LIDF

Day 3. Programme. 1st December

Venue: Close-Up Cinema and bar (https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com), 97 Sclater Street, London E1 6HR. Home also to Vertigo magazine and a library of 20,000 films and books making Close-Up the most comprehensive independent film resource in London.

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11.00
Shorts 5. 
A Girl from Ouessant (Une fille de Ouessant) | Eléonore Saintagnan | 2018 | Belgium/France | 27min
As the men of Ouessant used to work as sailors, the island was almost exclusively populated by women. The film’s director plunges into the footage, and identifies with Barba, a girl from Ouessant whose father disappeared at sea without a trace.
UK Premiere
Best International Short Film Award, Visions du Réel, Paris

Back to Genoa City (Retour à Genoa City) | Benoît Grimalt | 2017 | France | 29min
Granny and her brother Uncle Thomas watch the same soap opera, every day at the same time since 1989.Twenty years after my leaving Nice, I come back to see  them so they can fill me in on the 3827 episodes I’ve missed.
UK Premiere
Quinzaine des réalisateurs (Cannes 2017)

12.15
As We Dig (Kazarken) | Guldem Durmaz | 2016 | Belgium/France | 90min
A woman of Turkish ascent follows ancient Anatolian healing rites and dreams her way through fragments of memory, both personal and collective. Guided by a mythological character, Kheiron the Centaur, she travels freely between the ruins of an ancient Roman hospital and the streets of a mountain village, high above the river Euphrates.

14.00
Death and the Judge | Hassan Khademi | Iran | 51min
‘Death and the Judge’ revolves around Iran’s most famous criminal judge, Azizmohammadi. He has served as a criminal judge for 45 years and issued about 4500 death sentences.
World Premiere

15.00
To Duration (Canto alla Durata) | Didi Gnocchi | 2017 | Italy | 48min
In 1986 Peter Handke published a small poem titled “To Duration”. The theme, duration, is both very ancient and extremely contemporary, because of the struggling difficulty of today’s perpetually accelerating society to grasp the meaning of life.
UK Premiere

16.00
Shorts 6. 
Some of these Days | Vincent Förster | Germany/UK | 16min
A comedy documentary about Jazz and dictatorships. Nothing is the way it used to be. Director Vincent Förster experiences this first-hand when documenting the everyday lives of his grandparents. Yet, one thing has not changed: The grandparents sit on their sofa and defy all external odds with subtle humour and charming determination. Germany’s history in the 20th century sounds jazzy.
World Premiere

Armindo and the Dark Chamber (Armindo e a Camara Escura) | Tânia Dinis | 2017 | Portugal | 20min
Armindo Carvalho is the director’s grandfather. He has devoted his entire life to photography. He has recorded the lives of his and other people’s families and travelled through through the many villages of the Braga, Famalicão and Guimarães area recording events and ceremonies.
London Premiere

In the Woods (Ins Holz) | Thomas Horat & Corina Schwingruber Ilić | 2017 | Switzerland | 13min
Snow, sweat, testosterone and the sound of chainsaws. Every four years, over a period of three months in winter, wood is being cut on a steep mountain high above Lake Ägeri and prepared for log rafting. Neither economic change nor technology has been able to replace this traditional and sustainable craft in Switzerland.
Best Documentary Short, La Guarimba International Film Festival, Amantea, Calabria 
Premio del Pubblico – Vanga d’Oro, Corto e fieno, Festival del Cinema Rurale, Ameno
‘The Rock Award’, 15th Asiana International Short Film Festival, International Competition, Seoul
Premio Mejor Cortometraje Documental , Soria International Short Film Festival, Soria
Best Non-Fiction Film, Flensburger Kurzfilmtage, im Wettbewerb, Flensburg 
Special Jury Mention, Promofest Short of the Year! Madrid 
Honourable Mention, Minimalen Short Film Festival, Competition, Trondheim 
Winner Official Documentary Section, XVIII Festival Internacional de Cine de Lanzarote

17.00
Doel | Frederik Sølberg | 2018 | Denmark | 70min
Why is it so important to have a place called home? Doel is a ghost town in Belgium surrounded by a nuclear power plant, a gigantic container dock, and the port of Antwerp. For decades the inhabitants have been battling the authorities who want to tear the town down and build a new container dock. Now there are only 26 inhabitants left – a colourful crowd of common and uncommon people clinging onto the idea of keeping their vandalised and abandoned town alive.
London Premiere

18.30
Shorts 9. 72min
Life Here | Hossein Fatemian | 2018 | Iran | 27min
A teacher walks miles to arrive in a small school, a school with four students and the minimum of facilities. The teacher has only a few months before retirement but, still has a passion to teach. He realises that one of his students has great dreams, so he decides to help.
European Premiere

Access to Education for Afghan Children in Iran | Zohreh Arsanjoon | 2017 | Iran/Norway/Germany | 15min 
In 2015, Iran’s Supreme Leader issued a decree whereby all Afghan school age children should have access to Iranian schools regardless of their legal status. As a result, undocumented Afghan children now have access to education and their families are not subject to deportation. NRC in Iran has been supporting the government of Iran’s efforts to meet the education needs of the additional pupils.

Tracing Addai | Esther Niemeier | 2018 | Germany | 30min
In his early twenties Addai leaves his entire life behind and moves to Syria to help victims of the civil war. At first he is assigned kitchen duty together with Ilias. Addai writes to his mother: “Don’t worry about me, I’m fine.” Two years later Addai’s mother receives a letter from prison. Ilias has been sentenced for terrorism by a German court. He wants to meet her and writes: “One thing you have to believe me, we went there with good intentions.”
UK Premiere
Winner Audience Award, Tampere International Short Film Festival
Winner Best Production, International Student Film Festival Sehsüchte 
Student Award, Dok.fest München
Winner Best Short, Docaviv – International Shorts Competition 

20.00
Melting Souls (NORILSK, L’étreinte de glace) | François-Xavier Destors | 2017 | France | 87min
In Norilsk, winter lasts for nine months and temperatures plummet to -60°C. The first worldwide producer of copper and nickel, has dominated life here since the city rose from the ashes of the Soviet gulag. This film paints a poetic portrait of an extreme city where everyone is looking for a way out.
UK Premiere