International Festival Signs of the Night - Paris
Festival internatinal Signes de nuit - Paris
       


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18e Festival international Signes de Nuit - Paris - October 1-5 / 22-25, 2020
9






ONLINE EDITION

See: Timetable


 

 

The Present

Farah Nabulsi
Palestine / 2019 / 0:24:16



On his wedding anniversary, Yusef and his daughter, Yasmine, set out in the West Bank to buy his wife a gift. Between the soldiers, segregated roads and checkpoints, how easy would it be to go shopping?

 

The Grandmother

Eduart Grishaj
Albania / 2020 / 0:21:00

WORLD PREMIERE


In the north of communist Albania, in an isolated mountain village, the life of a family will change forever. Patriarchal norms and traditions have transformed the inhabitants. Shpresa, only 17-year-old, suddenly reveals she is pregnant from a secret love affair. Shpresa's mom does her best to stop her daughter in giving birth to this baby. Sokol, Shpresa’s father, unaware of his daughter’s pregnancy, asks for the help of the village nurse, Theresa, as he thinks Shpresa is severely ill. The girl's mother puts the nurse ahead of an accomplished fact, to abort the child, who would permanently stain the family with shame, even if it risked her daughter’s life.


 

Cracking Sounds

Hanna Kaihlanen
Finland / 2019 / 0:11:06

FRENCH PREMIERE


A dreamlike ride through an apocalyptic northern landscape. A man is tracking elk by the side of a field. In the distance a harvester glides among the trees like a great iron beast. The landscape awakens as we ride through it half asleep. Cracking Sound is a frenzied journey to the heart of the end times, to man’s need to control nature and rise above it.


 

My Own Landscapes

Antoine Chapon
France / 2020 / 0:19:00



Within the French and American armies, virtual reality prepares soldiers for their future battles just as it treats post-traumatic stress disorder after their baptism of fire. Antoine Chapon meets Cyril, former military video game designer and a veteran, who is dealing with the return to civilian life and loss of identity. long Since 2013, the American army has been recruiting its future soldiers by organising video game competitions (such as America’s Army). Good players are offered a contract to fight on very real battlefields. They prepare for this by playing on virtual reality simulators, also used to “treat” post-traumatic stress disorder on their return from the front. Antoine Chapon met Cyril, who used to design natural environments for military video games and then went away to fight. Like the majority of his peers (or perhaps all?), he came back traumatised by the baptism of fire. His account is narrated by a female voiceover, while the veteran plays his own role, manipulating weapons and mouse, uniforms and virtual reality headset: because the hero of this story has created his own digital mental landscape, a utopian island, a natural serene universe, close to the Second Life aesthetic, where dozens of fellows (in both the real and the figurative) end up nonetheless, living, like him, exiled inside themselves, infinitely alone, together.

 



The Woman Under The Tree

Karishma Kohli
USA / 2020 / 0:14:50

INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE

Lucia, a homeless woman in South Beach, spends much of her time sitting under a tree, watching the life of a family unfold in a house across the street. When not under the tree, she fights for food and shelter while drifting between reality and delusion. What begins as a seemingly senseless act of voyeurism becomes something deeper as we discover the meaning her routine brings to her life.