Documentary has the ability to place us in the previously unknown. By exploring what is new to us, we are able to open our minds and see things in a new light. The mysterious shouldn’t be something to be feared, but something to be searched for.
Abyssal
Director: Alejandro Alonso | France / Cuba | 2021 | 30 Minutes | UK Premiere
Best Documentary Short Nominee
Raudel works at a boat scrap yard in Bahia Honda, in the west of Cuba. With his colleagues, he lives inside the jagged metal and is surrounded by the smoke of the oil when it burns. Haunted by a strange childhood memory, he is on the lookout for ghostly presences.
Cast: Raudel Gonzalez Cordero
Writer: Alejandro Alonso, Lisandra Lopez Fabé | Producer: Boris Prieto, Alejandro Alonso | Director of Photography: Alejandro Alonso | Editor: Emmanuel Peña | Music: Pepe Gavilondo
Nsenene
Director: Michelle Coomber | United Kingdom | 2021 | 7 Minutes
Best Documentary Short Nominee
The night sky in the Ugandan town of Masaka is punctured by eerie green light, the whine of electricity and insects buzzing. Giant lightbulbs, filaments exposed, are rigged perilously over scaffolding and iron sheets – attracting swarms of grasshoppers. This documentary captures the extraordinary spectacle of grasshopper season.
Writer: Michelle Coomber | Producer: Michelle Coomber | Director of Photography: Xavi Amoros | Editor: Jim Wright | Music: James O’Connell
Saudade
Director: Russell Morton | Singapore | 2020 | 20 Minutes
An audio-visual archive of the vanishing language of Kristang – a Portuguese-Malaccan creole, once the mother tongue of Eurasians in Singapore and Malaysia. Narrated entirely in Kristang, the film reimagines the rituals of the early Eurasians, telling a story of loss and the displacement of a culture, and consequently its language.
Cast: Trevor Nonis, Megan Barker, Russell Morton, Bunny Rodrigues, Sara Frederica Santa Maria
Writer: Russell Morton | Producer: Amanda Zhang | Director of Photography: Russell Morton | Editor: Russell Morton | Music: Syafii
Spirits and Rocks: an Azorean Myth
Director: Aylin Gökmen | Switzerland / Portugal | 2020 | 14 Minutes | UK Premiere
Best Documentary Short Nominee
Spirits and Rocks: An Azorean Myth is set on a volcanic island, where the inhabitants are caught in an unending cycle. The threat of impending eruptions and the burden of past traumas loom over them. Some draw upon myth and religious beliefs to interpret their precarious situation; others demonstrate resilience.
Cast: Hellen Torres
Writer: Aylin Gökmen | Producer: Aylin Gökmen, Victor Candeias | Director of Photography: Marianna Vas | Editor: Aylin Gökmen | Music: Thomas Geissl
Vaivén (Nape of the Nape)
Director: Nisha Platzer | Cuba / Canada | 2020 | 14 Minutes | UK Premiere
Best Documentary Short Nominee
Every day, eighteen-year-old Nori walks to the Bauta station to listen, watch, and feel the vibrations of the passing trains. His playful imagination leads us through the space as we witness his obsession and his sensory experience of arrival and departure. A glimpse of adolescence in the Cuban countryside.
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Cast: Noriel González González
Writer: Nisha Platzer, María Grazia Goya, Nayuribe Montero Jiménez, Angel Suárez | Producer: Nisha Platzer, Yoander Ballester | Director of Photography: María Grazia Goya | Editor: Angel Suárez | Music: Loscil, Nayuribe Montero Jiménez, Marcela Navia Miranda
Yusef and Ramiro
Director: Bas van Est | The Netherlands | 2019 | 7 Minutes | European Premiere
Best Documentary Short Nominee
Among the colourful and crumbling Baroque facades of Havana’s old town, a group of young boys bet cigar cards on which of them can race to the street corner the quickest. One of them is Yusef Fernandez Perez. And for him, running will become the defining narrative of his life.
Cast: Yusef, Ramiro
Writer: Christopher Cryer, Teresa Montenegrous | Producer: Teresa Montenegrous, Bas van Est | Director of Photography: Jasper de Kloet | Editor: Hiro Ikematsu | Music: Paul Reeves
