| International Festival Signs of the Night - Bangkok |
lnternational Festival Signes de Nuit - Bangkok |
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9th International Festival Signes de Nuit - Bangkok - July 22-30, 2023
21th International Festival Signs of the Night - Thailand
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Bangkok - The Spirit of Opening
The Festival Signs of the Night - The Spirit of Independence
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Otilia Babara |
Belgium, Netherlands, France, Moldavie / 2022 / 1:13:00 |
In the early 90’s, women left Moldova in large numbers to provide for their families. Unable to return home, they found a peculiar way to stay in touch: sending large cardboard boxes filled with gifts and food you could only dream about in those days. In return, their children would send videotapes. This exchange became a ritual among thousands of families. Video cameras and presents allowed these mothers and children to share glimpses of their realities while being apart. Through these intimate private archives, Otilia Babara depicts the fragility of family bonds through the eyes of a generation of mothers and daughters who were forced to live apart in order to survive. While doing so, she portrays a post-soviet country caught in a crossroads of history. A country whose women were unwittingly put in charge of making the transition from communism to capitalism.
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JURY DECLARATION
Love is not an orange. It has brought personal experiences arranged in a series for us to witness the passing of life and time, little by little. We may find that the film appears simple and seemingly devoid of anything to follow. However, throughout the gradual passage of time, the pains and voids of life within a family emerge for the audience to experience bit by bit. The wounds of societal changes become a representation of collective memory, enabling us to perceive the intricacies of social issues. When the film concludes, we become aware of the powerlessness of transitions into a consumerist society, which we ourselves cannot definitively judge if it is worthwhile or not. Nevertheless, we bear witness to the transference from one problem to another and remain unsure of what lies ahead or what other choices people may have.
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Aliaksei Paluyan |
Germany, Belarus / 2021 / 1:30:00 |
For many months we have been following the events in Belorussian streets after the presidential election. Protests, clashes with the police, mass arrests without any chance for a consensus between the parties. Three actors from the underground theatre in Minsk are trying to find themselves in this chaos. Outside their performances, they live regular lives, have families and work, while the stage offers an escape from everyday life and a possibility to express opposition against the authoritarian government. For many years they protested against the authorities through art and now they have decided to join thousands of people in the streets. Their courage will be tested.
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JURY DECLARATION
The only movie that truly deserves recognition by a wider audience, or even to be shown during political protests, is Aliaksei Paluyan's work. It successfully unveils and exposes the political climate of Belarus under the Lukashenko dictatorship spanning over twenty-six years. In addition to the merits of this achievement, it also introduces "Belarus Free Theatre's Staging a Revolution" for greater recognition. Most importantly, Courage serves as a compelling example of how a documentary can go beyond mainstream media, which is often controlled by the state government.
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SIGNS AWARD
The Signs Award for Documentary honors films, which express in an original, convincing and sensitive way the perturbing aspects of reality.
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A History of the World According to Getty Images
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Richard Misek |
Norway / 2022 / 0:19:00 |
A short montage film that brings together some of the most iconic images of the last century, demonstrating the hold that a small number of media corporations have on our shared memory, and reclaiming a small piece of their huge private archives from corporate control.
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JURY DECLARATION
This movie is nothing more than a collection of stock footage stitched together, available for purchase and use, with continuous narration to show the relationship between storytelling with images from the past and the dominance of the market. The film makes us realize the value of images from the past and the limitations of their usage, as all images have owners and value. The cost of extracting memories from the past is both expensive and determined by investors. Its straightforward approach effectively communicates the issues mentioned, and its uniqueness lies not only in exposing an unfair financial system but also in extending the idea of ownership to things that should not have owners. The film itself serves as an intricate portrayal, pushing itself beyond merely conveying the issues but rather as part of an effort to liberate moving images from the grip of the capitalism.
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DIRECTOR STATEMENT
A History Of The World According To Getty Images is a short film about a specific issue - the fact that commercial archives routinely restrict access to historic images that are in the 'public domain’ and so should be freely available. But this is just one aspect of the bigger societal issue of how capitalism reduces historic images to status of financial assets, and the bigger challenge of finding ways to prevent monopolists from taking control of ever more of our shared past. For this reason, this small film feels like just the beginning of a much longer, perhaps a lifetime, project for me. If you want to stay informed about how it develops, you can sign up for occasional updates at www.ahistoryoftheworldaccordingtogettyimages.com. You can also view and download the film for free via the website.
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MENTION FOR THE SIGNS AWARD
The Signs Award for Documentary honors films, which express in an original, convincing and sensitive way the perturbing aspects of reality.
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la mécanique des fluides |
Gala Hernández López |
France / 2022 / 0:38:00 |
In 2018, an incel (involuntary celibate) posted a suicide note on Reddit titled “America is responsible for my death “. The film is a virtual drifting around the Internet in search of his digital traces.
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JURY DECLARATION
Throughout this movie, we don't directly see or interact with humans at all. However, the film is filled with heart and a strong sense of humanity. It immerses itself in a virtual world where humans engage in indirect and borderless interactions. We only catch glimpses and some stories of them in this simulated world. The questioning of incels and the pervasive fragmentation of humanity in the internet's world have seamlessly merged with the world that has turned everything into commodities, measured by their attractiveness. Humans are quickly judged and grouped, some glorified and others left without a place and stripped of their self-worth. The movie presents the wounds in a seemingly connected and borderless world, revealing that in return, it intensifies the feelings of despair and hopelessness beyond what we can endure. In this future world we are heading towards, the value of our humanity will still remain and be cherished, but how it will be preserved remains uncertain.
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DIRECTOR STATEMENT
The Mechanics of fluids is a very personal film but also a very political one. I did it out of the necessity to publicly speak about loneliness as a general social problem in contemporary digital capitalism, and the links between this and online misogyny – a a result of sexual and emotional misery. My contribution with this film is small and modest, but I hope we will be addressing these collective issues in the public political debate often, and imagine ways of reducing psychological pain and suffering through education and feminist, decolonial, caregiving inclusive methods. Thank you to the jury for the mention.
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MENTION FOR THE SIGNS AWARD
The Signs Award for Documentary honors films, which express in an original, convincing and sensitive way the perturbing aspects of reality.
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A Visual History of The World Trade Center
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Monty Diamond |
United States / 2020 / 0:30:00 |
4 moments from the history of The World Trade Center set to the 4 movements of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphony “Scheherezade”.
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JURY DECLARATION
Over the course of more than six decades, the Monumental Building of the WTC condensed and represented all sensations of mankind. These sensations included oppositional anger when the project was conceived, hopefulness during construction, an iconic image in entertainment media, pride and challenge during Phillip Petit's daring climb in-between the towers, and finally, moans and groans of mass panic when it was demolished. The building's history harks back to its under-construction days, taking us back in time for thirty minutes.
This short history of the WTC Monumental Building is underscored by memorably masterful music composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, specifically his Sheherazade, which enhances the greatness of the building, evoking a feeling close to that of the classic animation, Fantasia (1940). The representation of the building is conveyed through a recollection of photos and footage sourced from other references.
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NIGHT AWARD
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The Night Award for Documentary honors films, which represent reality in an ambivalent and enigmatic way, avoiding stereotypes of representation
and simple conclusions.
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When There Is No More Music to Write, and Other Roman Stories
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Éric Baudelaire |
France / 2022 / 0:59:00 |
Rome, years of lead. Aldo Moro is kidnapped in the fervour of the Red Brigades. The armed struggle is propelled towards a political dead end. Alvin Curran, the mythical figure of the musical avant-garde, strives to dissolve the figure of the author in the collective. The notion of instruments is extended to natural and everyday objects, producing revolutionary works.
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JURY DECLARATION
In a world where there is no new music to be composed, it is similar to a world without opposition. The world may reach the peak of peace if, on the other hand, it is true that the world has reached the beginning of its decline. This is because if everyone agrees completely, it could transform into a form of 'silence' and the extinction of 'humanity' itself, where no one is alike. Under the guise of poetic cinema, fragments of history are recorded, capturing the vulnerability of humanity in the midst of years of violence. The sound of lost music and the arrangement of divergent perspectives lead to a blossoming complexity. This is a film that evokes a subtle feeling that is difficult to put into words.
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MENTION FOR THE NIGHT AWARD
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The Night Award for Documentary honors films, which represent reality in an ambivalent and enigmatic way, avoiding stereotypes of representation
and simple conclusions.
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Sylvain L’Espérance |
Canada / 2021 / 1:22:00 |
From images drawn from 125 years of cinema and left to speak for themselves, a new memory emerges that shows us our ambiguous, deep but often violent relationship with animals. Through this closeness, the film has us rediscover our own related destinies.
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JURY DECLARATION
Sylvain L’Espérance's triumph in retelling various déjà vu cinematic experiences contributes to a new sense of meaning. The most astonishing result is that despite the images on the screen being depictions of both wild and domestic lives, they have a triggering effect on us. We feel as if we are the ones being abused instead of those animals. Suddenly, we identify with ourselves, sharing a common instinct, especially when we see reflections in their eyes that seem to be begging for help. The success of Animal Macula is also largely admirable, including its ability to extract a factor of humanity from us as humans. It teaches us the extent of our humanitarian values and makes us question how much value we truly hold in this regard.
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Vanessa Nica Mueller |
Germany / 2023 / 1:04:30 |
An essay about Lebanon (mainly) and Germany (also), about coastlines and plants like the marsh samphire, the milk thistle, the angel trumpet or the crimson bottlebrush. About adaptation and transformation as well as resistance, about changes desired and dreaded, the city of Beirut and its unexpected revelations, modernism and time passing by, and, of course, the hopes and fears of its inhabitants, many of whom sense that their future might wait for them across the sea, even if they don’t want to leave. LANDEN follows its protagonist on her botanical journey from the german Wadden sea shoreline to the coast of Lebanon. As she collects plants, she witnesses the consequences of Lebanon´s economic collapse and the disturbing decay. The flora become her only constant navigation. Along fragile ecosystems she loses herself between modernist architecture in Tripoli or at the banks of the Beirut River to find some hope for a future after the fall.
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JURY DECLARATION
The lives of people in Lebannon are narrated through a documentary that resembles a sharp-edged scientific record. The biological characteristics of trees intertwine with the struggles, adaptations, and efforts of the people in a dry and challenging city. One scene of the film presents an evolutionary theory that does not arise from selection and rejection but from coexistence and mutual support. This gives significance to both plant species and human beings. The film solely consists of images of trees, and it assigns new names to them, poetic names alongside their actual scientific names. It also incorporates the untold stories of people who never appear on screen because throughout the film, there are only images of the city and the botanical features of different trees.
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Competition Short Film, Cinema in Transgression, Documentary |
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