Shorts in Competition – Program 2

THE LAST PIECE – ESSAY 1
La última pieza – Ensayo 1

Director: Silvana Alarcón Sánchez
Peru, 2022 | Spanish with English subtitles | 4 min

Disrupt, reject, destroy, avoid: At the interrupted rhythm of the broken photographic negatives that a granddaughter has rescued from her grandfather’s hands, the last piece reconstructs the memory of an older man who has decided to leave behind his life impulses to surrender to sleep and calm. An essay on the act of joining our memories, the illusion of remembering and the freedom to forget.

Silvana Alarcón Sánchez is a director, teacher, and researcher of non-fiction cinema and film audiences. Silvana studied Audiovisual Communication at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. Currently, she is in the development stage of her first documentary feature film Reason to See, a family portrait that talks about emotional legacies, motherhood, and the biodecoding of diseases linked to previous traumas. Her recent documentary short film and autobiographical exploration, Empty Womb, was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize of the Peruvian film competition of the Film Week of the University of Lima 2021.

MADRE NUESTRA
Our Mother

Dir. David Paredes
Colombia/Cuba, 2022 | Spanish with English subtitles | 15 min

Maúca is a traditional midwife from Buenaventura, Colombia. She is the mother of Wilmar and “El Mellizo”. Eleven years ago, Wilmar disappeared and his twin brother confirms his death to Maúca. Between screams he tells her that he felt in his own skin the brutal way in which his brother was being murdered.

David Paredes was born in Buenaventura, Colombia. He recently graduated from Documentary Directing at the Escuela Internaciónal de Cine y TV (EICTV). In 2015, with the Puerto Creativo audiovisual collective, he developed Mangle, a documentary transmedia web series. In 2020, he directed Air Racing, a short documentary that portrays the life and exclusion of Orlando, an athlete diagnosed with an intellectual disability. It premiered at the Tübingen festival, Germany and screened at the Dressden Festival and Afro Show of the Bogotá Cinematheque, among others. In 2021, he directed The Shepherd, which premiered at FICUNAM in Mexico City and was presented at Hot Docs in Canada. In 2022, he directed Madre Nuestra, a documentary filmed in Buenaventura, Colombia as part of his graduation thesis for EICTV.

WHO’S HE?
¿Quién es?

Dir. Víctor Augusto Mendívil
Peru, 2023 | Spanish intertitles with English subtitles | 9 min

The name Victor Mendivil was the first label that was placed on my existence. Before me, already other people were called like that: loved and unknown people. With the help of various archival materials, I try to find common ground between myself and the other Victors in order to learn more about who I am and what all this family history is that I feel I should honour.

Víctor Augusto Mendívil (b. Peru, 1983) has a degree in Audiovisual Communication from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. In 2020, he directed the short documentary Pasaje de ida (One-Way Ticket), which has participated in more than 50 festivals worldwide. In 2021, he directed 299.00 (F84.0), a thoughtful correspondence for his autistic son that has earned multiple awards. He created ¿Quién es? (Who’s he?) with archival materials in the silent film format without dialogue. Currently he is developing the feature film project Gloria, ejercicios para la memoria.

LA MUTUANTE

Dir. Carla Scolari & Javier Rossanigo
Argentina, 2021 | Spanish with English subtitles | 16 min

A young mother has to get the money she owes at the boarding house where she lives before night falls and she has nowhere to sleep with her baby.

Carla Scolari (b. Rosario, Argentina, 1991) graduated from the Provincial Film and Television School, took courses at SICA and in other different places, specializing in scriptwriting and direction. She directed Delinquido (2017) along with David Eira Pire, which won the Audience Award at the Rosario International Film Festival. She worked as an assistant director on the short film Libertad 121 (2020) and the web series Quien Pudiera, among others. She is a freelance videographer and photographer, and worked as a photojournalist in the cooperative media outlet La Masa. She is currently developing professionally as an audiovisual technician.

THAT CAMERA OF YOURS
Esa cámara suya

Dir.  Juan Restrepo Molina
Colombia, 2022 | Spanish with English subtitles | 14 min

Gregorio pulls out his son’s video camera and dials his number to ask, “How does one make a movie?” His son guides him through its usage and alerts him that there are only a few minutes remaining on the cassette. Gregorio uses those minutes to observe his home, the town, and the dynamics of his territory, allowing him to relive intimate moments and confront his past.

Juan Restrepo Molina is an audiovisual filmmaker and aspiring visual artist. His profile includes technical courses in scriptwriting, directing, and film editing. Since 2012, he has written and directed several audiovisual productions in collaboration with the Cámara Nómada Collective, spanning genres such as documentary, experimental, fiction, and music videos. His short film Tierra al viento (2019) won the FDC (Film Development Fund) in the regional narratives category.

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MAURA ALEJANDRO

Dir. Gabriel Paéz
Ecuador, 2023 | Spanish with English subtitles | 14 min

Maura Alejandro, at 84 years old, is the guardian of a very particular tradition: a singer of amorfinos, verses that very few know and that, between laughter and blushes, invoke longing in the fragile memory of the elders of the Libertador Bolívar community on the Ecuadorian coast.

Maura is also the last bearer of a tradition that is lost: the welcome prayer to accompany the newlyweds on their new path in marriage. A subtle comedy, a heartfelt portrait, a way of saying “Thank you, Maura, for existing.”

Gabriel Paéz is Executive Producer at Filmarte Ecuador and Director of Encuentros con el Cine Cinematographic Laboratory: chain of production, production and distribution of alternative  cinema, created in 2010. Vengo Volviendo (2016), his second fiction feature film as director-screenwriter won the Audience Award at the Ecuadorian Film Festival in New York and Jury Prize for Best Film at the Ola Latino in the Hamptons, NY, among others.

Sacachun (2018), his first documentary feature film, screened at the Cartagena International Film Festival, New Latin American Film Festival in Havana, Seattle Latino Film Festival, among many others. The film received awards for Best Documentary at the Colibrí Awards of the Ecuadorian Film Academy, Best Documentary and Best Editing at the Las Alturas International Film Festival in Argentina, the Golden Iguana for Best Documentary at the Guayaquil International Film Festival, and the Audience Award for Best Ecuadorian Film at the International Film Festival La Orquídea in Cuenca.

THE LAST MAGIC TRICK
El Último Truco

Dir. Darío Celestinos
Mexico, 2022 | Spanish with English subtitles | 13 min

At 96 years old, Magician Mr. Delhi lives for the love of magic and his wife. For him, magic means the only link with reality and he will fight against time and the difficulties of old age to continue surprising curious eyes hungry for illusion.

Darío Celestinos grew up with the cultural diversity of Mexico City, Veracruz, and Yucatán, while visiting and maintaining contact with the respective regional and ancestral cultures of his roots.

A significant part of his childhood was spent in Yucatán, a land that embraces him and has become his second home, where he dreams and discovers himself among the ruins and the Mayan worldview. Thus, his life is marked by a cultural intersection which has motivated him to become a storyteller of tales and dreams that later drive him to transport his narratives, first through the medium of sound as an audio engineer and music producer, and later through audiovisual means as a cinematographer, discovering his potential to transport his audiences to the magical and surreal places he has been creating since childhood.

He is pursuing a degree in cinematography at the Escuela nacional de artes cinematográficas (ENAC – UNAM), where he directed the short film Echoes and the documentary The Last Magic Trick. Currently, Darío is in the process of developing his film thesis to complete his studies at ENAC.