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The 15th International Festival
Signes de Nuit
Bangkok
Thaïland
May 7 - 9, 2017
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AWARD CELEBRATION
Short Film Competition
May 7 - 9, 2017
Bookhemian
Reading Room
Bangkok / Thailand
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Short film Competition
Main Award
When You Awake
Jay Rosenblatt
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When You Awake
Jay Rosenblatt
USA
2016 | 0:11:00
"The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water.” (Sigmund Freud). An exhilarating journey into the collective unconscious where all the images, sounds and music are entirely from found footage.
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Jury Statement :
Found footages from many old films, decades before the birth of digital technology enhancement of cinema, playfully rearranged and remixed to create a funny hypnotizing session of one particular couple. The hypnotist’s voice over gradually leads the characters, and perhaps us -audiences- to the trance by the form of moving images and sounds from the past. Unique style and signatures of the era combined perfectly to perform magical gimmicks like a wonderful magic circus show. Even though films constructed from found footages may sound cliché to some, but for us, this little film is smart enough to blow our minds with its simplicity.
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Director Statement :
It is wonderful to receive the Main Award from the International Festival
Signs of the Night in Bangkok. For me it is a sign that film knows no
borders and that the collective unconscious (which is what the film is
about) lives up to its definition.
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Short film Competition
Special Mention for Main Award
Limbo
Konstantina Kotzamani |
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Limbo
Konstantina Kotzamani
Greece, France
2016 | 0:30:00
The leopard shall lie down with the goat. The wolves shall live with the lambs. And the young boy will lead them. Confrontation with the death, approachments with the unknown, exluding the stranger.
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Jury Statement :
Undoubtedly, the film’s stunning visual shows us the director’s top-notched filmmaking skills. Choice for colors, great cinematography, and pacing of editing were all combined marvelously and constructed the titular limbo right before our eyes. Though Limbo’s mood and tone are quite obscure in terms of execution and narratives within arthouse cinema aesthetics, messages and statements are very loud, bold and clear. Christianity references and symbols might be too obvious for some, but this fable-like story about an albino boy who needs to overcome negative hospitality from the population of his new community is still a fresh take on one of the most urgent issues of this hour, the refugee crisis.
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Short Film Competition
Signs Award
Greetings From Kropsdam
Joren Molter |
| The Signs Award honors films, which treat an important subject in an
original, convincing and surprising way. |
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Greetings From Kropsdam
Joren Molter
Netherlands
2016 | 0:24:00
Lammert has no mischief, but he becomes the victim of the stifling effect of a community that has already chosen its scapegoat.
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Jury Statement :
In a small community where everyone knows each other, the windmill power plant is constructing amidst the protest. A guy has a piece of cake provided in the meeting organized by the power plant company because he’s just simply hungry, without knowing that this is going to turn the whole community against him. To deal with the “troublemaker,” the community starts boycotting and social sanctioning, and everything escalates quickly. Long shots and long takes are used properly here to let us observe seemingly quiet and peaceful society, with shockingly and sharply striking violence from those people within. Greetings from Kropsdam is a satirical black comedy portraying so-called moralistic society not only in Kropsdam or the Netherlands’ countryside but almost everywhere, in which so quick to judge without listening.
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Short film Competition
Special Mention for Sign Award
Life Journey
Solax Xuanyi Zhu |
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Life Journey
Solax Xuanyi Zhu
China
2016 | 0:33:04
A juvenile delinquent named Bing attends a educational program with his peers in the prison. After three sets of games, Bing finds his best friend Yao and other boys are gradually twisted by the games and become strange.
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Jury Statement :
Despite being presented for countless times, from Dai Sijie’s China, My Sorrow to Zhang Yimou’s early works and so on, the film’s subject matter still successfully keeps our adrenaline driven while watching. The director’s cinematic manipulation empowers his own political statement with more theatrical efforts than to short subjects, in particular, believable ensemble performances of actors. With a very limited provided space of storytelling and the titular programme’s political perspective tending towards hypnotizing and dominating whole group of men into mass-hysterical behaviours, the film contributes us a sharp hint - images of engulfing concrete wall being shot from outside the prison’s territory are the film’s revelation. Being imprisoned whatsoever, by the regime’s hegemonic hierarchy using the Cultural Revolution’s model of manipulation.
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Short Film Competition
Night Award
Oh What a Wonderful Feeling
François Jaros
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| The Night Award honors films, which are able to balance ambiguity and
complexity characterized by enigmatic mysteriousness and subtleness,
which keeps mind and consideration moving. |
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Oh What a Wonderful Feeling
François Jaros
Canada
2016 | 0:15:00
Stars, hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires. Nor any truck.
Trailer :
https://vimeo.com/163106766
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Jury Statement :
This wonderful Canadian short film deserves the Night Award in every approach considered. Dazzling nights of a young girl were gorgeously composed by the director’s exceptional vision. Mysterious truck stop, sexy odd job, and unexpected superpower (?) are seamlessly combined in this realm of mystery. Some dialogues were spoken, but not from the protagonist girl, and not for the sake of informing anything to its audiences. Nobody could be so sure about what happened during those nights since the conquering power of the film are unspoken passion and emotion underneath. This is a film perfectly standing on the thin blue line between symbolism tale and a surreal supernatural story.
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Short film Competition
Special Mention for Night Award
Blue
Yukinori Makabe |
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Blue
Yukinori Makabe
Japan
2015 | 0:21:00
The woman does a trip meeting various people. She has a feeling of nostalgia, even if the meet them for the first time.
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Jury Statement :
Inspired by a Japanese jazz artist, this film flows around freely with a special touch of playfulness. Contrasted elements with comedic sense remind us of Katsuhito Ishii’s The Taste of Tea and Funky Forest: The First Contact, with a slightly calmer tone. The storytelling here is against any familiar simple narratives, and the structure was let loose from the beginning. The film teases us to put every single piece provided together to making sense out of it, only until the point we all realized this is an incomplete colorful jigsaw. Those missing pieces are intriguing enough to draw us into the protagonist’s journey, both physically and mentally, and parts constructed from provided pieces on screen are charming mind games.
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