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The 14th International Festival
Signes de Nuit
Paris

November 24 - December 4, 2016

cite universitaire
Maison du Portugal
Maison du Mexique
Main d'oeuvres
 Bibliotheque Francois Truffaut


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AWARD CELEBRATION

Student Jury


Sunday, December 4, 2016 / 6 pm
Maison du Portugal André de Gouveia
Cité internationale universitaire de Paris

 

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Short Film Competition

Main Award


Timecode
Juanjo Giminez 



Timecode

PARIS PREMIERE

 


Timecode
Juanjo Giminez

Spain
2015 | 0:15:00

Luna and Diego are the parking lot security guards. Diego does the night shift, and Luna works by day.

Luna et Diego sont les agents de sécurité et de gardiennage du parking. Diego effectue le service de nuit, alors que Luna travaille en journée.


Trailer :
https://youtu.be/EtfI81Edspo

 

Student Jury Statement :
Meilleur film pour son scénario audacieux et sympathique où les interactions entre les personnages se font par la danse, ainsi que sa mise en scène.

Best movie for its audacious and nice screenplay where the characters interact with each other by dancing, and the way it is filmed.

Director Statement :
Queridos amigos del festival Signes de nuit, muchas gracias por el premio del Jurado de estudiantes. Me encanta hacer películas sobre cosas que no conozco, y es muy estimulante que me den un premio a causa de la danza, porque sinceramente, yo no sé bailar... Espero poder participar en próximas ediciones de vuestro festival con nuevos films sobre temas de los que no tengo ni idea. Muchas gracias otra vez y un saludo desde Barcelona!

Dear friends of the Signes de Nuit Festival, thank you very much for this student jury award! I love making films about subjects that I don’t know, and it is very stimulating to receive a prize for a dance work, because honestly, I do not know how to dance ... I hope to be able to participate in next editions of your festival, making new films about things that I don’t know much about... Thank you very much again and greetings from Barcelona!
 
Short Film Competition

Special Mention


Invocation to Sleep
Ewa Wikiel 



Invocation Sleep

FRENCH PREMIERE

 


Invocation to Sleep (Invocation au sommeil)
Ewa Wikiel

Germany
2015 | 0:13:00

A night in a small polish village. Eight year old Kornel can't fall asleep. For the first time in his life he's confronted with a death in his family. At dawn he leaves the house to see if the world outside still exists and where the line between life and death is.

Une nuit dans un petit village polonais. Kornel, huit ans ne parvient pas à trouver le sommeil. Pour la première fois dans sa vie, il est confronté à un décès dans sa famille. À l'aube, il quitte la maison pour voir si le monde extérieur existe encore, et où est la ligne entre la vie et la mort.

 


 


Student Jury Statement :
Un film magnifique sur la vie et la mort. Le point de vue de l'enfant nous permet de voir son évolution. Les paysages sont très beaux aussi.

A beautiful movie about life and death. The point of view of the child allows us to see his evolution. The landscapes scenes are beautiful as well.

Director Statement :
When it comes down to the comment: I am thankful for the words said by jury about ,,Invocation to sleep'', As we shot the film in Poland,we would never think it will be confronted with the viewers in Paris.
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Short Film Competition

Signs Award


Behemoth - or the Game of God
Lemohang Jeremih Mosese
The Signs Award is attributed to films treating an important subject in an original, convincing and surprising way.



Behemoth - or the Game of God


Behemoth - or the Game of God
Behemoth - ou le jeu de Dieu
Lemohang Jeremih Mosese

Lesotho, Germany
2015 | 00:13:00

An itinerant preacher proclaims to people that their god is in the very coffin he is dragging along.

Un prédicateur itinérant proclame aux gens que leur dieu se trouve dans le cercueil qu'il traîne.




Student Jury Statement :
Film dont les sujets "polémiques" que sont la religion et l'argent sont présentés de manière convaincante et originale. La manière dont le film est filmé est original aussi et en accord à la bande sonore extravagante.

Movie which subjects as polemics as religion and money are presented in a convincting and original way. The way its filmed is also very original and fits perfectly with the odd soundtrack.


Director Statement :

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Short Film Competition

Night Award

Limbo
Konstantina Kotzamani
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.



Limbo

PARIS PREMIERE

 


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.

 



Student Jury Statement :
Un film très esthétique avec de magnifiques paysages. L'histoire très originale et ambiguë nous plonge dans un univers presque onirique et énigmatique.

A very esthetic film with wonderful landscapes. The story very originale and ambiguous drives us into a living dream and an enigmatic universe.
 
 
Short Film Competition

Special Mention for the Night Award


Woman and her Car
Elle pis son char

Loïc Darses 



Woman and her Car

PARIS PREMIERE

 


Woman and her Car
Elle pis son char
Loïc Darses

Canada
2015 | 0:18:00

On 31 December 2003, Lucie Tremblay decided to write to the man who abused her between ages eight and twelve. She is determined to personally deliver the letter. She films her journey to gain closure for the trauma that has haunted her whole life. When her son finds the footage well over a decade later, he decides to turn it into a film: A Woman and her Car. An intimate homage to the courage of an exceptional woman who decided to stand up for herself and a savage condemnation of the bastards who abuse the innocence of others and think they can get away with it.



Student Jury Statement :
Un film témoignage qui traite d'un sujet sensible et polémique. Le mélange de vidéos familiales puis des plans de paysages tournés 20 ans après par le fils donne au film un aspect d'hommage réussi.

A testimony film which treat a sensitive and polemic subject. The mix between the family videos and the landscpes scenes filmed 20 years after by the son gives to the film its memorial aspect very well done.

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Short Film Competition

Edward Snowden Award


Leeches
Sethi Payal
The Edward Snowden Award honors films, which offer sensible (mostly) unknown informations, facts and phenomenons of eminent importance, for which the festival wishes a wide proliferation in the future.



Sabra

PARIS PREMIERE

 


Leeches
Sethi Payal

India
2016 | 0:26:00

In the chaotic old city of Hyderabad, 16-year old Raisa hatches a dangerous & improbable plan to save her younger sister from becoming a one-day bride.

 




Student Jury Statement :
Un film qui traite d'un sujet important et sensible mais encore peu abordé et polémique. Un court - métrage émotionnel. La dernière scène nous offrant une morale magnifique.

A movie which treat an important and sensitive subject that is still ignored by most people and polemic. A very emotional shortfilm. The last scene offers us a beautiful moral.


Director Statement :
We are honoured to receive this award for our film, which has been two years in the making. It is wonderful to be acknowledged for the comprehensive research that formed the basis of this narrative, which is set against the practice of temporary marriage in extremely underprivileged Muslim communities in Hyderabad.

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Cinema in Transgression Competition

Main Award


Counterlight
Maya Zack

  



Counterlight

WORLD PREMIERE

 


Counterlight
Maya Zack

Israel
2016 | 0:23:00

A hypnotic journey into the depths of consciousness that follows the traces of poet Paul Celan An archivist listens to extracts from recordings by Celan and resurrects the past in a female alchemy




Student Jury Statement :
Un film magnifique. Palimpseste où se rejoignent la hantise de l’oubli et les méandres du passé. Il faut s’inscrire dans l’histoire, archiver, recomposer… pour ne pas oublier. Le personnage féminin, touchant, semble égaré dans cet étrange espace vide, séparant les vivants des morts. Elle se découpe comme une ombre chinoise dans un monde de carton et papier, menant une véritable fouille archéologique du passé, afin d’en exhumer les spectres. Rituel de mémoire, étrange cérémonie, méticuleuse mise en scène… Autant d’éléments qui nous ont poussé à positionner ce film, non pas à contre jour (counterlight), mais en pleine lumière !

Directors Statement:

I was very happy and touched to read the attentive and enthusiastic statement of the jury about Counterlight. I can assure you that also the fictitious feminine character of the archivist in my film would have been excited to read those words too and to know that the palimpsest (the jury's exact expression) - the memory-Golem she was creating - has come to life in the mind of the jury and the viewers. It's even more special to get your warm response in Paris, the city where Paul Celan lived, loved and wrote his seminal poetry of which "Stretto" (Engfuehrung) appears in the film and which inspired my journey in the past few years. I thank you deeply for your kind generous insight and heart. Maya Zack

 

 

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Cinema in Transgression Competition

Signs Award


FIRAQ
Kalli Zifou
 The Signs Award honors films, which treat an important subject in an original and convincing way.



Firaq


FIRAQ
Kalli Zifou

Great Britain
2016 | 0:10:12

A Syrian couple during their final moments together as they cannot both afford to seek for refuge


Student Jury Statement :
Firaq est un film poignant. L’histoire de ce couple dévoré par le feu, feu de l’amour et coups de feu, nous a tout de suite séduite. Dans ce chaos éclos la beauté. Beauté d’un amour réduit en cendre. Les jeux de lumières, l’esthétisme, le montage génial, évoquant la disparition, et le fort propos, traité avec élégance, ont attiré notre attention.

Director Statement :

We are honoured to have been attributed the SIGNS Award for Cinema in Transgression in Festival International Signes de Nuit, a festival that celebrates innovation. As no-budget student filmmakers we are beyond pleased that our voice was not only heard and appreciated, but also given that kind of recognition. It is of particular value to us that Signes de Nuit awarded our film due to its cause: to unite experimental filmmaking with sociopolitical experience and create new artistic expression through film. The Firaq team is wholeheartedly thanking you for including us in your cause and hope more collaboration is yet to come! Kalli Zifou, Director/Writer of Firaq

 

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Cinema in Transgression Competition

Night Award


Topcoat
Inka Rusi

 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. 



Topcoat

PARIS PREMIERE

 


Topcoat
Inka Rusi

Finland
2016 / 0:08:30

The films opens with an elderly woman is in a taxi coming home from a party carrying a bouquet of flowers and a cake box. She begins to listen to a poem by William Blake. She arrives at her house, unaware that she is being watched by someone. The looker is a young man working on his inspiration. Gradually their two worlds begin to merge as the poem works as a bridge. He is working through his obsessions in his art as the woman is reflecting on life. She moves within the realms of the classical world and he as a young maker is working on reworking the classics. The elderly woman is displayed on his wall when she was young wearing the same dress and coat that she is wearing now. As the film unfolds the question about who is the inspiration and who is the muse becomes unclear




Student Jury Statement :
Images tricotées avec la minutie d’un vers de poésie, esthétique sophistiquée, mise en abîme de l’artificialité du cinéma… Topcoat nous emporte dans un univers poétique baroque et rythmé. Une forêt de symbole aux accents pop dont on aimerait bien ne jamais revenir. Un pays des merveilles dans lequel les personnages repeignent les fleurs et la réalité à leur couleur. Le poème de Blake est ici magnifiquement lu et mit en image.

Director Statement :


 
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Cinema in Transgression Competition

Edward Snowden Award


Voices of Finance
Clara Van Gool
 The Edward Snowden Award honors films, which offer sensible (mostly) unknown informations, facts and phenomenons of eminent importance, for which the festival wishes a wide proliferation in the future.



Voices of Finance

FRENCH PREMIERE

 


Voices of Finance
Clara Van Gool

Netherlands
2015 | 0:35:00


Docudrama based on Joris Luyendijk's Banking Blog in The Guardian about the financial heart of London. We follow ten different characters through the financial world in London, whose monologues are embodied through dance. The characters create a chain reaction similar to the competitive, glamorous exhaustive, uncertain and stressful financial world, in which every day could be your last




Student Jury Statement :
Un film très original, ou s’allient l’art du cinéma et de la danse. Le monologue, efficace et frappant de sincérité, créer un intelligent contraste avec l’étrangeté des chorégraphies. Les corps se tordent de mal-être, se crispent de stress ou expriment leur ras-le-bol. Les corps se confessent plus encore que la voix. La danse devient alors est une démonstration, une accusation, un exutoire. La grâce surgit dans un monde d’avarice et d’hypocrisie. Les arabesques viennent soudain arrondir les façades tranchantes des buildings. Et dans cette course effrénée à l’argent, le personnage final apporte une subtil respiration, qui laisse une forte empreinte dans l’esprit du spectateur.

Director Statement :


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Documentary Competition

Main Award


The War Show
Obadiah Zytoon et Andreas Dalsgaard

  

The War Show

FRENCH PREMIERE

 


The War Show
Obadiah Zytoon et Andreas Dalsgaard

Danemark

2016 | 1:34:00


In March 2011, radio host Obaidah Zytoon and her circle of friends join the street protests against President Bashar al-Assad, as the Arab Spring reaches Syria. Knowing their country would be changed forever, this group of artists and activists begin filming their lives and the events around them. But as the regime’s violent response spirals the country into a bloody civil war, their hopes for a better future will be tested by violence, imprisonment and death. Obaidah leaves Damascus and journeys around the country, from her hometown of Zabadani, to the centre of the rebellion in Homs, and to northern Syria where she witnesses the rise of extremism. A deeply personal road movie, the film captures the fate of Syria through the intimate lens of a small circle of friends.


Student Jury Statement :
We decided to give the Main Award to "The War Show" because it’s the film that we love the most. Showing all the violence in the images but on the same time a young generation full of hope and courage. These Syrian song people seem without fear. "The War Show " makes us believe in this youth that will never surrender, it’s makes us dream about a futur.

Nous avons décidé de remettre le prix principal au fil « The War show » car c’est le film qui nous a le plus marqué. A la fois par la violence de ses propos mais surtout par la jeunesse, l’espoir et le courage de ces jeunes Syriens qui semblent sans peurs. « The War show » nous donne envie de croire en cette jeunesse qui ne renoncera jamais pour un avenir meilleur.


Director Statement :
On behalf of the directors and the entire team I would like to thank the jury for having chosen The War Show for the Main Award. For us it is so important to create awareness about the lack of protection of human rights in Syrian jails of the detainees and disappeared, which this prize will help us to continue the work of. Also to create an understanding amongst the western audiences as to how the Syrian revolution came to a proxy war, which has now been undergoing for 5 years.


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Documentary Competition

Signs Award


Brothers
Bracia
Wojciech Staron
 The Signs Award honors films, which treat an important subject o in an original, convincing and surprising way.



Brothers

FRENCH PREMIERE

 


Brothers
Bracia
Wojciech Staron

Poland
2015 | 1:11:00


Two old Polish brothers come back to their homeland after having been deported to Siberia. The first one is an artist, the other a pragmatic engineer: despite their differences they love and support each other, and together they face the passage of time and the hardships of life. To tell their story, Wojciech Staron paid recurring visits to the two brothers and took plenty of time to become a part of their daily lives. He captured the passing of time in the old men’s lives and reveals the deep bound that unites them.


Trailer :
https://vimeo.com/156541463



Student Jury Statement :
We would like to give the signes award to Wojciech Staron’s movie because it’s a very beautiful film about the old age and love. Without ever being tearful, "Brother"s shows us what it’s like to grow old with a brother in good and bad times. It is a very poetic film, at the same time light, funny and moving.

Nous souhaitons remettre le Signes Award au film de Wojciech Staron car c’est un très beau film sur la vieillesse et l’amour. Sans jamais verser dans le larmoyant, « Brothers » donne à voir ce que c’est de vieillir avec un frère, dans les bons et les mauvais jours. Le film est très poétique, tout en étant à la fois léger et drôle.

Director Statement :
I love students awards :) I’m so happy that young people found the story about two old brothers important and moving!
 
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Documentary Competition

Night Award


Like Dew in the Sun
Peter Entell

 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. 



Onder Ons

 

FRENCH PREMIERE

 


Like Dew in the Sun
Peter Entell

Switzerland
2016 / 1:48:00


A century ago, the grandparents of film director Peter Entell had to flee Ukraine, a land torn apart by war and massacres. One hundred years later, Entell faces the same destructive nationalism. People continue to kill in the name of the mother country, flag, culture, religion ... The memory of the atrocities suffered by the Jews, the Tatar Muslims of Crimea, and the Orthodox population, is transmitted from generationto generation, and with it the poison of hatred. Crossing checkpoints, Peter Entell takes us from the loyalist Ukrainians to the pro-Russian separatists. The purpose is not to show who is right or wrong – humanity itself is defeated. In the midst of this senseless violence, Like Dew in the Sun transcends cultural, religious and national differences to uncover the deeper bonds that unite us all.


Trailer :
https://vimeo.com/160079424





Student Jury Statement :
Like dew in the sun" is a film about legacy and war. Sometime very hard to look it stays always neutral, showing both parts of the Ukrainian conflict. Because it makes us know, in a moving way, people who seems never to have known the peace, we want to attribute the Night Award to this work.

Like dew in the sun » est un film sur l’héritage et sur la guerre. Le film, parfois très dur, a su rester neutre et nous montrer les deux parties du conflits en Ukraine. C’est pour cela, et parce qu’il fait connaître de manière émouvante ce peule qui semble n’avoir jamais connu la paix, que nous lui décernons le Night Award.


Director Statement :
I wish to thank the Jury for having the strength to watch the brutality shown in this film and the compassion to empathize with the people it portrays. We have now entered a very dangerous moment in history, the Age of Trump -- one characterized by anger and hatred, suspicion and fear, racism and an attitude of "us" versus "them" -- Like Dew in the Sun is an appeal for tolerance and understanding. Though the film is anchored in the history of Ukraine, it speaks to the situation in so many countries today.

 
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Documentary Competition

Edward Snowden Award



El Espiritu del bosque
Monique Muntinge
The Edward Snowden Award honors films, which offer sensible (mostly) unknown informations, facts and phenomenons of eminent importance, for which the festival wishes a wide proliferation in the future.



El Espiritu del bosque

FRENCH PREMIERE

 


El Espiritu del bosque
Monique Munting

Belgium, Cameroun
2015 / 0:52:00

A poetic & political documentary In less than a hundred years, half of the world's tropical forests have been destroyed. As a consequence, all over the world forest peoples are threatened and endangered. Among them the Baka of Central Africa, driven from their ancestral territory by the advance of logging activities and the establishment of protected areas, claim their right to live in peace in their natural environment, their “source of life”, as they say. Despite their specific situation, the issues raised by the Baka are universal and essential and particularly relevant in the present.


Student Jury Statement :
"El espíritu del bosque" is the film which we want to attribute the Edward Snowden Award. It deals with phenomenas which seems important to us. The film is sometime funny and always amazing. We would like to see more often this kind of discourse, at the same time alarming and optimistic, not deprived of happiness.

El Espiritu del bosque » est le film à qui nous avons souhaité remette l’Edward Snowden Award. Il traite de phénomènes qui nous semblent important de relever. De plus, le film est parfois drôle et toujours étonnant. Nous aimerions entendre et voir plus souvent ce genre de discours, à la fois alarmant et optimiste, pas dénué d’espoir.

 

 

 


 

Festival international SIGNES DE NUIT - 18, rue Budé 75004 Paris - France - Tel : +33 (0) 1 40 46 92 25 - +33 (0) 6 84 40 84 38 - cood.int@signesdenuit.com