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
Calle Málaga
Seventy-nine-year-old María Ángeles lives independently in Tangier's Spanish quarter. When her daughter pressures her into selling her apartment, she refuses to give in, finding in her old age a new resilience and an unexpected romantic connection.
Sansho the Bailiff
The third of the great Japanese masters (with Ozu and Kurosawa), Mizoguchi is a poet of suffering. There's plenty of that here in his exquisite telling of an ancient folktale about the enslavement of a woman and her two children.
Agatha's Almanac
Shot over six years on vibrant 16mm film, Agatha’s Almanac is an artful documentary portrait of filmmaker Amalie Atkin’s octogenarian aunt, who has fashioned herself an endearingly simple and self-sustaining lifestyle on her Manitoba farm.
Fucktoys Advance Screening + Annapurna Sriram Q&A
Bold, irreverent, and fiercely queer, Fucktoys plunges into a world where pleasure, performance, and identity collide. This special advance screening comes with a Q&A with filmmaker Annapurna Sriram.
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.