The 20th edition of Nest, San Sebastian Festival’s international competition for shorts by film students, has selected fourteen films from Argentina, Brazil, China, Croatia, Denmark, France, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States.
The Nest section presents the work of students from film schools all over the world, and has functioned as a breeding ground for new film industry talents. The Belgian filmmaker Laura Wandel, who participated in the San Sebastian Film Students Meeting in 2007, has presented her first feature film Playground((Un monde) at the Festival de Cannes. Last year, the filmmaker Isabel Lamberti, winner of the Nest Torino Award in 2015, was won the Kutxabank-New Directors Award for her first feature film, Last Days of Spring (La última primavera).
2021 NEST SHORT FILMS
À LA RECHERCHE D’ALINE
Short film
ROKHAYA MARIEME BALDE (SENEGAL)
Country(ies) of production: Switzerland
Cast: Nga Nga Baro, Moise Diatta
HEAD – Genève (Switzerland)
Rokhaya, a young director returns to her home in Dakar to make a film about a local historical figure. Throughout her research, which consists of interviews with local personalities, discussions with her team and fictional scenes shot on location, we discover the story of Aline Sitoe Diatta.
AFTER A ROOM
Short film
NAOMI PACIFIQUE (SWITZERLAND)
Country(ies) of production: UK
London Film School (United Kingdom)
Nights are long inside Naomi and Ram’s room. Tonight, they’ve invited Marina over and their messy space is under scrutiny. Exploring intimacy as personal playground, skin as intimate map, Naomi’s docile body is coming loose amidst the tension of a room she continues knowing and unknowing. The small expressive child inside her is itching to ring its giggle through the night, before day breaks.
ALGO ASÍ COMO LA NOCHE
Short film
ALVÁN PRADO (CHILE)
Country(ies) of production: Spain
Cast: Iván De Álvaro, Marcos Úbeda, Iván Toher
EFTI (Spain)
On a cold April afternoon, coming down a mountain, Marcos and Iván will be faced with deciding whether to cover up or take responsibility for an action they have just committed.
CRASHING WAVES
Short film
LUCY KERR (USA)
Country(ies) of production: USA
Cast: Kelli Scarangello
California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) (USA)
While images produced for Hollywood appear slick and controlled, a stunt performer’s testimony in Crashing Waves reveals otherwise, as they parse out all of the elements that go into a car crashing off a cliff and diving into the water for a TV show. Though the image produced and edited creates a split-second moment of violence for the viewer’s pleasure, Crashing Waves uncovers the months of labor, training, and danger that the stunt involved, contingent on capitalist, patriarchal hierarchies in the film industry. The film meditates on the stakes of the real in the dominant culture’s production of images and emphasizes the importance of the ethics of care.
FANTASMA NEON / NEON PHANTOM
Short film
LEONARDO MARTINELLI (BRAZIL)
Country(ies) of production: Brasil
Cast: Dennis Pinheiro, Silvero Pereira
Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) (Brazil)
João is a delivery man who dreams of having a motorcycle. He was told that everything would be like a musical film. But even in neon, he is still invisible.
HULLET / THE HOLE
Short film
CHRISTOFFER ANSEL (DENMARK)
Country(ies) of production: Denmark
Cast: Anders Mossling, Elias Budde
The National Film School of Denmark (Denmark)
Elias is a young man, who lives with his father, Frank, in a house out in the middle of nowhere. There, their lives revolve around filling a mysterious hole that keeps reappearing in the floor of their living room. Filling the hole during the day, and spending the evenings unwinding, seems perfectly fine for Frank, but Elias starts to question the meaning behind this life that Frank has decided for them. As Elias’ weariness grows, he confronts his father about wanting to do something else. Frank is a stubborn man, though, and Elias’ rebellion soon sees them butting heads.
OB SCENA
Short film
PALOMA ORLANDINI CASTRO (ARGENTINA)
Country(ies) of production: Argentina
Licenciatura en Cine Documental. Universidad Nacional de San Martín (Argentina)
Ob Scena is an experimental documentary short returning to academic texts on sexuality written by a psychiatrist in Cuba in the 80s and drawing a link with today’s pornography. A reflection on the place of social control discreetly infiltrated in the representation of sex.
OSPALKY / RHEUM
Short film
KATEŘINA HRONÍKOVÁ (CZECH REPUBLIC)
Country(ies) of production: Slovakia
Cast: Taťjana Medvecká, Jiří Wohanka
Academy of Music and Performing Arts (FTF VSMU) (Slovakia)
Libuse and Jaromír, an elderly couple, spend their time in a vicious circle of routine activities and constant physical proximity that has made them emotionally distant. The promise of change comes in the form of a company called The Sun.
PLANURI DE VACANTA / SUMMER PLANNING
Short film
ALEXANDRU MIRONESCU (ROMANIA)
Country(ies) of production: Romania
Cast: Iulia Lumanare, Mihai Smarandache, Andrei Lupascu
UNATC I.L.CARAGIALE (Romania)
All Andrei wants is to leave for summer camp, together with his friends, once the school year is over. Meanwhile, his parents are caught up with their divorce.
PODUL DE PIATRÂ / PONT DE PEDRA
Short film
ARTUR-POL CAMPRUBÍ (SPAIN)
Country(ies) of production: pain
Cast: Angelica Maxim, Vasile Maxim
Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola – EQZE (Spain)
A street lamp marking the limit of a town in Aragon’s Eastern Strip lights up at nightfall. Angelica, a woman of Romanian origin living in the town, witnesses the birth of a foal at the stables where she works. The little creature’s struggle to free itself from the maternal placenta, its condition of ghostly and borderline existence, pierce her to the extent that she will be unable to shake off the image.
RONDINELLA / LITTLE SWALLOW
Short film
NIKITA MERLINI (SWITZERLAND)
Country(ies) of production: Switzerland
Cast: Elena Stoll, Patrizia Barbuiani, Yan Balistoy
ECAL / Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne (Switzerland)
After their house burns down, 18-year-old Sofia and her mother Carla have to live together in a small room at The Little Swallow Hotel. Sofia explores the building and meets new inspiring people. A thousand opportunities seem to open up for her. Carla, on the other hand, has to get used to the idea of her daughter leaving. In this closed-door environment, mother and daughter try to find a new balance in their relationship.
U ŠUMI / IN THE WOODS
Short film
SARA GRGURIĆ (CROATIA)
Country(ies) of production: Croatia
Cast: Lana Meniga, Josip Ledina
Academy of Dramatic Arts, Zagreb (Croatia)
Sasa and Filip are going to Gorski Kotar during the lockdown. Sasa finally has time to realize how she really feels.
YE XING REN MIN GONG YUAN / A NOCTURNAL ROAM
Short film
FENG YI (CHINA)
Country(ies) of production: China
Cast: Liu Jike, Feng Yi
China Film Art Research Center (China)
At night, the escort girl Muduo and the writer Mianshan stroll in the People’s Park. Mianshan tells of a novel he dedicated to his fiancée, which takes place after the end of the world, where a boy travels through an abandoned aquarium to rescue a dying mermaid. As the story progresses, the park seems to gradually become isolated from the world, and Mianshan searches for an exit back to reality, while the clues seem to be hidden in the experiences that Muduo shares with his fiancée.
YEARLINGS
Short film
MÉLANIE AKOKA (FRANCE)
Country(ies) of production: France
Cast: Augustine Szécheniy-Bensoussan, Rémy Laquittant,
NYU Tisch Grad Film (USA)
An awkward young girl, on the brink of adolescence but ignored by her mother, is left to navigate her first feelings of desire on her own when a local handyman and his horse come to fix a broken wall.
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