Shell Shock – 2023

Tuesday, April 11, 9:15 PM

Under The Endless Sky
Director: Alexandra Dzhiganskaya, Animation, Austria, 4 min
Our memories play an important role in the construction of identity and self-awareness. My childhood memories have acquired a special value for me since the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine, my home country. For many children, this time will become a formative memory. My childhood in Ukraine was different and I want to share it with the audience in the form of an animated short. In the film I tell a personal story about my childhood memories and explore how memories are preserved and why they have a special meaning for people.

Bye Bye Lullaby
Directors: Sonali Gulati, Rohan Gulati, Experimental, USA, 5 min
When you are forced to leave your home, what do you take and what do you leave behind? Using a single long take, Bye Bye Lullaby explores the meaning of belonging and belongings, transporting and being transported, passing away and passing down.

Nona
Director: Zazie Ray-Trapido, Documentary, 6 min
Eva is a holocaust survivor who fled the Nazis in former Yugoslavia with her mother and sister. They settled in New York City, where she proceeded to spend her formative years. Eva worked for NASA as a biochemist, retired in her late 50’s, and became heavily involved in local politics. This portrait film of my grandmother weaves through past and present as she approaches 90, exploring the role that memory has on who she is today.

Are You Ok?
Director: Natalka Vorozhbit, Narrative, Austria, 5 min
A post-trauma experience of a young woman and her daughter who were forced to leave Ukraine for Europe after the Russian invasion.

Rest in Paper
Director: Haseeb Rehman, Animation, Pakistan, 8 min
Rest in Paper recounts the dark comedy of Ghulam Ali, a Muslim Army officer trying to get back to his home as the violence of the Great Partition breaks out in 1947. A series of Kafka-esque bureaucratic mishaps lead to him being juggled across the newly created India-Pakistan border, with no state ultimately willing to claim him.

Bezuna
Director: Saif Alsaegh, Experimental, USA, 8 min
Bezuna explores the complexities of fleeing a war-zone through the analysis of peripheral details. Through interweaving different narratives, the film presents the raw and broken feelings of a child and a cat whose lives will never be the same.

Parasolka
Directors: Rowan Ings, Faye Tsakas, Documentary, USA, 9 min
Parasolka documents a moment in time for the women of the Fedyk family, recently arrived in the suburbs of Sacramento, California – home to the largest Ukrainian diaspora in America. As the Fedyk family waits indeterminately at their temporary home, viewers are held in a series of long, highly composed, static takes that slow our temporality to the pace of endless days of uncertainty. Raising questions of what the future holds, the film is a meditation on land, family, and exile.

Killing Bagheera
Director: Muschirf Shekh Zeyn, Narrative, Germany, 13 min
Alan and Bekes are refugees and want to enter Europe. This simple premise forms the narrative for a claustrophobic and intense drama surrounding friendship, courage, dreams and how the other half life.

Europe by Bidon
Directors: Samuel Albaric, Thomas Trichet, Documentary, France, 15 min
Biodun is Nigerian. In this animated documentary, he tells the story of his journey on foot from Lagos to Paris and how he survives with a container, a “bidon” and thanks of his courage. ..With his amazing patter, he transforms the events into extraordinary adventures.

Night
Director: Ahmad Saleh, Animation, Germany, Jordan, Palestine, Qatar, 16 min
The dust of war keeps the eyes sleepless. Night brings peace and sleep to all the people in the broken town. Only the eyes of the mother of the missing child stay resilient. Night has to trick her into sleeping to save her soul.

P.D.O. (Protected Designation of Origin)
Director: Samy Sidaqli, Narrative, France, 18 min
Advised by an administration full of good intentions, Latefa and her two children Walid and Ptissam Frenchize their first names at the same time as they acquire French na-tionality. They face this unique ordeal with humor and lightness, just before the start of the school year.