La Rabia
A forerunner of new Argentinian cinema, Albertina Carri presents a dark, powerful story of lust, rage and impossible innocence. With somewhat controversial content, La Rabia tells of the life of a mute girl and her adulterous mother in the Argentinian Pampas. With long held shots of the forbidding landscape and a daring, original use of animation, expect a challenging and intense submission from a rising talent.
The Heart Is a Dark Forest (Daz Herz ist ein Dunkler Wald)
Actor, director, singer and model Nicolette Krebitz premiers her second feature film at the Birds. Eye View Festival following the success of her debut Jeans. After discovering one morning that her husband is leading a second life with another wife and child, Maria’s seemingly perfect bourgeois life is turned upside down. With a darkly stylish and surrealistic tone, The Heart is a Dark Forest remains a Berlinale favourite about ‘denial, self-imposed constraints and the battle to cast them off’.
Snow (Snijeg)
Winner of the Cannes International Critics Week Grand Prix 2008, this is the second film from Sarajevo director Aida Begic. Snow (Snijeg) tells the story of a remote Bosnian village after the devastation of the Second World War. The few remaining women start up a business selling home-made condiments, when two strangers arrive offering money and unclear motives. Snow promises a ‘contemplative exploration of camaraderie and resilience, of human dignity and of hope in the redemptive power of truth’.
September
Winner of the Best Short Film award at this years BAFTAs, Esther May Campbell’s September tells of Marvin, a man who is going nowhere. When whiling away his free time in abandoned films, Marvin encounters an extraordinary adolescent girl who changes his life for ever.
Birdy
From director Agnieszka Woznicka comes a seven-minute animation about a wingless bird and the terrifying power of desire, urging him to realise the dream of flying.
Marker
UK director Susanna Wallin presents us with Marker, a 12-minute tale of the impressionistic inner journey of a young girl catching wild reindeer in the twilight expanses of the far North. Surrounded by hundreds of frightened animals, attempting to mark them with her name, both girl and animal embark on a strange journey, driven by fear and a struggle for power and escape.