Alva
After his children are taken away by social services, a troubled loner seeks revenge and flees into the inhospitable forest.
98'
Portugal
IFFR 2019
Barbed wire and keep-out signs separate two Sri Lankan villages that have been at war with one another forever. When both communities become completely sterile and there is fear for the continuity of their bloodlines, the village elders decide to make a sacrifice. Asoka, a veteran dogged by controversy, is sent out with Ahalya, a woman from the other village who has not spoken since losing her husband and son in the war. She is accompanied on their journey to an enchanted wood populated by victims of the war by Strange Doctor, a neutral outsider.
Asoka and Ahalya’s villages symbolise the Singhalese and Tamil ethnic groups, who have been fighting one another in Sri Lanka for 20 years. Their collective fears and traumas are submerged in magic-realist symbolism, but this film offers no reassuring happy end. Making this dark, poetic fairy tale closer to the truth than many documentaries.
IFFR 2019
Programme IFFR 2019
Emerging talent with original subject matter and an individual style. Includes the films nominated for the Bright Future Competition for first feature films.
Read more about this programmeAfter his children are taken away by social services, a troubled loner seeks revenge and flees into the inhospitable forest.
98'
Portugal
IFFR 2019
Fourteen absurd encounters of a melancholy girl with the surrounding world in this post-modern comedy filled with pastel and neon lights.
80'
Germany
IFFR 2019
Life’s key elements come together in this visual film symphony and ode to today's colourful Jamaica.
77'
Jamaica
IFFR 2019