Synopsis

A tender rumination on the tenuous bonds of family, the changing Icelandic landscape, and the passage of time itself, The Love That Remains chronicles a year in the life of a family of five as the parents navigate their separation. Anna, an artist who works with natural materials to create large canvases, is frustrated with her professional life and hoping to land an exhibition. Her husband, Magnus, is often away working on a fishing trawler, and his extended absences put a strain on the family. As the love between Anna and Magnus fades, the couple and their three children are forced to redefine their relationships to one another.

Infusing the narrative with surreal flourishes, a dreamy piano score, stunning landscape photography, and a winning performance from Panda the dog, director Hlynur Pálmason (2022’s Godland) offers a meditative, tragicomic portrait of a family in crisis.

Synopsis

Unfulfilled dreams, dark obsessions, and illicit desires take center stage in this program that transports viewers into the bold and blood-curdling world of genre film. From ventriloquist dummies to unrequited love, these shorts expose our darkest fears… and create new ones.

Blue Violet is a camcorder video compilation for Violet’s birthday that captures just how far Blue will go to prove her devotion to her beloved. While driving home alone on a deserted West Bank road, a Palestinian woman’s flat tire forces her to accept the help of a stranger with unknown intentions in Coyotes. Dummy! takes place in an alternate universe populated by ventriloquist dummies, where a human woman dreams of following in her domineering mother’s footsteps as a cabaret singer. In Earworm, an office worker seeks medical attention after being driven to madness by the notorious earworm “Cotton Eye Joe.” Between a tough-as-nails instructor, apathetic classmates more interested in partying than practicing medicine, and a lack of cadavers to help him hone his skills, Wolfe feels he has no choice but to take his dream of becoming an anesthesiologist into his own hands in Pinpoint. Following her partner’s death, a pregnant woman with a mysterious wound along her spine is visited by an old lover who wants to help her heal in Hotel Acropole.

Synopsis

Ulph has been plagued by an earworm for weeks, fixating on the chorus of “Cotton Eye Joe” and bursting into song at the most inappropriate of times. When he finally seeks medical attention for his strange affliction, he feels a glimmer of hope, but can he be cured before the song plunges him into madness?

This film screens as part of Shorts Program 1: After Dark.

Synopsis

A timeless tale of bitter family rivalries and forbidden love takes new form in this wondrous musical fantasy. 1940 Stockholm. John and Ninni—both heirs to their families’ competing amusement parks—fall hard for each other amidst the whirling world they inhabit. Can their love survive generations of animosity, nasty pranks, and an encroaching war?

Synopsis

Over the past decade sculptor and animator Niki Lindroth von Bahr has utilized stop motion animation to breathe life into anthropomorphised animal puppets. From pigeons singing in a zoo in Something to Remember to a pedantic spa manager in Bath House to the delightful rabbit and fox neighbors Tord and Tord to the existential marketplace musical The Burden, this showcase of her work conjures hilarious, bizarre, and even profoundly moving worlds where human and animal merge.