POSTWAR ALBUM

75 minutes, 2020
Director : Angel LEIRO (Spain) et Airy MARAGALL (Spain)
Production : Lukimedia (Spain)
In coproduction with ZDF (Germany)
In collaboration with Arte (Germany, France)

Spanish war photographer Gervasio Sánchez documented the siege of Sarajevo in the 1990’s. Images of barricaded streets, walls riddled with bullet holes, burnt cars, and in the midst of it all, people continuing to go about their daily lives while fighting or mourning their dead. Children are often at the centre of these photographs, playing among the ruins. Gervasio has kept in touch with some of them and met them again for the first time in Sarajevo 25 years after the end of the siege. Some are amazed when they see his photographs because they don’t have pictures from that time. Hard hit by the war, these people look back at their childhood with nostalgia and affection.

Angel Leiro has been a television and film director for over thirty years. He started working at Televisión Española, and in 1984 joined Televisió de Catalunya. His feature-length documentary “Portraits of the soul” is about photojournalist Sandra Balsells returning to the Balkans to see the people she photographed during the war there.

Airy Maragall has a Masters in Screenwriting from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and has been working in the audiovisual sector since 1991. She writes screenplays for films, documentaries and television series, as well as for various television programmes in Spain and Argentina. She lived in Sarajevo for ten months in the immediate post-war period.

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L’ÉCOLE DE L’ESPOIR

(School of Hope)

78 minutes, 2020
Director : Mohamed EL ABOUDI (Morocco, Finland)
Production : Illume (Finland), Bellota Films (France), Vulcan Productions (USA), La Prod (Morocco)
With the participation ofFrance Télévisions, YLE (Finland)
In coproduction with 2M (Morocco)

Set in Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains, the film shows the children of a nomadic tribe, the Oulad Boukais. Over the past 15 years, climate change and overexploitation have forced these nomads to settle down, causing great poverty. On the edge of the desert the tribe nevertheless decided to fight, remaining on its land and educating its children in a small school far from everything, without water or electricity. The film tells the story of this school and the families who built it.

Mohamed EL ABOUDI was born and grew up in Morocco. He has a BA in Drama from the University of Fez (1991) and a Masters in Film and Television from Bond University, Australia (1997). Mohamed’s films show life stories: he has made documentaries about asylum seekers, immigrant mothers, artists, and a young girl with Down’s syndrome. His films have been shown in several festivals around the world. His documentary “Dance of Outlaws” won the 2013 PriMed’s Mediterranean Issues Award.

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DROWNING LETTERS

81 minutes, 2020
Director : Paula PALACIOS (Spain)
Production : Morada Films (Spain)

In recent years thousands of people have risked their lives crossing the Mediterranean in an attempt to reach the shores of Europe. Using a mysterious voice coming from the depths of the sea, “Drowning Letters” tells one of the most tragic chapters in contemporary history. The voice-over reads letters written by mothers to their children as we follow a rescue ship of the Spanish NGO Open Arms in a dramatic mission to save the lives of 550 people in international waters. The film also takes us aboard a Libyan Coast Guard military ship and shows us the most dangerous place in the world, Libya, where human beings are abused and enslaved.

Born in 1983 in Madrid, Paula PALACIOS is a documentary film-maker who works between Madrid and Paris.
She has produced and directed more than 25 documentaries for television. Her work deals mainly with social issues, in particular migration and the place of women. In 2015, her film “Ali’Ens” was nominated in the best documentary category at the Asian TV Awards. Paula Palacios is a specialist in the Arab world, where she often participates in festivals as a member of the jury. “Drowning Letters” is her first cinema feature.

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A BLACK JESUS

92 minutes, 2020
Director: Luca LUCCHESI (Italy, Germany)
Production: Road Movies (Germany) in co-production with NDR (Germany)

In a small Italian town, a 19-year-old Ghanaian refugee asks to be one of the bearers of a black Jesus statue during the annual religious procession. The idea that he carries the icon alongside other (white) inhabitants divides the community.
The villagers find themselves forced to question their identity.

Having obtained a degree in law at Palermo, Luca LUCCHESI decided to combine his twin passions for justice and for stories by making films. Since 2009 he has worked with German director Wim Wenders as first assistant, editor and director of photography. He also collaborated with Hella Wenders on two documentaries “Berg Fidel” and “School, School – The time after Berg Fidel”. “Bachelor Party”, a short documentary film about love, was presented at the 2011 Cannes Critics’ Week. Luca Lucchesi lives in Berlin where he works as a freelance director, editor and cinematographer. “A Black Jesus” is his first feature film as a director.

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