Indie Visions (Features)

SFF alum, director Sofia Bohdanowicz (MAISON DU BONHEUR), returns with this acclaimed Berlin Film Festival selection. Continuing an ongoing semi-autobiographical collaboration with Deragh Campbell (SFF alum I USED TO BE DARKER). MS SLAVIC 7 continues their study of the real-life correspondence between the director’s grandmother and Jozef Wittlin, a Nobel Prize nominated Polish poet writing from inside the confines of a war camp during WWII.

This award-winning musical comedy based on the story “Two Gallants” by James Joyce and the music of John Prine follows two con-artists, Jerry and Carl, who con their way clear across Texas. When one of them falls in love, however, their plans go awry, and the bumbling P.I. in hot pursuit of the two closes in.

This Berlinale selection, shot completely handheld, pairs a sense of humor and taste for suspense and subtle surreality. Anna is a novelist yet to write a novel. Her boyfriend, Tyler, is a filmmaker yet to complete a film. The two become stranded on the road and are grateful when a charming stranger, Clip, who happens to be black, offers to take them in and help get their car fixed. Turns out he has a whole closet full of video equipment and serious air of mystery.

Meet Diamantino, the biggest soccer star in the world… until one day he loses his edge and ends his career in shame. Diamantino begins an odyssey to regain his groove, a dizzying journey through underwear modeling, cloning, contemporary European politics and more. A hit at Cannes, where it’s bracingly fresh style took the festival by storm.

Jessica Oreck, director of acclaimed documentary films such as THE VANQUISHING OF THE WITCH BABA YAGA and BEETLE QUEEN CONQUERS TOKYO returns with her first narrative feature, ONE MAN DIES A MILLION TIMES. Shot in classic black and white and set in St. Petersburg in the not-too-distant future, Oreck invites us into a world of seed banks and scientists who have to choose between their own survival and that of the world.

A golden-aged woman tells a harrowing tale from her bygone past of five teenage girls who met in an empty suburban house and engaged in a dreadful story-telling competition to pass the time, each yarn delving deeper into the horrors of the world lying in wait right outside their door. Drawing from the Southern Gothic tradition, steeped in dark romanticism, and rendered deeply unsettling through an incisive minimalist approach lacking monsters or gore, THE WORLD IS FULL OF SECRETS stands as a testament to the power of language and imagination to shake us to our core.

Alice has been blacking out and craving things she dare not name. When her girlfriend’s dog goes missing, Alice wonders if it could be inside her.

At the foot of the French Alps, students at the renowned Lesdiguières Hotel School are on track to become chefs, headwaiters and housekeepers for the world’s most prestigious hotels and restaurants. These young men and women, most from modest backgrounds, have come to this school to learn how to prepare food, serve and tidy what eventually becomes a carefully crafted choreography. In this film at the crossroads of documentary film and musical, these hopefuls dance and sing their way through the demanding training program; but will their rigorous preparation be enough to impress the famous institutions they dream of working for?

A mother and son cope with a tragic loss in their own ways. She explores a new friendship with her son’s teacher while he clutches onto the past and sets out to find the truth in his late father’s belief of money buried at a local sawmill.

After a bored house cat mysteriously transforms into a human and escapes from his home, he comes between a mother and daughter who need his help to find peace.

Clementine is a narrative feature film about a heartbroken woman who becomes entangled with a younger girl after breaking into her ex’s lake house in the Pacific Northwest. Equal parts psychological drama and sexual coming-of-age story, Clementine is a tense rumination on who to love and how to let go.

Clementine was developed with the support of the Venice Biennale College-Cinema, the Sundance Institute, Film Independent, and IFP. It stars Otmara Marrero (Crackle’s “Start-up”), Sydney Sweeney (Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”, HBO’s “Sharp Objects” and “Euphoria”), Will Brittain (Kong: Skull Island, Everybody Wants Some!!), and Sonya Walger (ABC’s “The Catch” and “Lost”). The filmmaking team is based in Portland, Oregon. Our writer/director, Lara Jean Gallagher, is a graduate of Columbia University’s MFA Directing program and this is her debut feature film.

Donna has recently been convicted of “Driving While Impaired” and is ordered to perform community service at the local animal shelter. When an elderly dog is scheduled to be euthanized, Donna decides to take the dog home and quickly realizes his companionship can ease her loneliness. In a futile attempt to fill the emptiness she feels, Donna begins to take home more and more animals and she is soon in over her head.