Home Grown – 2023
Monday, April 10, 3:00 PM
Now I’m in the Kitchen
Director: Yana Pan, Animation, USA, 5 min
When I’m cooking my favorite dish that my mom used to make, my thoughts wander alongside the aroma. Through cooking, I reflect on what it means to be independent and my relationship with my mom.
The Record
Director: Jonathan Laskar, Animation, Switzerland, 9 min
An antique music instrument dealer recieves a magical vinyle record from a traveller: “It reads your mind and plays your lost memories”. Obsessed by this endless record, the antique dealer listens to it again and again, and the memories reemerge until one last and most painful memory is revealed: how he got separated from his mother on the Swiss border during World War II.
Make or Break
Directors: Mike Plitt, Falk Schuster, Animation, Germany, 8 min
Alex grows up in the GDR era with his single mother in the Vogtland region; the two of them take a lot of liberties because they can count on each other. When his mother publicly criticises the state, the youth welfare authorities decide to send Alex to a children’s home. Once there, the eleven-year-old no longer understands the world. Why is he here? He longs for his family and makes several attempts to escape. As punishment, he is sent to the Closed Juvenile Detention Centre Torgau, the only one of its kind in the country. Military drill and violence dominate everyday life there. Alex has to stand up to both the educators as well as his fellow inmates. After his release, it was clear to him: never again will he return there. But in the eyes of the youth welfare services, he continues to refuse to be re-educated and is sent to Torgau for a second time. He is suddenly overcome by dark thoughts…
Our Males and Females
Director: Ahmad Alyaseer, Narrative, Jordan, 11 m in
A father and mother are faced with the painful task of washing and shrouding their transgender daughter. Shrouding is an Islamic religious practice that is deemed obligatory to carry out upon death. But when no one agrees to wash her and shame falls onto the family, how far is the father willing to go to make sure his “son” is washed?
The Difference Between Dirt and Soil
Director: Liz Cambron, Experimental, USA, 10 min
This short documentary film follows the filmmaker as she goes on a journey to find her father’s grave. She starts her quest by growing a pollinator garden. This story is loosely woven together through the ecologies of land, history, and memory.
The Rabbi’s Son
Director: Asher Rosen, Narrative, UK, 14 min
Faced with a bereavement, Rabbi David faces a difficult choice as he tries to keep his community and family together.
Demon Box
Director: Sean Wainsteim, Documentary, Canada, 14 min
After festival rejections, a director revises his intensely personal short film about trauma, suicide, and the Holocaust, and transforms it into a painful, blunt and funny dissection of the film and his life. Ten years in the making.
The Shrimp’s Tail
Director: Oscar de la Torre Suárez, Experimental, USA, 18 min
A filmmaker’s quest to understand why his father took his own life.
Yarayah
Director: Bernardo De Jeurissen, Narrative, Algeria, France, 20 min
The story of Yasmina, an Algerian and French female bodybuilder who goes back home after winning the world championship at the Arnold classic and has to face her father’s closed doors.