Internationaler Wettbewerb 4

The international program “Blood Ties” tells family stories. They are stories of disappointment and loss, but also of surprising twists and new perspectives.

Saturday, 18. Mar 2023 // 19:00 Uhr @ Ostentor Kino
Monday, 20. Mar 2023 // 18:00 Uhr @ Kinos im Andreasstadel Wintergarten


Familiar Stranger
Switzerland 2022, color, 19 min, OV, Engl. sub
Director: Fabian Lütolf, Sara Furrer
Production: Edith Flückiger, Urs Augstburger
Sara’s grandfather has left a void in her family. Who is Kamran Taan? The filmmaker sets off in search of clues and travels to La Spezia – the coastal city where he is said to have lived. What does kinship mean when you’ve never met?

Khadiga
Egypt 2021, color, 19 min, OV, Engl. sub
Director: Morad Mostafa
Production: Safei Eldin Mahmoud, Sawsan Yusuf
Khadiga, a young mother of 18 years lives alone with her baby after her husband left for work in a remote city. On an ordinary day she makes her way through the hustle in the streets of Cairo to make some visits during which she feels uncomfortable with her surroundings.

Rote Wueste
Austria 2021, both, 5 min, OV, Engl. sub
Director: Stefan Németh

Inspired by the electronic soundtrack to Michelangelo Antonioni’s IL DESERTO ROSSO (1964), the short creates an ominously swelling sound tableau interspersed with an accomplished arsenal of rhythm, which becomes ever more finely detailed and culminates in the tension of the “Now” (and the “Not now”). The present is splintered and shattered, in line with late modernist fantasies of alienation.

In The Upper Room
Austria 2022, color, 8 min, OV, Engl. sub
Director: Alexander Gratzer
Production: József Fülöp
A little mole regularly visits his blind grandpa. The seasons change, both grow older, their relationship matures. A story about the essential difference between seeing and recognizing.

Mom is sleeping
Belgium 2022, color, 17 min, OV, Engl. sub
Director: Solenn Crozon
Production: Michel Wouters
Alone at home, Maya wanders around waiting for her mother to wake up.

I’m On Fire
United States 2022, color, 24 min, OV, Engl. sub
Director: Michael Spiccia
Production: David Zander, Thomas R Burke, Isabel Stanfield
It’s summer. Danny is twelve, on his way into adolescence. At home, his parents are in constant conflict. He finds himself caught between his parents with no clear path to his own life. A story of a toxic marriage seen through the lens of a twelve-year-old boy, and the critical step he takes in his difficult path toward adulthood.