Short films
Short health films on the operations chain
New for this year’s edition is a selection of 29 short films between 1 and 31 minutes, in a wide variety of styles (documentary, animation, fiction…) but all on health themes!
Carefully selected by students from the Performing Arts department of ULiège’s Faculty of Philosophy and Literature, they will be integrated into the program of the “Operations” channel, at lunchtime (12:15-13:15) and from 16:30-17:00.
MONDAY MARCH 22
12h00-13h00
Outremer
By Hadrien Bonnet and Adrien Calle / Length: 4′ / France / Production: Gobelins, l’école de l’image
Synopsis : A young migrant traumatized by his shipwreck takes refuge in the home of a retired painter who ends up adopting him.
Jürg
By Rapahel Meyer / running time: 19′ / Switzerland, France / Production: UNIL (University of Lausanne)
Synopsis : One Friday morning, Jürg collapses on the floor of his apartment. With his head buried in the dictionaries on the second floor of his library, he remained on the ground, paralyzed with his eyes open, for over 36 hours. When he wakes up in a hospital bed, the linguistics professor realizes that he has become aphasic, unable to pronounce a single syllable.
Ciruzziello
By Ciro D’Aniello / running time: 11′ / Italy / Production: Lumera Movie
Synopsis : Antoinnette is an elderly mother who lives with Vincenzo, a son who was born with brain damage and is forced to use a wheelchair in a semi-vegetative state, and with Ciruzziello, a colorful little fish who lives in a light bulb. This woman devotes all her energy to caring for her son, trying to give him all the love she can. Through her stories, this woman has passed on to her son an immeasurable love of the sea, where they often take long walks. Her fervent religious faith, already strained of late, is suspended by a tumor that is slowly eating away at her, and when, after a medical examination, she discovers that she has little time left to live, an existential crisis begins. The thought of her son being left alone after his death torments her; abandoned by institutions, she will have to make a choice alone.
Birthplace
By Sil van der Woerd and Jorik Dozy / running time: 5′ / Indonesia / Production: Sean Lin and New Frontier Pictures
Synopsis : The symbolic story of a man arriving on a perfect Earth, only to meet his nemesis in the form of ocean pollution.
Burden
By Marko Duranovic / running time: 1′ / Denmark / Production: The Animation Workshop
Synopsis : Alice takes the metro, as she does every day. She feels ashamed of her depression; everything around her reminds her of her illness.
Sad Viking
By Jennifer Alice Wright / Running time: 1’/ Denmark / Production: The Animation Workshop
Synopsis: A Viking suffers from depression, without telling anyone, until one day he’s no longer alone with his problems.
In Balance
By Karoline Lie / running time: 1′ / Denmark / Production: The Animation Workshop
Synopsis : A prima ballerina wakes up on the day of a performance, an anxiety attack grips her and a spiral of malaise envelops her. In spite of this, she gave the best performance of her life.
The Applicant
By Mikkel Battefeld / Running time: 1’/ Denmark / Production: The Animation Workshop
Synopsis : During a job interview, a boss is guided by his prejudices when faced with a woman who tells him about her illness.
Out of Range
By: Yijia Cao, Lana Choukroune, Cécile Guillard / Length: 4’15” / France / Production: Gobelins, l’école de l’image
Synopsis : Sue, a fast-paced lawyer, is on her way to the most important meeting of her career. On the way, her car breaks down, forcing her deep into the forest. It’s by losing herself in it that she’ll find herself again.µ
4:30 p.m. – 5 p.m.
The Briefing
By Filip Drzewiecki / running time: 19′ / Poland / Production: Ewa Jastrzębska and Jerzy Kapuściński
Synopsis : A group of students must care for their first patients during a summer medical internship. Young enthusiasts will have little time to become fully-fledged doctors and fulfill their vocation. The film vividly depicts the doctors’ experiences and pace of work, and the frenetic music underlines their emotional state. Each student will have to navigate the chaos of reality, until one of them faces the toughest challenge in the practice of medicine…
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23
12h00-13h00
Corpus
By Marc Héricher / running time: 3′ / France / Production: Rêvons, c’est l’heure productions
Synopsis: A complex chain reaction drives human organs to life. This mechanism generates an act of creation. But is this free act really produced by a machine?
Selfies
By Claudius Gentinetta / running time: 4′ / Switzerland / Production : GentinettaFilm
Synopsis : A firework display of self-portraits, in which hundreds of idyllic, distressing or terribly disturbing selfies are arranged in a singularly composed short film. Artistically reworked, the individual photos merge into a terrifying rictus that illuminates the abyss of human existence.
Egg
By Martina Scarpelli / running time: 12′ / France, Denmark / Production: Miyu Production and Latelove Production
Synopsis: Have you ever considered food as a choice rather than a need? Have you ever thought of your home as the perfect place to be sick in complete safety? Have you ever felt sexual pleasure while eating something? I do.
Toprak
By Onur Yagiz / running time: 11′ / France, Turkey / Production: Les Films Velvet
Synopsis: Toprak, 8, translates for his parents, who don’t speak French. Today, he accompanies his parents to the hospital for his mother’s second ultrasound. He’ll be the first to know if the twins are brothers, he hopes.
Paye (Pas) ton Gynéco
By Nina Faure / running time: 20′ / France / Production: C-P productions
Synopsis: Nina Faure could be depressed after bad experiences with gynecologists, but she discovers she’s not alone. On the Internet, women’s testimonies similar to hers are taking on an unsuspected scope, and are even being grouped together under a name: “gynecological violence”. A journalist has just published an investigative book on the subject, and public meetings and actions are being organized. Women are questioning the way in which gynecology’s relationship with their bodies is conceived, but the profession’s reactions reveal a deep-seated sexism that seems to belong to another era.
4:30 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Shell
By Marine Sharp & Christophe Hermans / Running time: 28 minutes / Belgium / Production: Dérives asbl
Synopsis: Marine, a 26-year-old photographer, takes portraits of three bodybuilders: Franco, Jean-Louis and Alexandra. She asks them about their bodies, their relationships with their parents and children, but also about their loneliness and the voids they seek to fill. By observing the cracks that hide behind their shells, Marine tries to understand her own complicated relationship with the body and the family. By observing the cracks that hide behind their shells, Marine tries to understand her own complicated relationship with the body and the family.
THURSDAY, MARCH 25
12h00-13h00
Blink
By Manon Ghys, Victoria Léger, Nathan Rémy, William Steiner / Running time: 5′ / France / Production : ArtFx
Synopsis: Blink is set in the 90s. The main character, Arthur, is a neurotic, fearful young man. One day, he’s faced with a problem: his double bass case won’t fit in the boot of his car. As Arthur tries to solve the problem in his own way, he finds himself trapped in a time warp, in the middle of a surreal pile-up on a country road. Thanks to frozen time, Arthur is able to retrace the events of the accident and, little by little, become aware of his paranoia.
Aesthesis
By Hugo de Magalhaes, Evéra Chapel, Gabriel Richaud, Aubin Kubiak, Louison Franque, Mélissa Evrard-Nadaud / Running time: 4′ / France / Production : Pôle 3D
Synopsis : A young man, a young woman, the same environment perceived differently.
Sleep
By Lisa Gross-Bourgeois / running time: 5′ / France / Production : Atelier de Sèvre
Synopsis : A dancer, a victim of arborization, is haunted and obsessed by his past success. When it’s time to train, the missteps multiply: his frustration mounts as the signs of arborization abound. By dint of his persistence, the dancer ends up, little by little, completely consumed by his tree form. Thus immobilized, he has no choice but to confront his reflection in order to free himself.
Patchwork
By María Manero Muro / running time: 8′ / Spain / Production : María Manero Muro
Synopsis : Patchwork tells the story of 60-year-old Loly, who needs a liver transplant.
Hedgehog
By Vaibhav Keswani, Jeanne Laureau, Colombine Majou, Morgane Mattard, Kaisa, Pirttinen, Jong-Ha Yoon / Running time: 5′ / France / Production : Gobelins, l’école de l’image
Synopsis : A little boy talks to everyone about hedgehogs all the time.
Matilda and the Spare Head
By: Ignas Meilūnas / Length: 13’09” / Lithuania / Production: M-Films
Synopsis: Matilda wants to be the smartest person in the world. When all the things she’s learned can’t fit into one head, her mother buys her a spare one. Two heads are better than one, but Matilda quickly becomes confused. She doesn’t know which head to wear when and loses the second shortly afterwards. We don’t know what would have happened to him if a bullet hadn’t accidentally entered his window. It changes Matilda forever.
Selfies
By Claudius Gentinetta / running time: 4′ / Switzerland / Production : GentinettaFilm
Synopsis : A firework display of self-portraits, in which hundreds of idyllic, distressing or terribly disturbing selfies are arranged in a singularly composed short film. Artistically reworked, the individual photos merge into a terrifying rictus that illuminates the abyss of human existence.
16h30
Year of the Robot
By : Yves Gellie / Duration : 31′ / France / Production : Iskra films
Synopsis: At the crossroads of art and science, Year of the Robot deals with the human being and his artificial double, the robot. Like a series of archives detailing the first contacts and dialogues between a robot and human beings, it studies the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance, the tiny and mysterious relational space that unfolds between these two actors.
FRIDAY MARCH 26
12h00-13h00
The Tanier River
By June Balthazard / running time: 17′ / France / Production: Le Fresnoy (Studio national des Arts contemporains)
Synopsis: My grandmother is a mystery. Since she lost her memory, the mere mention of it is enough to make bodies stiffen. What are you hiding from us, Marie Lourdes, in your thick silence?
Using a process akin to engraving, this animated film borrows the archaeologist’s gesture of digging and revealing. The film explores the dust of the earth, in the heart of the oceans, that is home to the Creole identity. It’s a story like any family’s, of life and death.
Gokurosama
By Aurore Gal, Clémentine Frère, Yukiko Meignien, Anna Mertz, Robin Migliorelli, Romain Salvini / Running time: 7′ / France / Production: MoPA
Synopsis: In a Japanese shopping mall, before opening time, a shopkeeper suddenly finds herself paralyzed. To help her, her young employee sets out to cross the center with her.
Memo
By Julien Becquer, Éléna Dupressoir, Jules Durand, Viviane Guimarães, Inès Scheiber / Running time: 5’/ France / Production: Gobelins, l’école de l’image
Synopsis: Retired Louis is determined to maintain his independence at all costs, in the face of his daughter Nina’s overprotection.
Cataclysm
Olivier Loiseau and Thierry Dutoit / Length: 16′ / Belgium / Production: supported by L’Ordre de Malte-Œuvre du Calvaire and the Fonds nominatif managed by the Fondation Saint-Luc.
Synopsis : In the aftermath of a severe neurological or orthopedic disabling condition such as a stroke, head trauma following an accident or amputation, the world is turned upside down in a matter of seconds: a cataclysm. And life changes irrevocably. Drinking, eating, talking, walking – the simple gestures of everyday life become summits to be reclaimed. A long period of rehabilitation with a multidisciplinary team is essential if we are to live as we did before, or almost as we did before.
Oliv’s head…
By Armelle Mercat / running time: 11′ / France / Production: Girelle Production
Synopsis : Olivier, a 50-year-old chemist, will do anything to hide his baldness! Fearing to displease his wife Christine, he uses every trick in the book to hide his bald head from her. Until the day when, forced to use drastic means, he resorts to an extreme solution whose effects will turn the couple’s life upside down.
16h30
Heart to Heart
By David and Pierre Callant / running time: 31′ / Belgium / Production : Silencio Prod
Synopsis : When the relational clown colors encounters…
