DocNomads films showcase at Innsbruck, Austria

The IFFI – International Film Festival Innsbruck in Austria presented a selection of seven short films directed by non-European students in DocNomads program, which were screened on the 28th of May in the festival’s thematic section Worldwide Visions. This special session was curated by Isabella Rinaldi and Cristina Hanes from the No Cut Collective formed by three DocNomads alumni.

The selection comprised the documentaries “Pacific” by Angie Obeid (Lebanon), “In the End of the World” by Abraham Escobedo Salas (Mexico), “Hello Sea” by Maria Grazia Goya (Ecuador), “Notes on a Colonial Film” by Hernán Barón Camacho (Colombia), “Labyrinth” by Oktay Namazov (Azerbaijan), “Histories of Wolves” by Agnes Meng (China), “0,2 MG of Gold” by Diego Quinderé de Carvalho (Brazil).

For decades, the history of cinema has been dominated by the Western gaze exploring the unknown and the other’ in far-away places from a privileged position of power. However, this dynamic has been subverted in recent years, and with this dense and heterogeneous selection we want to offer some examples of a counter-gaze. The short documentaries were produced during the DocNomads Master Course that takes place in Lisbon, Budapest and Brussels. The students come from all over the world and for two years they face not only the challenge of making films at a fast pace, but in foreign countries and in languages they don’t know. With these seven films, authors from outside Europe tell stories about “us” and their encounters with the continent. Their “notes on Europe” have a distinct approach to the themes of belonging, loss and identity and infuse the cinematic matter with an unexpected and personal perspective.

Isabella Rinaldi & Cristina Hanes (Curators)