Festival

Interview with Abbas Taheri and Mahdieh Toosi, co-directors of Aban What has inspired Aban’s character?Abbas: My cousin struggled to get his real gender by surgery in a patriarchal family. His childish insist on getting called by a male name, instead of his female birthname while he was four, were soon transformed to gender identity disorder and his brave efforts inspired me to work on […]

Interview with Pablo Cuturrufo, director of The Phantom Touch How did you construct your narrative from the VR chats in The Phantom Touch? Did you approach users with the project already in mind?       The narrative was built along the way, as when I started I was not sure what the documentary was going to be about. I just knew I wanted to explore and […]

Interview with Carlos Segundo, director of Big Bang  What interested you in the relationship to extreme heat in Big Bang?Big Bang is the second short film in a trilogy of “space” films (the first one being Sideral). In Big Bang, I maintain my focus on the ordinary lives of the marginalized. But like in Sideral, I find the power and strength in the […]

Interview with Azadeh Moussavi, director of 48 Hours The film is a very moving account of a father’s struggle. What inspired you to tell his story?This film is inspired by my own childhood when my dad was a journalist and he was imprisoned for two years. How did you cast the film? And how did you work with the actors to re-create these subtle family […]

Interview with Kamal Aljafari, director of Paradiso, XXXI, 108  Where and when does Paradiso, XXXI, 108 take place?Paradiso, XXXI, 108 is taking place in Al-Naqab desert, in the south of Palestine. From which material did you get the military pictures? Did you do editing?The material is coming from films commissioned by the Israeli Army. They were didactic, educational propaganda films, where basically being […]

Interview with Alvin Lee, director of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes Where did the idea for this film come from?          This story is a cumulative memory of my experiences in attending funeral wakes. I realised funeral wake nowadays have little to do with the deceased. In Singapore, we often see family members and funeral wake guests chatting leisurely, discussing business, drinking alcohol, and […]

Interview with Gala Hernández López, director of La Mécanique des fluides [The Mechanics of Fluids] What prompted you to make a film about the issues raised by the messages left by Anathematic Anarchist? Do you plan to make other films addressing these issues?My initial desire was to make a film about the solitude specific to digital capitalism through the example of dating apps. […]

Watch the interview with the French filmmaker Joséphine Darcy Hopkins about her short film Les Dents du bonheur selected in the 2023 National Competition (F9 programme).

Interview with Alexis Pazoumian, director of Bellus What did you want to explore through the relationship between Michel and Santos in the film?Bellus follows Michel’s inner and spiritual journey. The film tells the story from the perspective of the young man. It is not a story of conversion, but of a winding path toward a form of redemption. Evangelical religion plays a very […]

Interview with Tonia Mishiali, director of Daphne Can you tell us about Daphne, the main character, and what led you to write her story?Daphne is a single mum. She has hardly any communication with her socially awkward son, who has been consumed by technology, and she is struggling with that. She works from home due to the pandemic restrictive measures, so she has […]