STUDENT ETUDES PANORAMA 2016

Monday October 31st, 2016

Student Etudes Panorama is a non-competitive section at the International Festival of the Art of Cinematography CAMERIMAGE featuring student fiction shorts that were not selected for Student Etudes Competition but whose high visual and artistic qualities make them must-see at a film image festival.

Here is this year’s line-up:

Akela

Fae wants nothing more than to quietly live an upper-middle class suburban life; a quiet life of charity events, scheduled sex, and steady progress up the social ladder. Her husband James is well known in society, but he has a horrific secret. Certain boundaries are crossed, putting their marriage in jeopardy.

Original title: Akela
Director: Sean Kelley
Cinematographer: Anthony Goodman

School: University of North Carolina School of the Arts School of Filmmaking
USA, 2016

Be Happy Tonight

Shuli and Moti are a young Orthodox couple with three children. On a night out together, they travel to the other side of town and decide to change their identities. They want to feel the freedom and temptations that night life has to offer. They slowly start to do things previously forbidden to them. Exposed and confused, they will have to deal with the consequences.

Original title: Sht'ee Smecha Hayom
Director: Leah Tonic
Cinematographer: Saar Mizrachi

School: Sam Spiegel Film & Television School
Israel, 2015

Creatures

One night as Louise makes her way home, she sees a couple making love. This event awakens her questions about her own desire, triggering the conquest of her own body.

Original title: Creatures
Director: Camille Mol
Cinematographer: Samuel Esselinckx

School: Institut des Arts de Diffusion (IAD)
Belgium, 2016

Her Son

Gregor is a musician and a dreamer. He likes his life – as long as he doesn’t have to explain himself to his mother. Long ago he gave up hope of one day being more than just a less well-off son of a successful gallerist. The radical deterioration of his mother Irène’s health forces Gregor to leave his mother’s shadow and jump over his own.

Original title: Ihr Sohn
Director: Katharina Woll
Cinematographer: Albrecht Von Grünhagen

School: Deutsche Film - und Fernsehakademie Berlin - German Film and Television Academy (dffb)
Germany, 2015

Hidden

A 12-year-old boy from a Persian immigrant family in the United States is riddled with guilt about the sudden death of his younger brother.

Original title: Hidden
Director: Farzad Ostovarzadeh
Cinematographer: Halyna Hutchins

School: American Film Institute Conservatory
USA, 2016

It Happens

Strange things happen every day. At the least expected moment, in the least convenient circumstances. Sometimes between one mundane activity and another, the world takes an unacceptable turn. One day, Joanna – the protagonist of It Happens – vanishes without a trace. What does her family know about her and how useful will that knowledge be in the search for the woman?

Polish title: Staje się
Director: Arek Biedrzycki
Cinematographer: Piotr Pawlus

School: Uniwersytet Śląski - Wydział Radia i Telewizji im. K. Kieślowskiego (UŚ WRiTv)
Poland, 2016

Lion Plaza

Li-Hua, a woman who expects nothing from life, receives news of her mother’s death while she is attempting suicide. Li-Hua’s mother used to own a dress shop in ‘Lion Plaza’. In order to prepare for her mother’s funeral, Li-Hua is forced to step into the dress shop, which she has not been to for many years. As Li-Hua goes through her mother’s belongings, the memories of her mother’s life and work at the red envelope club gradually emerges. Suddenly, a man comes into her life, as though he is the last gift from her mother, and Li-Hua’s tedious life begins to change.

Original title: 獅子林
Director: Yen-Ju Yu
Cinematographer: Chang Lu Ying

School: Shih Hsin University
Taiwan, 2016

Margret and Helmut

Surrounded by cheap housing projects in a small town in Germany, Margret dreams of finally travelling the world, but her husband’s dementia makes it virtually impossible. All life seems to escape his passive gaze, but Margret won’t give up. She is in search of the Helmut that once was, but in this fight for the future and the past, she is in danger of losing herself, increasingly feeding her own delusion. As the line between reality and illusion disappears entirely, Margret realises that it is time to make a decision.

Original title: Für dich bei mir
Director: Clemens Beier
Cinematographer: Michael Terhorst

School: Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF
Germany, 2016

Mary

News reaches a mother six months after the disappearance of her son: he is in Ingushetia in the Caucasus.

Original title: Мария

Polish title: Maria
Director: Grigory Kolomytsev
Cinematographer: Alexey Venzos

School: Vserossijskij Gosudarstvennyi Institut Kinematografii - Russian Institute of Cinematography (VGIK)
Russia, 2016

Mother

A young man experiences his first encounter with his mother after returning home from war.

Original title: Mutter
Director: Noah Frey
Cinematographer: Simon Bitterli

School: Zürcher Hochschule der Künste - Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK)
Switzerland, 2016

Ribera, The

A remote village has run out of water and the villagers have abandoned their homes in search for a place to survive. Fermín, a young miner, is undecided about whether to leave his town with his family or make one last effort to fulfil a legend: to find the water that his grandfather planted.

Original title: La Ribera
Director: Inti Pérez Peña
Cinematographer: Chak Pérez Peña

School: UAN - Universidad Autónoma de Nayarit
Mexico, 2015

Sky Is Blue Everywhere, The

When Marc is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, he doesn’t know how and when to tell his girlfriend Sophie about it.

Original title: Der Himmel ist überall blau
Director: Gina Wenzel
Cinematographer: Leander Ott

School: Fachhochschule Dortmund - University of Applied Sciences and Arts (FH Dortmund)
Germany, 2016

Spectrum

Lost in his thoughts, Chris dreams of going to Mars. His bags are packed and he’s ready to leave. In 11 minutes the car will pick him up and take him away, but not before he confronts his mum about why she has been so distant. We all have our own unique and individual ways of coping with stressful situations, but with Chris, sometimes things can be a little more challenging.

Original title: Spectrum
Director: Lewis Logan
Cinematographer: Sam Meyer

School: Arts University Bournemouth (AUB)
UK, 2016

Voicemail

A young girl named Lilly has vanished. Ambitious Junior Editor Stefan sees his opportunity to make the front page. But Lilly’s mother refuses to talk to the press. Stefan has to decide how far he is willing to go as a journalist. He unknowingly sets in motion a spiral of events that he can no longer control.

Original title: Voicemail
Director: Erec Brehmer
Cinematographer: Franz Kastner

School: Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film München - University of Television and Film Munich (HFF München)
Germany, 2016