Three experimental short films: A luxury hotel room dreams of idyllic holiday destinations; an airplane feels the weight of time, starts to panic, and hijacks itself for an unmanned flight into an existential crisis; as it slowly dies, a data centre hallucinates the Internet before finally fizzling out forever.

Through a mediumistic channelling of sound, image, and text, filmmaker Michael Bucuzzo interweaves a performative lecture with these films compiled from American commercials, archive footage, and movies. He suggests that many of our fears, dreams, and desires are shaped by mass media—film and television—to such an extent that we can only live our lives filtered through it. The risk is that we will be overwhelmed by visual pollution and overdose on auditory stimulation.

It’s no coincidence that in Bucuzzo’s films, humanity is notable for its complete absence. The media need only each other and are only concerned with the media. People are no longer necessary to bring new images into the world.

Deaf filmmaker Alison O’Daniel came across a news report about the unsolved theft of tubas at a number of Los Angeles high schools. She wondered how the students would be able to practice without an instrument. This became the starting point for a visual poem about how people across the deafness spectrum experience sound.

The Tuba Thieves does not only tell the story of the theft but uses the event as a central thread for an associative tour of a city filled with sound. We see the impact of aircraft noise on residents, and how instruments can connect hearing and deaf musicians. We become part of a world where sound and silence are reframed for all audiences.

In open captions, the sounds are described as accurately as possible. An inventive sound montage enhances the precise camera work. Gradually it becomes clear that sound and silence are the factors that connect all these apparently independent impressions. More than a documentary, The Tuba Thieves is an auditory experience.

During this screening, the short film And How Miserable Is the Home of Evil will be followed by Talking with Rivers.

And How Miserable Is the Home of Evil

The video is authentic, and perhaps the audio too, but the combination of the two is fictional—for now, at least. We see the Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei taking refuge in a mosque, surrounded by his followers. Meanwhile, we hear the protests outside becoming increasingly furious and violent. This is a documentary about the near future of Iran, maker Saleh Kashefi hopes.

The Iranian filmmaker, who has now fled to Switzerland, delved into the archives of Khamenei’s website, which contain endless videos of sermons and speeches that Iran’s supreme leader has given over the years. Kashefi places the images in a new context; through his careful selection and editing, he shows Khamenei not as the strong leader he likes to present himself as, but as a desperate dictator in his vulnerable final moments.

Saleh Kashefi – 7′ – Switzerland – Farsi

Talking with Rivers

The neighboring nations of Afghanistan and Iran used to belong together: they were both parts of the historical region of Khorasan until 1747, when they separated. Talking with Rivers is a conversation between these two countries, through the voices of Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who has made ten films in and about Afghanistan, and of Afghan actor Jawanmard Paiez.

Their dialogue explores the violent history of the two countries—all those invasions by foreign powers, all those refugees, all that repression by mullahs or the Taliban. Why is it, exactly, that they were unable to come together? “Oh brother, we were separated and you were destroyed,” they both say.

Mohsen Makhmalbaf – 50′ – Iran, United Kingdom – Farsi

Q&A

After the screening, the filmmakers will join us on stage for a short Q&A with the audience.

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Whatever happened to Shere Hite? The feminist writer and researcher caused a minor social earthquake in 1976 with her research on the female orgasm. Based on thousands of anonymous surveys among American women, she concluded that women don’t need penetration to achieve orgasm—other methods of stimulation are much more effective.

The Hite Report, the book in which she shared the women’s candid testimonies, became a worldwide bestseller. In the US, it remains one of the top 30 best-selling books of all time. Her findings contradicted what the establishment had always claimed, and were ground-breaking in the debate about gender and sexuality. Yet, her name is virtually unknown among younger generations.

eUsing extensive archive material and interviews with those directly involved, director Nicole Newnham outlines who the flamboyant and charismatic Hite was, the era in which she worked, and how the opposition she increasingly encountered (which, ironically, only served to further corroborate her message) led her to withdraw from public life.

Colonialism wiped out many Central and South American cultures, but not the Gunadule, the indigenous people of northern Panama. In 1925, they successfully resisted the repression of their culture by the Panamanian government. In three days of fighting, they won their autonomy and thus saved their way of life. Known as the “Dule Revolution,” the glorious battle is commemorated annually with a reenactment involving hundreds of participants, including many children.

Bila Burba, made by Duiren Wagua, a member of the Gunadule, shows the re-enactment of the successful revolution, and looks back with descendants of the revolutionaries on the reasons for the uprising and the course of the events.

The film convincingly shows the power of this community theater in maintaining a unique collective identity, which emphasizes cooperation. Keeping the past alive is crucial because the Gunadule’s autonomy is once again under threat due to the Panamanian government’s sale of parts of their territory.

When a man gets old in China, he earns the title of Lao. Lao Liu, Lao Cao and Lao Song, along with a dozen others, are portrayed in Lina Yang’s 1999 film Old Men. Retired and in their 70s and 80s, they gather every afternoon on a side walk in their Beijing neighbourhood. They move slowly but talk fast, lamenting the ageing process and the approach of death. Usually, they laugh with resignation: the cost of healthcare is bogus, they are neglected by their children, and a fellow old man has passed away.

Besides filming the street meetings, Yang also places the camera in the elderly men’s homes. One lives on his own and speaks enthusiastically about his pet cricket and the half bottle of beer that fills him up. Another carries on bickering with his wife, but—when she gets sick—takes care of her in silence.

Summer turns into winter. In brief scenes, Chinese New Year is celebrated, and one of the old men dies. The rest of the group express joy when they see each other. They continue their daily chatter, knowing the inevitable is around the corner for all of them.

In a summer house in the Savoie region of France, three men in their sixties meet to share experiences. As children, they were pupils at the Catholic boys’ boarding school La Belle Étoile in nearby Mercury. Their time there, we discover, has destroyed their lives.

André became a hardened criminal who spent 35 years in prison. Michel has always been afraid. Daniel has never dared to express emotion. With great caution, director Clémence Davigo allows the three to tell their stories. About the structural abuse, the lack of food, the cruel punishments. About the priests who went even further and sexually abused the boys. And about a society that looked the other way.

Even when the three men are silent, the camera records their grief, anger, and despair. Davigo is also present when André, Michel, and Daniel talk to therapists from the Catholic Church. Because many questions remain unanswered. Why were children treated like criminals? And what will the church do to recompense all the victims?

The Swedish-Iranian filmmaker Nahid Persson is known for uncompromisingly critical films about her native country. In her latest documentary, she focuses on the Iranian journalist Ruhollah Zam. Like many of his colleagues, Zam operates from abroad, in his case France, due to the lack of press freedom in Iran. Drawing on secret sources and anonymous video footage, and constantly speaking on the phone from his small home, he exposes the corruption and hypocrisy of the Iranian regime. He does so at the risk of his own life and lives under permanent guard.

In a matter-of-fact style but with mounting tension, the documentary shows Zam’s suffocating existence. In his world, everyone seems to be spying on each other—even fellow journalists don’t trust each other. The scandals are huge, the amounts of money embezzled astronomical, and the atmosphere is sometimes unbearably tense. Who is the mysterious millionaire from Australia? How reliable is Shirin, Zam’s intermediary?

The film seems more like a spy thriller than a documentary. But tragically, it’s all too real.

Over the course of six years, director Li Ma followed a group of petitioners in Beijing: Chinese citizens who feel they have been wronged by local authorities and are seeking justice in the capital. They live in slums, probably number in the tens of thousands, and meet with obstruction at every turn—their ramshackle encampments are demolished, and they are sent away, arrested or committed to a psychiatric hospital.

Their cases vary widely. A piece of land may have been taken from them, or an operation gone wrong. Often it is about money, sometimes a matter of life and death. The need for redress drives them to litigate endlessly, some for as long as 33 years. What keeps these people going, far from home and living as second-class citizens? Ask them and deeply personal motivations or banal reasons emerge, always tinged with a glimmer of hope.

Since making a film about this subject is prohibited, Li Ma used only a small DV camera. The black-and-white footage, the length of the film—almost four hours—and the tenacity of the maker bring the plight of the main characters poignantly close.

Three former political prisoners bear witness to the interrogations, and the psychological and physical torture they were subjected to. We see them and director Mehran Tamadon recreating Iranian prison cells in deserted Parisian warehouses. After an unhurried start, things start changing fast in this powerful reimagining that provokes strong emotions.

Some men were unable to withstand their mistreatment, and painful memories are unleashed. Political activist Taghi Rahmani talks about the six months he spent in solitary confinement. Homa Kalhori, who later wrote A Coffin for the Living, explains the agony of “the coffin.” Businessman Mazyar Ebrahimi, who was falsely accused of spying by a competitor, ties the director to a torture bed to illustrate what happened to him.

Where God Is Not captures all these events in an observational but engaged style that also includes the director and his own motives. Is he asking too much of the three former prisoners? Is he overly idealistic? These questions prompt intense discussions. This film, which won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury in Berlin, forms a diptych with My Worst Enemy, which is also being screened at IDFA this year.