Fig Tree

Toronto IFF
2018
Audentia Award
TIFF 2018

Fig Tree

A Film by Aäläm-Wärqe Davidian

2018 - France/Ethiopia/Germany/Israel - Drama - 2.39 - 93 min.

with Betalehem Asmamawe & Yohanes Muse

Language: Amharic
Produced by Saar Yogev , Naomi Levari , Felix Eisele & Sandrine Brauer

The sixteen years old Jewish Mina, is trying to navigate between a surreal routine dictated by the civil war in Ethiopia and her last days of youth with her Christian boyfriend Eli. When she discovers that her family is planning to immigrate to Israel and escape the war, she weaves an alternate plan in order to save Eli. But in times of war, plans tend to go wrong. Davidian’s coming of age film debut film is based on her childhood memories of a civil-war-torn Ethiopia.

Toronto IFF
2018
Audentia Award
TIFF 2018

More Films

Dancing Dreams

A film by Anne Linsel

2009 - Germany - Documentary - 1.85 DCP - 89 min.

The dance performance „Kontakthof“ bears the unmistakable signature of Pina Bausch: it deals with forms of human contact, the encounters between the sexes, and the search for love and tenderness with all the attendant anxieties, yearnings and doubts. It is about feelings, which pose a big challenge, particularly for young people. For almost a year teenagers from over eleven schools in Wuppertal went on an emotional journey. Every Saturday, 40 students, aged between 14 to 18 years, rehearsed under the direction of the Bausch-dancers Jo-Ann Endicott and Bénédicte Billiet and under the intense supervision of Pina Bausch herself. The film „Dancing Dreams“ by Anne Linsel and Rainer Hoffmann accompanies the rehearsal process culminating in the opening night. We watch the teenagers making their first, still clumsy attempts to transform the subjects of the dance performance into motion and choreography and to develop an own, individual body expression. They discover themselves in a process, which leads great personal growth. Gentle and shy but also aggressive contacts condensate to individual experiences that many of the teenagers encounter for the first time on stage. Pina Bausch has always encouraged the young dancers „to be themselves.“ It is behind their own movements, fears, feelings and desires that their personal „Dancing Dreams“ become visible. At the end each of them has not only grown up, but above all has become more self-confident, independent and more sceptical facing prejudices. Employing an unusual adjacency, the film introduces the young protagonists in sensitive ways, it culminates in drawing a portrait of an entire generation. Pina Bausch died on June 30th, 2009. „Dancing Dreams – teenagers perform „Kontakthof“ by Pina Bausch“ shows the last motion pictures and the last interview with the world-famous dancer and choreographer.

Macondo

A film by Sudabeh Mortezai

2014 - Austria - Drama - DCP - 1.85 - 98 min.

Ramasan, an 11-year-old boy from Chechnya, grows up in Macondo, a refugee settlement on the outskirts of Vienna. Living alone with his mother and two little sisters, Ramasan takes over the role of the father assuming the responsibility for his small family.

The Land of the Enlightened

A film by Pieter-Jan De Pue

2016 - Belgium - Documentary - 1.85 - 87 min.

In the wild Afghan mountains, a gang of Kuchi kids dig out anti-personal mines to collect the explosives,
recycle weapons and keep tight control on the caravans smuggling opium . When they are not waging their own mini-wars in the daily madness of life in Afghanistan, the children are fleeing away in their personal fantasies and dreams, while the American soldiers are planning their retreat...