish dialogue and understanding with the mother who devoted her life to religion, while the Elephant in the room in Sam Kuwa’s eponymous Japanese animated film seeks a way to stop being one.

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Stribor’s Forest

Ana Despot, animation, 7’, Croatia, 2024

In a tranquil yet mysterious forest, a mother and son live harmoniously until one day a mysterious snake sneaks up on them, disrupting their peace. The snake transforms into a beautiful maiden and seduces the foolish son, who completely loses his mind.

Producer: Academy of Fine Arts
Distribution: Academy of Fine Arts

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The Ghosts You Draw On My Back

Nikola Stojanović, fiction, 15’, Serbia, 2023

Teenage Sara travels to a small provincial town to attend the memorial service of her grandmother. The usually quiet village is being disrupted by the construction of the new railway. While fighting her fears, Sara finds shelter in a worker from the construction site.

Producer: Čarna Vučinić, Luka Nestorović
Distribution: VARICOLOURED

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Thank You Mother

Izidor Bistrović, documentary, 19’, Croatia, 2024

You are now spiritually with special needs. You accept all kinds of values and non-values. Your soul withers. You are very far from the picture that dear God imagined for you. Die. You are going to the kingdom of heaven. Where will your soul go after all these earthly successes? You only understand the logic of this world, and I look a little further. I gave birth to you not only for this world but for eternity.

Production: Academy of Dramatic Arts, Emma Grgurić
Distribution: Academy of Dramatic Arts

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Shape of the Elephant

Sam Kuwa, animation, 8’, Japan, 2023

There was an elephant living in my house, but all the adults were avoiding it.
The elephant kept changing its shape and grew up with me.

Production: Shin Hosokawa
Distribution: Tokyo Polytechnic University

Whispers, 18:00

STIFF2024-Whispers

Personal confessions are easier to whisper, so that not everyone can hear. But it is precisely these quiet truths of individual experiences that have great value in collective strength because, ultimately, our thoughts – live in others too. So, listen carefully. In the Belgian animated film Freshwater Bees by Emma Kanouté, the return to the homeland brings back soft, gentle and carefully hidden memories of growing up. Quiet surrender to an unexpected moment of romance for the protagonist of the warm Chinese drama Wisdom Tooth by Yang Yixin brings an equally unexpected epilogue.

María Camila Pulgarín and Manuela Giraldo’s tender documentary observation Dysphonias questions the relationship between a daughter and a father, faced with the loss of his voice. The grandmother gave a new voice to her identity in the strange and funny Croatian animated film in Russian language Babushka has a new boyfriend by Dean Hamer.

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Freshwater Bees

Emma Kanouté, animation, 8’, Belgium, 2023

In the middle of summer, Louise pays a visit to her parents’ house in the French countryside. As she wanders around the places of her teenage years, a soft nostalgia rises with the memories of the time she spent with Nora. A melancholic journey in her past that weaves the story of a first lesbian love.

Producer: Vincent Gilot
Distribution: ADIFAC

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Wisdom Tooth

Yang Yixin, fiction, 38’, China, 2024

Qiu Lujuan, a nearly 40 years old woman, who is enthusiastic about life while has little romance experience, now works as a nanny. Recently Qiu suffered from toothache and was diagnosed with one infected wisdom tooth. Xu Dawei, a gentle and warm dentist, came into her life. He taught her dancing and shared beautiful moments with her. However, an accident seemed to smash her beautiful dream.

Producer: Beijing Film Academy
Distribution: Beijing Film Academy

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Dysphonias

María Camila Pulgarín, Manuela Giraldo, documentary, 16’, Colombia, 2024

After a premonition of an unusual bird, a father loses his voice. His daughter undertakes a search to rediscover him, through an intimate narrative that explores the past, the new facets and the silences of a man who is no longer the same.

Production: University of Medellín
Distribution: Materia Sensible

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Babushka Has a New Boyfriend

Dean Hamer, animation, 10’, Croatia, 2023

Babushka is questioned by her shocked family about how she met her new partner, who turns out to be an animated living skeleton, to which babushka casually but enthusiastically recounts the event.

Production: Academy of Fine Arts Zagreb
Distribution: Academy of Fine Arts Zagreb

Out of the Shadow, 19:20

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Opposite the muted lights of the comfort zone, which lull the individual into safety, there is direct light from which there is no retreat. Outside the shadow there is no blending, hiding or suppression. How much will we expose ourselves? Woven from shadows and silhouettes, Aurora Muller Feunge’s French animated film The Cat, the Fox and the Wolf transforms the search into the meaning of the journey. The Icelandic documentary Love Chronicles by Simone Hart and Jón H. Geirfinnsson presents a portrait of a woman who stands firmly in the shadows,

in devoted service to the art for which she has been living for more than ninety years. In the Lithuanian animation Plica polonica, Agata Tracevič, the protagonist struggles with knots in her hair and her life, and the impeccable stage performance of long-time partners in the Polish film A Cappella by Marcin Kluczykowski is called into question when one of the two wants to be seen together, outside the safe comfort of their home.

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Cat, Fox and the Wolf

Aurore Muller Feuga, animation, 12’, France, 2024

The Cat and the Fox starts a journey to find a stray wolf. The two friends follow his track which brings them to meet the people who collect his story. The two friends discover what is behing the words.

Producer: EMCA, Angoulême
Distribution: EMCA, Angoulême

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Torn

Simone Hart, Jón H. Geirfinnsson, documentary, 29’, Austria, 2024

Inga Birgitta Spur found art as her life’s calling at a young age. Now, at over 90 years, she still directs the Museum preserving the artworks of her late husband.

Producer: Filmakademie Wien
Distribution: Filmakademie Wien

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Plica Polonica

Agata Tracevič, animation, 8’, Lithuania, 2023

Plica polonica used to be a disease that would tangle Eastern European people’s hair. The main protagonist of the film- a severely tangled girl- goes on a search for a “cure” for her inner knot. She seeks answers from the most tangled of them all- the infamous Baba Yaga.

Production: Vilnius Academy of Arts
Distribution: Vilnius Academy of Arts

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A cappella

Marcin Kluczykowski, fiction, 28’, Poland, 2023

A chorus rehearsal. Karol and Henryk are among the soloists. Like most of the singers, the two men lead the pretty quiet lives of senior citizens. They have been a couple for years, but no one outside their apartment knows about it. One day, they receive an invitation that shakes their meticulously hidden everyday life.

Production: Studio Munka, Jerzy Kapuściński, Ewa Jastrzębska
Distribution: Studio Munka

Thereafter, 20:30

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People and things change along the way, and ideas in practice rarely live up to what we imagined. Once we accept this, everything we encounter becomes a little easier to handle.  On a contemplative and accidental journey together in Tessa Kortmulder’s Whether I’d pass Lyon, two young travelers create a new friendship, testing their own and each other’s limits. In the documentary In Tranzit by Lucija Brkić, Tinka, a world traveler from Rijeka,

makes sure that migrants in her home town have better life conditions and safe transit, while she herself struggles to find her own place in the sun there. In the Israeli animated film Your Place in Line by Eden Grosman, after being mistakenly declared dead, the protagonist is making an effort to prove to the authorities, and to herself, that she is alive, revealing s bizarre labyrinth of bureaucracy.

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Whether I’d pass Lyon

Tessa Kortmulder, fiction, 25’, Netherlands, 2023

At a small train station in the South of France, Juun and Lucas meet by chance. Realizing they’re both heading home, they decide to travel together. Their friendship deepens as they journey through the winter French Alps, exploring themes of failure, starting anew, and personal growth.

Producer: University of the Arts Utrecht
Distribution: University of the Arts Utrecht

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In Transit

Lucija Brkić, documentary, 15’, Croatia, 2023

Rijeka is the point of transition for groups of migrants fleeing to a new life. There they live at the train station until the next trip. There they all meet Tinka, who is fighting for better conditions and their safe departure. Until she leaves Rijeka herself.

Producer: Academy of Dramatic Arts
Distribution: Academy of Dramatic Arts

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Your Place in Line

Eden Grosman, animation, 7’, Israel, 2023

After being mistakenly registered as dead, Daphna is going on a journey through the labyrinths of bureaucracy to prove (to the state and to herself) that she is alive.

Production: Bezalel Academy of Arts
Distribution: Bezalel Academy of Arts