Europe Day Screenings at Cork International Film Festival
Cork International Film Festival is pleased to host a curated programme of European short films to mark Europe Day 2024. On Thursday, 9th May, three programmes will be available to watch comprising an in-cinema programme of short films screening at 6.15pm on Thursday, 9th May in The Arc Cinema Cork; an online shorts programme; and a family online shorts programme, available nationwide from 6pm on Thursday, 9th May to 6pm on Saturday, 11th May (once you start watching you have 30 hours to finish viewing). See below for more information on these great selections of European short films.
Europe Day at Cork International Film Festival is supported by the Communicating Europe Initiative from the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Europe Day at CIFF: In Cinema Programme
Available at 6.15pm on Thursday, 9th May in The Arc Cinema Cork.
An unmissable eclectic selection of European short films, including nominated films for the 36th European Film Awards, ranging from poignant studies on the dual reality of life and death during childbirth, reflections on an ongoing humanitarian crisis, the bizarre and captivating existence of axolotls, an exploration into rigid social class and ideological barriers mirrored poetically through architecture, a reflection on the tension between survival and values of a women’s choir facing dissolution after losing crucial funding, and escapist fantasies increasingly blurring into reality in the mysterious and otherworldly Arctic landscape.
Papa – Notes on Life and Death
Andreas Bøggild Monies (Denmark, 2023, 19)
PAPA is a story of a birth told in pictures. A dramatic situation and a motion between life and death. The baby is healthy and a source of joy and life, but the mother suddenly falls ill. The film follows a hospital stay, which fortunately does not happen to most people.
There Are People in the Forest
Szymon Ruczyński (Poland, 2023, 10)
Polish-Belarusian border from a bird’s eye view. Refugees, who are trying to cross it to get to Poland, are hiding in the forest. As if in a computer game, they need to go back to square one when they encounter an evil character or the game is over. Based on the author and witnesses’ accounts, the animation depicts the terrifying humanitarian crisis which has been going on since 2021.
Zoon
Jonatan Schwenk (Germany, 2022, 5)
Residing in a dark swamp at the bottom of a nocturnal forest, a group of gleaming axolotls pursue lustful games. The creatures relish nuzzling one another and nibbling their companions’ limbs.
Emotional Architecture 1959
León Siminiani (Spain, 2022, 30)
Here is the love story of Sebas and Andrea, first-time university students, in the 1958-1959 academic year. Here is how social class and ideology become insurmountable obstacles?… Here is architecture marking, inadvertently, the dotted line that ends up dictating its emotion.
Chords
Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren (Spain, 2022, 30)
Rita belongs to a women’s choir which is in danger of breaking up because they’ve lost the municipal subsidy that allowed them renting their rehearsal room. Now the group has to decide whether or not to accept sponsorship by one of the companies causing the most pollution in the valley.
Sun Dog
Dorian Jespers (Belgium, Russia, 2020, 21)
Fedor is a young locksmith in Murmansk, a frozen city in the obscurity of the Russian Arctic. Client after client, he roams through the alleys of concrete animated by a fantasy that isolates him from the city and its population. His dreams corrode his relation to reality and open the door to a phantasmagoric universe; a second sun is rising above the Russian Arctic.
Europe Day at CIFF: Online Programme
Available online from 6pm on Thursday, 9th May to 6pm on Saturday, 11th May.
An engaging programme of shorts from across Europe, including nominated films for the 36th European Film Awards, entailing a friendship blooming amidst the urban landscape of rooftops and walls, a relationship and future being tested by a tight deadline mission, a flight attendant’s journey of personal transformation, a cinematic poem intertwining the fates of a man and a bull, a narrative composed of archival and contemporary imagery that traverses a woman’s life from a wedding in Ghana to her new existence in Europe, a young woman embarking on a journey of self-discovery and sexual exploration, accompanied only by the memory of her loyal dog, a hospital volunteer’s critical assessment on the impact and ethical implications of his and Germany’s role in international aid, a mundane café routine diving into dreamlike visuals and sounds until reality itself begins to crack, and set against the backdrop of Y2K paranoia, a child attending a birthday party that takes a disturbing turn.
After this content becomes available, you’ll have 48 hours to start watching. Once you begin, you’ll have 30 hours to finish watching.
A Free Run
Lauriane Lagarde (France, 2021, 15)
Lina and Inès don’t know each other but they have one thing in common: parkour. From roof to roof, from walls to barriers, the two teenagers scope each other out with mutual admiration. They try to get closer, yet because they can’t be seen, they’re continually interrupted.
A Short Trip
Erenik Beqiri (France, 2023, 17)
Mira and Klodi, a young Albanian couple arrive in Marseille with a crucial mission. As they face a fateful appointment and a room full of waiting men, time is of the essence. As they confront the urgency of their choice, they must also confront the growing need to let go of each other.
Airhostess-737
Thanasis Neofotistos (Greece, 2022, 15)
Vanina, a 39-year old flight attendant, works on a domestic route onboard a Boeing 737. She complains about her recently attached braces, in a late attempt for a perfect smile. What she really must do is confront her, since forever, absent mother, whose body lies in the cargo hold of the plane.
Asterión
Francesco Montagner (Czech Republic, Slovakia, 2022, 15)
Asterión is a poem. It’s a hymn to life and death, to the eternal struggle, to the inner need of change and transformation, but also it’s a poem about the final death of a culture. It’s the story of a double fate, the one of the man and the one of the bull, both doomed to succumb to their own restless natures.
I Think of Silences When I Think of You
Jonelle Twum (Sweden, 2022, 9)
A wedding in Ghana, a trip across the sea, and a new home in Europe. Using both archival material and new images, Jonelle Twum takes us on a poetic journey where the silence tells of a woman’s life and dreams.
La Perra
Carla Melo Gampert (France, 2023, 14)
In Bogota, a bird-girl leaves behind the family home, her domineering mother and faithful dog to go and explore her sexuality.
Red Ears
Paul Drey (Germany, 2022, 30)
13 years after his civil service in a hospital in Thiès, Senegal, Paul challenges his memories and traumas. With old video footage, interviews and animations he questions his role as a volunteer within the German system of development aid.
Remember How I Used to Ride a White Horse
Ivana Bošnjak Volda, Thomas Johnson Volda (Croatia, 2022, 10)
In the “White Horse” café, waitress and guests apathetically go through their routines. Meanwhile, the reality surrounding them seems to destabilise more and more: between white noise and the sound of tuning forks, between daydreams of galloping knights and ever-growing mountains of drizzling packet sugar. Ivana Bošniak Volda and Thomas Johnson Volda pile up layers of these images and sounds, until they crack – and clear the way to breathe.
The Birthday Party
Francesco Sossai (Germany, France, Italy, 2023, 17)
Italy, December 1999. A father drives his son to a friend’s birthday party at a remote farmhouse. The child is anxious about talk of the so-called “Y2K bug”. But it is the party itself that ends up malfunctioning, when the disturbing details of a family comes to light. A memory from childhood filmed like a giallo.
Europe Day at CIFF: Online Family Programme
Available online from 6pm on Thursday, 9th May to 6pm on Saturday, 11th May.
A distinct selection of European short films for the whole family to enjoy. Discover a unique exploration of hummingbirds, a Latvian lullaby telling the story of baby bears and a sheep’s playful chaos and teamwork at home while their parents are away, three friends’ quest for happiness, a series of charming adventures following Wolfy and friends, a lonely dictaphone robot seeking companionship, a boy helping a struggling goldfish in a puddle, a tale where a dog’s tail becomes its own character, a hedgehog and his friends embarking on a heroic journey to recover stolen food, a white crow, ostracized for being different, becomes a hero, a young polar bear braving the harsh Arctic in a poignant search for his mother, and a a boy’s new Martian doll from a claw machine unexpectedly transports him to Mars.
After this content becomes available, you’ll have 48 hours to start watching. Once you begin, you’ll have 30 hours to finish watching.
Angel’s Trumpet
Martinus Klemet (Estonia, 2019, 02:26)
The next step in the evolution of hummingbirds. The film is inspired by an exotic plant Angel’s Trumpet (Brugmansia).
Hush Hush Little Bear
Māra Liniņa (Latvia, 2022, 04:41)
While the bear parents are away looking for berries and honey, the baby bears stay at home with the sheep. The bear cubs have a good time playing merrily with a ball of yarn, but soon enough the cubs find themselves all tangled up and everything is turned upside down! Luckily the sheep help them put everything in order again. The film is based on the traditional Latvian lullaby “Hush Hush Little Bear”
Three Fools
Peter Hausner, Snobar Avani (Denmark, 2014, 06:32)
“Three Fools” discover the rise and fall of greed and how happiness is sometimes right in front of you. In a search for a place to settle down, the three friends Blue, Yellow and Green find their friendship being ruined by greed and headless competition. Only when Blue and Yellow have destroyed all surrounding natural resources in their race to build the tallest house on the beach they discover that Green has found the true values in life on a mountaintop, in modest harmony with nature and surrounded by family and love.
Little Grey Wolfy – Fall Travellers
Natalia Malykhina (Norway, 2022, 6)
Autumn is here, and birds are winging their way south. It would be great to go on trip with the birds to the warm lands where bears do not sleep in a wintertime. The only problem is that Wolfy and his friends have no wings to fly. But their good imagination comes to help! Imagination that has no boundaries. And they fly high in the sky, faster than birds, in a speedy little plane. But can they escape from winter?
Little Grey Wolfy – Spring and Icy Drift
Natalia Malykhina (Norway, 2017, 06:30)
A new pure spring comes again to the wood. The trees and the beasts wake up feeling good – Spring is the time of an ice drift on the river. Wolfy and Hare, carried away by their running, suddenly find themselves on the floe in the middle of an icy stream. The cold stream hides many dangers, but their imagination comes to help. And their friends of course. Across the seas, nothing can frighten them. Set sail captain Wolf and Hare at the helm.
Little Grey Wolfy – Summer Party
Natalia Malykhina (Norway, 2019, 06:33)
Summer is here – short nights and full moon. And Little Grey Wolfy’s birthday is soon! Wolfy is dreaming about a real birthday cake with candles and cream for his birthday party. But everyone knows that cakes do not grow in the forest on trees! However, this is not a problem for his good friends.
Little Grey Wolfy – The Winter Story
Natalia Malykhina (Norway, 2016, 6)
It would seem, that nothing interesting could happen to The Little Grey Wolfy in a boring sleeping winter forest. A world around is white, silent and cold, and poor Wolfy feels lonely and hungry. But everything is changing as if by magic, when he finds one unusual thing. Fantastic adventures begin, and all around him is suddenly filled with bright colors, life and action. Or is it just his memories about warm summer days?
Just For The Record
Vojin Vasovic (Serbia, 2020, 7)
In an abandoned attic, dictaphone robot REC is desperately trying to find the way to connect to little bird that stops on its window.
Water Path For A Fish
Mercedes Marro (Spain, France, Colombia, 2016, 08:16)
It’s a starry night in a poor neighbourhood in Latin America. Oscar is sleeping in his room when a sudden wind wakes him up. From his window he sees a little goldfish in a dirty puddle gasping for air.
My Happy End
Milen Vitanov (Germany, 2008, 05:22)
What if a dog’s tail was more than just a part of his body that it can wag? What if its tail became his best friend, someone it could share the bone it chews with, someone to play table tennis, someone to spend the whole day and whole night with? That could really, finally be a happy end and animation makes it possible. But every happy end has its dark spots and if your tail becomes a self-reliant character there is a chance that he also wants his own cat to chase!
Hedgehog Spikiney
Tihoni Brčić (Croatia, 2020, 06:48)
Spikiney is a hardworking and altruistic hedgehog who runs a soup kitchen for the needy community. The food disappears one winter night, endangering their existence. Spikiney’s friends – the old monkey with a cane, the orphan squirrel, a strayed bird and the beaver with a rubber flipper for a tail bravely join him on the quest to find the stolen food. They suspect a monster is the thief. The trail takes them to the ominous cave, where they need to bravely confront the monster…
White Crow
Miran Miošić (Croatia, 2018, 09:07)
It’s not always easy to be slightly different from everyone else, as a little white crow learns from personal experience in this animated film. She’s taunted by the other crows, who are all black. When their surroundings are threatened by turbulent changes to the environment, however, it’s the white crow whose otherness is an advantage, enabling her to find a solution for the whole flock.
Ursa
Natalia Malykhina (Norway, 2021, 02:26)
A little polar bear Ursa is alone in the cold dark Arctic and looking for his mum. He walks through a blizzard, through the icy cold tundra and sharp ice hummocks, towards the northern lights and the magic song in hope to find his mother.
Martian
Nils Skapāns (Latvia, Estonia, 2015, 7)
A boy wins a new toy in a claw machine – an ordinary Martian doll. It turns out that things are not that simple, the boy finds himself on Mars and he has to fight with a whole bunch of the Martians.
Europe Day at Cork International Film Festival is supported by the Communicating Europe Initiative from the Department of Foreign Affairs.
