Jonaki, an eighty-year-old woman, finds herself in a decaying world of nostalgia. She relives moments of her life with a strangeness that churns up feelings buried deep in her soul. Her memories surface in dream-like modes in which the line between real and surreal blurs. The echoing space of this fascinating meditative journey gently and carefully confronts us with a possible moment of transition between life and death.
The cinematic form of a beautiful, esoteric trance with meticulously created painterly images suggests a temporal and spatial void inhabited by a less immediate kind of time. The Bengali director (also a painter, animator and film author), whose remarkable debut Labour of Love was screened at IFFR in 2015, daringly and successfully digs deeper in search of an exciting personal cinematic language.
Programme
While Jonaki, an eighty-year-old woman, searches for love in a strange world of decaying memories, her lover, now old and grey, returns to a world she is leaving behind. Masterful direction and superb camera work deliver a remarkable esoteric cinematic meditation.
95'
India
IFFR 2018
Two women at a crossroads in their lives meet briefly before each undertaking a journey: one returning to her family, while the other discovers a new world – and herself. Her journey takes us across breath-taking landscapes and endless bodies of water, and throws up both questions and answers about the essence of life and being.
95'
Germany
IFFR 2018
Morgellons is a mysterious disease for which medical science has no explanation. Patients feel misunderstood, but experts think they are putting ideas into each other’s heads. A glimpse into the online life of Morgellons sufferers makes it clear how contemporary media usage can lead to mass psychosis. And what the downside of all this ‘sharing’ can be.
71'
USA
IFFR 2018