World Premiere
A documentary/diary film that focuses on one of the directors, Álex Mena, who journeys to her grandmother’s village looking for a closure never realized after she died. This is a beautiful farewell letter that explores the symbiotic relationship between memory and place, and our evolving perception of love after a death. The film poses as many questions as it answers about life’s transient nature and our journey through it, all framed by the minute details of the village and surroundings and a mix of voice-over thoughts and conversations.
Community Partner
Spain
2022
In Spanish with English subtitles
Featured in:
International Shorts: Personal Journeys
The films in this shorts program are all about discovery. Beautiful and thought-provoking voyages of internal and external discovery that honour relations and history, while encountering stimuli that promote a new understanding of self.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Way, My Way
All manner of pilgrims flock to France and Spain to walk the 800 km Camino de Santiago. One such is Bill, a stroppy sexagenarian Australian filmmaker who's determined to do the Camino with minimal prep, a dickey leg, and no firm idea why.
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
After finding her uncle's dead body on the roadside by a brothel, Shula grapples with her Zambian family's sanctification of a monstrous man. This darkly comedic absurdist drama was a prize winner at Cannes for director Rungano Nyoni (I Am Not a Witch).
Resident Orca
Captured in Puget Sound in 1970, killer whale Lolita spent the next half century in a cramped tank in Seaquarium, Miami. The film follows a coalition of Lummi elders, animal lovers and philanthropists on a rescue mission to return her to the ocean.
Credits
Producer
Andrea Gautier
Screenwriter
Álex Mena
Cinematography
Almudena Sánchez
Editor
Maia De Zan
Directors
Carmen Jiménez
Carmen Jiménez is a screenwriter and director who has developed shows for Suma Content, Netflix, and Legendary, among others, and is currently working on a British/Spanish series with producer Tanya Seghatchian (The Crown). She is the writer of the Sony International feature Adiós (2019) and the US/Portugal TV show Vanda. Carmen has directed several short films with successful international festival runs, and was awarded by the Directors Guild of America, among others.
Álex Mena
Álex Mena is a photographer and designer with a multitude of individual and collective exhibitions to her credit. She has been an assistant to the photographer and activist Angélica Dass, and manager and coordinator of fairs and exhibitions at the Elvira González Gallery in Madrid, among other activities related to the world of art. She currently combines her work as a UX/UI designer with the development of her last two projects, Hieratic White and Before Birth.