Glocal Images International Competition Section 2022

Teenagers Maya and Jana are inseparable and do everything together. Headstrong Jana usually takes the lead and Maya follows. One night at a party they catch Elena, the most popular girl in school, having sex on video with Maya’s long-term crush. Jana convinces Maya to post the video and when it goes viral, Elena’s life is ruined. A heated confrontation between the three girls leaves Elena missing and Maya wanting to go to the police… but that isn’t what Jana wants. Maya becomes her new target and must find the courage to get out of her toxic relationship and the secret that threatens to ruin her life.

Yuni is a teenage girl, smart with big dreams of attending university. When two men she barely knows ask to marry her, she rejects their proposals, sparking gossip about a myth that a woman who rejects three proposals will never marry. The pressure is building when a third man asks for her hand, and Yuni must choose between the myth of a final chance at marriage, or her dream of future happiness.

Awards

• Platform Prize, Toronto International Film Festival, Canada, 2021.
• Best Actress Award – Piala Citra, Film Festival Indonesia, Indonesia, 2021.

In the Bolivian highlands, an elderly Quechua couple has been living the same daily routine for years. When an uncommonly long drought threatens their entire way of life, Virginio and Sisa face the dilemma of resisting or being defeated by the passage of time. With the arrival of their grandson, Clever, the three of them will face, each in their own way, the environment, the necessity for change, and the meaning of life itself.

Awards

• Grand Jury Prize – World Cinema Dramatic, Sundance Film Festival, USA, 2022.

In Belgrade, 1993 Marijana throws a sleepover party for her daughter’s 8th birthday, with family and fellow parents attending. Seizing the rare opportunity when their children are kept entertained in the other room, the parents open a few bottles in the kitchen and enjoy their reunion. Marijana suddenly realizes that she longs for more than a bunch of drunken guests and an inattentive husband, so she sets out to discover the thrills the night has to offer. She sneaks out of the house strolling around the empty streets, seeking genuine experiences instead of mere substitutes. While she reaches an orgasm and smokes a cigarette with a stranger, the party slowly disperses, just like Yugoslavia, the country Marijana and her friends were all born in.

Selected Awards

• FIPRESCI Award for Best Film & Best Feature Film – Scythian Deer, Molodist International Film Festival, Kiev, Ukraine, 2021.
• Best Director Award, Sarajevo International Film Festival, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2021.
• Special Jury Prize, Audience Award & Taiwan Film Critics Society Award, Taipei Film Festival, Taiwan, 2021.
• Special Festival Award, Merlinka Festival, Belgrade, Serbia, 2021.
• Audience Award, Sumadija International Film Festival, Serbia, 2021.

After the death of their second newborn child, the young man and the woman obediently get back to their chores making it through another day and getting ready for a lengthy and exhausting winter. The local Yakut ruler orders the family to admit to their house a Russian political convict, Konstantin, and to keep him there until further notice. The worlds of the family and the Russian unwelcome guest collide from the very first day due to their completely different backgrounds. Despite the mutual challenges faced by the household against the surrounding wild nature, Konstantin gradually settles in and claims the position of the master of the house.

Awards

• Best Film Award – East of West, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Czech Republic, 2021.
• Best Direction Award, Sochi Open Russian Film Festival, Russia, 2021.

Nelly has escaped from her wealthy and controlling family. As she dances in a strip club, she meets Markos, a small yet charismatic gangster, who helps her run away from her stepfather’s henchmen. Markos soon becomes her protector and lover. He brings her into Broadway, Athens, an abandoned entertainment complex squatted by a small community of dancers, tramps, thieves and a captive monkey. For a while, everything goes well, even when Broadway hosts a mysterious man, injured and covered with bandages, wanted dead by Athens’ most dangerous mafia. However, when Markos gets arrested and imprisoned, the newcomer will take an unexpectedly important place in the gang.

Lesya has committed a crime of passion, which brings her a seven-year sentence in one of Odessa’s women’s correctional facilities. She has just given birth to her first child, and now she is entering a world populated only by women: inmates, nurses and wardens, women of all ages, wives and widows, daughters, sisters, pregnant women, and women with children too. If not for the colour of the uniform, it would sometimes be hard to tell who is who.

Awards

• Best Screenplay Award – Orizzonti Competition, Venice International Film Festival, Italy, 2021.
• Best Director Award – Silver Hugo, Chicago International Film Festival, USA, 2021.
• Best Film Award, Cottbus Film Festival of Young East European Cinema, Germany, 2021.

Victor, a Greek ex-diving champion in his early 20s, lives with his grandmother in a seaside town in Greece. Missing out on his triumph days and tired of working at a furniture factory, his life suddenly changes with his grandmother’s death. Driving an old dusty car, he begins a road trip to Germany. On the boat to Italy, he meets Matthias, an adventurous young German, who is on his way home. Matthias persuades Victor to take him along and, as they drive north, Matthias pushes him to come out of his comfort zone and reveal the real reasons behind his trip. Victor’s uptight character clashes with the more free-spirited Matthias. When their journey comes to an end, through the unpredictable turns of life, will their questions find the answers they so much long for?

Awards

• Audience Award – Meet the Neighbours competition, Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Greece, 2021.
• Best Screenplay Award, KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival, India, 2021.

Young Dimitris, on the verge of manhood yet very much a child has romanticized his absent father to mythic proportions. When his father is finally released from prison, Dimitris’ dream of family happiness is more lucid than ever yet immediately transformed. While fighting for everything he wished for, he has to face an unprecedented form of violence.

Awards

• Special Youth Jury Award, Meet the Neighbors competition, 62nd Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Greece, 2021.