
SEPT 21-22 AT ACADEMIC HALL
ottawa
film
festival
SCREENING 1
September 21, 2024
12pm EDT
Academic Hall, 135 Séraphin-Marion Private, Ottawa, ON, K1N 1A2
1
Title: I Promise You Paradise
Country: Egypt
Director: Morad Mostafa
Runtime: 25:00
Synopsis: Following a violent incident; Eissa a 17 years old African migrant in Egypt is in a quest against time to save his loved ones whatever it takes.
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Title: BUS
Country: Canada
Director: Julia Hogg
Runtime: 10:49
Synopsis: Jackie, an anxious people-pleaser, attempts to tell her eager date that she's not interested, but after witnessing him getting hit by a bus, her guilt takes over and now she's stuck to take care of him.
Title: As Easy As Closing Your Eyes
Country: United States
Director: Parker Croft
Runtime: 21:43
Synopsis: The story of a grieving mother who battles her addiction to a black-market drug that gives her life-like dreams about the son she lost.
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Title: Un(Sub)titled
Country: Canada
Director: Andrew Brannen
Runtime: 6:20
Synopsis: An irate Frenchman gets his revenge when his subtitles betray him.

Title: Bottles
Country: Morocco
Director: Yassine EL Idrissi
Runtime: 18:00
Synopsis: Said, a 13 year old boy lives in the old Medina of Rabat. In the summer he has a side job, collecting empty beer bottles and selling them to a shop. With the money he wants to buy food for a dog he is hiding. One time his closest friend tells him that it is ‘haram’ to do that.
Screening 2
September 21, 2024
2:20pm EDT
Academic Hall, 135 Séraphin-Marion Private, Ottawa, ON, K1N 1A2
2
Title: Kipkemboi
Country: Canada
Director: Charles Uwagbai
Runtime: 1:25:00
Synopsis: The story of a teenaged African math genius who brings the world financial markets to its knees.
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Screening 3
September 21, 2024
4:15pm EDT
Academic Hall, 135 Séraphin-Marion Private, Ottawa, ON, K1N 1A2
3
Title: Snack Sakura
Country: United States
Directors: Jia Li, Josua Frank
Runtime: 24:18
Synopsis: Canadian photographer Greg Girard journeys from one bar to another, looking for the Japan he once knew, reflecting on memory, life between cultures, and what it means to make a picture.
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Title: Watch What You Have
Country: Canada
Director: Hussain Dawwas
Runtime: 5:04
Synopsis: Ali's pawnshop visit for a loan turns ominous, unveiling a web of debt, confrontation, and uncertainty.

Title: Torn
Country: Denmark
Director: Jahfar Muataz
Runtime: 28:06
Synopsis: A young child, Malik (14), feels like a foreigner in Sweden after their family has fled there from Iraq. In Sweden, Malik gets bullied in school and he gets into fights and gets misunderstood by his principal.
Title: Motherless Child
Country: Belgium
Director: Sophie Maréchal
Runtime: 19:26
Synopsis: Barbara, 30 years old single female, is the typical exemple of a modern woman, a "working girl", living in a fast lane. Barbara is completly hooked on her smartphone, but her routine is about to change when a mysterious balloon seemingly sent from the sky, floats into her life.
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Screening 4
September 21, 2024
6:30pm EDT
Academic Hall, 135 Séraphin-Marion Private, Ottawa, ON, K1N 1A2
4

Title: Wife Carrying
Country: France
Directors: Mathias Rifkiss, Colas Rifkiss
Runtime: 24:40
Synopsis: In the village, they say that Denis and Céline have a little
problem with their relationship. His manhood is affected and Denis decides to enter a wife-carrying race in the hope of regaining esteem and respect.
Title: Tako Tsubo
Country: Germany
Directors: Fanny Sorgo, Eva Pedroza
Runtime: 6:04
Synopsis: Mr. Ham decides to have his heart removed in order to be relieved of his complicated feelings. The doctor assures him that this is no problem at all in this day and age. Thoughtfully inclined, however, Ham keeps his heart for a while after the removal, perhaps to understand it better after all.
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Title: Makan
Country: France
Director: Ghanwa Rana
Runtime: 11:00
Synopsis: This is the story of many of us. Those who have left their country, their families, their languages. For a new, perhaps better life. It is the story of my mother, who left everything to join her husband in France. To (re)build a family life, without knowing what awaited her: loneliness, a feeling of strangeness and the difficulty of expressing herself in a language she does not speak. I, Ghanwa, her daughter, slipped into my mother's skin to tell her story.

Title: I Just Can't
Country: Canada
Director: Lisa Rideout
Runtime: 13:58
Synopsis: Aaron, a struggling actor, is deeply committed to his craft. However, when he's asked to play a patient at the nearby hospital, his “big moment” is threatened by the person he least expects; himself.
Title: A Crab in the Pool
Country: Canada
Directors: Alexandra Myotte, Jean-Sébastien Hamel
Runtime: 11:11
Synopsis: In a run-down neighborhood, Zoe and her little brother Theo are left to fend for themselves. A young adolescent, Zoe is a ball of anger haunted by an intimate terror. Theo, still a child, flees reality into a fantastical world. During a scorching summer day, the two children will have to burst the abscess of their relationship so as not to lose each other.
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Title: Heap
Country: Canada
Director: Kyle Marchen
Runtime: 12:13
Synopsis: Caught in a lie, Isha is forced to live a double life after discovering a “utopian” society in the building next door to her dilapidated apartment.
Title: The Masterpiece
Country: Spain
Director: Alex Lora Cercos
Runtime: 20:00
Synopsis: Leo and Diana, a rich couple, bring a broken TV to a recycle point. They meet Salif and his son, two scrap dealers. Diana asks them to come to their house to get more objects. Once there, Leo looks at them collecting objects with mistrust, until they see the scrap dealers have an expensive painting.
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Screening 5
September 21, 2024
8:45pm EDT
Academic Hall, 135 Séraphin-Marion Private, Ottawa, ON, K1N 1A2
5
Title: Invincible
Country: Canada
Director: Vincent René-Lortie
Runtime: 29:43
Synopsis: July 5, 2008. Marc, a 14 year old boy, plunges into the waters of the Rivière-des-Prairies while driving a stolen car. Invincible traces the 48 hours leading up to this incident as Marc confronts his desperate need for freedom.
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Screening 6
September 22, 2024
12pm EDT
Academic Hall, 135 Séraphin-Marion Private, Ottawa, ON, K1N 1A2
6

Title: HAV (The Sea)
Country: Denmark
Director: Claes Cem Constantine
Runtime: 26:10
Synopsis: "A Danish fisherman battles to keep his boat—and his life—afloat."

Title: Palestine Islands
Country: Palestine, State of
Directors: Nour Ben Salem, Julien Menanteau
Runtime: 22:29
Synopsis: Maha, 12, is part of the last generation of Palestinian refugees from the Balata camp. Following a faintness from her blind grandfather, she imagines a crazy project: to make him believe that the wall of separation has fallen and that a return to his native land is possible. With the help of her friends from the camp, the young girl imagines a funny trip for him...

Title: Monochrome
Country: France
Director: Cédric Prévost
Runtime: 14:05
Synopsis: After months of a long-distance relationship via a dating site, Thomas asks Marie, who lives on the other side of the country, to finally meet in person. But before that, she will make a shocking revelation for the young

Title: Même pas mal
Country: France
Director: Sarah Stern
Runtime: 18:27
Synopsis: Mila, who gave birth a week ago, is preparing with her partner Joaquim for a fateful moment : today is their son's circumcision. Although she had never questioned the practice, the arrival of her baby and the imminence of the ceremony shatters her certainties.
Title: Pasture Prime
Country: United States
Director: Diffan Sina Norman
Runtime: 9:55
Synopsis: A widow falls for a younger man she meets at the Cowboy Church.
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Screening 7
September 22, 2024
2:15pm EDT
Academic Hall, 135 Séraphin-Marion Private, Ottawa, ON, K1N 1A2
7
Title: Gaby's Hills
Country: Canada
Director: Zoé Pelchat
Runtime: 20:38
Synopsis: Thirteen-year-old Gaby arrives in the Magdalen Islands to spend the summer with her father, as she does every year. She is thrilled to find the sea she loves so much, the childhood friends, the winding hills on the horizon, and the warm joy of her dad's home. But this time something is different: she hit puberty, and her life will never be the same.
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Title: L'âge acrobatique
Country: France
Director: Mathieu Barbet
Runtime: 15:00
Synopsis: Lucas, thirteen, takes part in an acrobatic rock workshop for the first time. In the gymnasium, bodies fly away, the
risk of falling is permanent and the heart races. A big jump into adolescence.
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Title: Pisko the Crab Child is in Love
Country: Japan
Director: Makoto Nagahisa
Runtime: 17:36
Synopsis: Pisko's father is a crab while her mother is human. Pisko falls in love with her teacher, but gets her heart broken when he leaves her because she is a crab child. Her friend Kubokayo encourages Pisko to go on a trip, where she then confesses her feelings. This is a love story about Pisko.
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Title: Virga
Country: Canada
Director: Jean-François Leblanc
Runtime: 19:30
Synopsis: Pascal suspects the worst when he reads the post of Jérémy, a former classmate. He immediately alerts the police, convinced that Jérémy is on the verge of attacking his ex-colleagues. Feeling that the police won’t do anything, Pascal decides to go help the young man himself.
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Title: Heat Spell
Country: Canada
Director: Marie-Pier Dupuis
Runtime: 13:49
Synopsis: As the afternoon heat sets in, Maxime feels the weight of each passing moment.
Title: The Steak
Country: Iran, Islamic Republic of
Director: Kiarash Dadgar
Runtime: 8:13
Synopsis: A birthday party preparation is thrown into chaos by an awful event.
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Screening 8
September 22, 2024
4:30pm EDT
Academic Hall, 135 Séraphin-Marion Private, Ottawa, ON, K1N 1A2
8
Title: Unicorns
Country: Spain
Director: Alex Lora Cercos
Runtime: 01:34:00
Synopsis: Isa is a Feminist and polyamorous posh girl, she passionately defends her life. When Guillem proposes to be a monogamous couple, Isa is not sure if he wants to change her life and, given her lack of decision, Guillem decides to break the relationship. Living in a world of appearances and comforts, her contradictions come to light and her universe is crumbling at the blow of likes and moral judgments in this web that social networks have become.
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Screening 9
September 22, 2024
7pm EDT
Academic Hall, 135 Séraphin-Marion Private, Ottawa, ON, K1N 1A2
9

Title: SANTA MARIA 京子
Country: France
Directors: Guil Sela, Félix Loizillon
Runtime: 26:45
Synopsis: "In the village of Santa Maria Poggio, Corsica, far from their japanese homeland, Kyoko and Yutaro, two lovers, are hitting
a rough patch in their relationship. They decide to split for the day."

Title: Girlfish
Country: Turkey
Director: Nezam Haghiabi
Runtime: 9:09
Synopsis: A girl in Iran is disgraced for having a relationship with a boy and the punishment is death. There is a legend in the Zagros region in Iran that disgraced girls flee to the depths of the sea to escape the death penalty.

Title: Just the two of us
Country: France
Director: Clara Lemaire Anspach
Runtime: 19:57
Synopsis: Alma knows it. If her mother persists in not taking the new treatment offered to her, she will die. She therefore has only one idea in mind: to make her change her mind as they both drive towards the south of France.
Once last mother-daughter journey in which Alma will have to find the strength to let her mother go...
Title: Sentimental Stories
Country: Germany
Director: Xandra Popescu
Runtime: 15:48
Synopsis: An almost deserted diner in the middle of the port. The owner, Violeta, dreams of a life that could have been different. She employs her niece, Maria, a radical passivist who steers away from any drive or ambition. Between chores and cigarette breaks they fantasise about the future. As the day unfolds they are the witnesses of one love story dying out while another is trying to be born.
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Title: Confessions
Country: United States
Director: Stephanie Kaznocha
Runtime: 11:07
Synopsis: After the death of a friend, two nuns in their golden years contemplate what their future holds. One confession leads to another and before they know it, they're embarking on an adventure.
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Title: Jester's Flamin Hot Mac'N Cheese
Country: Canada
Director: Victor Saucier-Magistry
Runtime: 13:53
Synopsis: Léandre, a lazy young adult without much ambition decides one night to break the monotony of its daily life to help Greg, the neighbourhood pusher to... do something, he doesn't quite remember. This decision will plunge him amidst bloody settling of scores which he will desperately try to escape from, motivated by his hatred of Jester's Flamin Hot Mac n Cheese!