FINALIST films of the 7th FICNOVA
The international jury, composed of nonviolence activists in different cities in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Spain and Mexico, has recognised 41 films from 20 countries in five categories as finalists for this year’s awards:
Educational centres section:
Primary – Secondary (4)
Higher education (4)
General Section:
Short films (17)
Medium-length films (6)
Feature Films (10)
We recognise in all these works not only the denunciation of different forms of violence and discrimination, but also that each of them shows different ways out or ways of overcoming or positively transferring these situations, opening the future in a non-violent direction.
EDUCATIONAL CENTRES: PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
¿Who are the “weirdos”?
Director – Hugo Sánchez (11 years old)
3min. Spain. 2023
Julia suffers bullying and confesses it to Ana, her best friend, who tries to help her, but it’s not that easy. Who will be able to put an end to her situation?
Clara
Dir: Turma 4ºB EB1Pe Ladeira/CENA
3 min. Portugal. 2022
Clara was a cheerful and sweet child. At her school, she was teased all the time by a group of students, but she was not an unhappy child!
Friends
Dir. Diana Gimeno (IES Ramón Arcas. Murcia)
5 min. Spain. 2022
You never know where you will find a true friend.
They saw you
Vittorio Caratozzolo Caratozzolo (Clase 1ºA – 21-22. Instituto Comprensivo Trento 5)
4 min. Italy. 2022
They know who you are: you don’t know who they are. Be careful about sharing your details with strangers.
EDUCATIONAL CENTRES: HIGHER EDUCATION
Ties
Dir: Mario García Viché (En 2022 I finished my studies in the Master’s Degree in Animation at the UPV).
6 min. Spain. 2022.
In a world where relationships of love and attraction are made visible through a magical tie that binds people together, two 13-year-olds, Maya and Fen, create their connection.
However, after some teenagers tease them, Maya runs away and her bond with Fen is broken. Maya will have to reflect on her feelings and decide if she is willing to lose her relationship with Fen.
The unveiled woman
3 min. ItalY. 2022
Dir: Gaia Pulliero (University of Padua)
During an interview, a young woman tells her interlocutor about the meanings she attributes to the concept of “freedom”. But what at first appear to be simple statements turn out to be a desperate cry for help by the end of the film.
Blacks’ afernoon tea
20 min. Colombia. 2022
Andrés Felipe Villarreal Valencia (Corporación Universitaria UNITEC)
Kevin, María del Mar and Santiago, 3 young Afro-descendants living in the city of Bogota meet to talk about their relationship with the city.
Give it back
Ruchama Ehrenhalt (Ma’aleh Film and Television School of Jerusalem)
14 min. Israel. 2019
Olivia has just moved to Israel from New York. During her first day of sixth grade, she tries to survive, making her way through the new country she has just arrived in, her new school and her new classmates, not knowing where she will end up at the end of the day.
SECCIÓN GENERAL: CORTOMETRAJES
Where will they go
Egoi Suso Rius
29 min. Spain – Senegal
The idea for this documentary arose during the recording of the video clip “Where They will go”, the first single from the upcoming album “Under the Skin” by the Green Valley Group.
Two people who left their country risking their lives and leaving their families to receive training, who arrived at port, adapted despite the difficulties and have demonstrated their human qualities. Two impeccable stories of personal improvement that impressed us so much that we decided to embark on the adventure of producing this documentary”.
The Atrato is Life
Rodrigo Rogelis
19 min. Colombia. 2020
“El Atrato es la vida” is a short documentary that tells the story of how the armed conflict impacted the Atrato River and how the Atrato people, faced with a destructive bloc of armed actors and extractive economies, resisted in order to preserve their way of life. Produced by the Foro Interétnico Solidaridad Chocó y Siembra, the documentary shows how the logic of war has mutated over time, moving from periods of intense disputes to periods of economic pragmatism, leaving enormous socio-environmental impacts in its wake. All of this led to the erosion of the ethnic communities’ own systems of territorial administration, altering their economic, productive, cultural and governmental logics.
Hahatay. Gandiol Smiles
Irene Segalés Aguilar
28 min. Spain – Senegal
“Hahatay, Sonrisas de Gandiol” is a non-profit association that works in development cooperation between Senegal and Spain.
From Hahatay they work every day to develop educational, health and cultural spaces that provide the necessary opportunities for everyone in Gandiol to have the ability to make decisions about their lives. Hahatay provides the tools to build the future of the community with their own resources.
In September 2019 I visited the NGO and this report comes out of that experience where it is the community members who tell us about the goals and achievements of a project that is as essential as it is exciting.
The truth in the blood
Magdalena Cernadas
20 min. Argentina
Carried within the framework of the commemoration of 24 March, National Day of Memory for Truth and Justice, it narrates the heroic journey and the scientific revolution carried out and promoted by the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo that resulted in the discovery of the grandparents’ index – a factor from which the daughters and sons of those who disappeared during the last civil-military dictatorship are identified – and in the creation of the National Bank of Genetic Data as the first institution in the world to carry out this specific type of filiation analysis.
Out of the abyss
HOW A YOUNG METALHEAD DODGED VIOLENCE AND CREATED A MODEL FOR THE COMMUNITY
Jordi Ruíz Cirera
13 min. Honduras. 2023
When he was in his early twenties, Santiago Ávila had only one thing on his mind: music. As the lead singer of ‘Fuera del Abismo’, a heavy metal band, his life revolved around music, to such an extent that he ignored the harsh reality of his hometown, Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, where the dominance of armed gangs has spread and where refusing their offers can be lethal.
Ezekiel Baraja
Juan Fernández Gebauer
6 min. Argentina. 2021
Después de un robo a mano armada, Ezequiel fue arrestado y enviado a prisión. Durante su encarcelamiento, descubrió una oportunidad que nunca apareció en la vida antes cuando era libre. Esta es su historia.
The fraternal summit– Chérif
Stanislas Giroux
11 min. France. 2023
A suburban train pierces the heat. On the opposite platform, Chérif stands still and silent, as if trying to be invisible. Undocumented migrants would prefer to remain discreet. But in Chamonix, a black-skinned mountaineer does not go unnoticed. Chosen by the association 82 4000 Solidaires to guide a group of people in precarious situations to discover mountaineering, up there, crampons on his feet and rope in his hand, he is another man. Towards the summit, he hopes to trace a path of hope and equality for all.
This portrait is part of a series entitled ‘Altitudes’ that explores the many facets of the relationship between man and mountain across the world and cultures.
Evas and Marías
Nadir Cárdenas
20 min. Austria – México. 2023
The members of the “Coordination of Women of the Diocese of San Cristobal” (CODIMUJ) in Chiapas, Mexico, are women who bring the Word of God to rural and indigenous communities. In an extremely patriarchal society, these women have to fight for their most basic rights, but even within the Church there is prejudice against these activists working for equality. Thirty years after its founding, the women of CODIMUJ remain determined to change the church from within until radical equality between men and women is achieved, with all the consequences that this entails.
Time for insurrection
Gabriel Fernández-Gil
11min. Spain. 2023
In a modern take on Miguel de Unamuno’s 1930s novel “Saint Martin Good, Martyr”, where a priest loses faith in God, Times of Insurrection tells the story of the CEO of a global corporation who begins to lose faith in capitalism after mysterious external pressure forces him to change his company forever.
From trash to treasure
Iara Lee
24min. USA. 2020
From erosion to overgrazing and enduring poverty, the people of Lesotho, a highland country surrounded by South Africa, face a variety of difficult challenges. However, the country’s grassroots communities also display enormous ingenuity and creativity. In particular, a large number of artists have mastered a talent for resurrection, developing the ability to creatively turn negatives into positives.
Catatumbo, our battle is for survival
Darinson Amaya
19 min. Colombia. 2023
The Catatumbo region is told through the stories and anecdotes of those who live there. Three life stories that tell us how their life plan has been through community organisation, and their contribution to the construction of a dignified life.
The Last Coffee
Kevin Eisenberg
10min. Argentina. 2023
Leandro, a novice and insecure waiter, discouraged by his own path, is about to redefine the value of life. One afternoon in the bad café where death works, Leandro attends to a depressed customer who reveals to him that that very night he is going to commit suicide and wants to say goodbye to life with a last latte. The waiter, on the verge of collapse, realises that he has in his hands the chance to make this man come to his senses. To do so, he has to deal with his worst enemies: the old-fashioned, hostile coffee machine, but also his own confidence. Will Leandro be able to reconcile the man with life, thanks to a saving coffee? When the earth doesn’t give you any more surprises, you can find them in the sky.
Green Autumn
Sunya Itzia Madrigal Álvarez Ugena
30 min. México. 2023
The recognition of the struggle of Michoacán women over the last decades for their sexual and reproductive rights is portrayed and told by the women themselves, Michoacán activists from different generations with the same objective: to achieve the recognition of the right that every woman has to decide freely about her body.
Sacrifice zone
Gastón Bejas
24min. Argentina. 2023
In Argentina, despite the importance of agricultural activity and the fact that it is a leading country in the use of pesticides, there are no official epidemiological surveys on their impact on populations. Nor are regulations on their presence in drinking water updated. There are no official data on the quantities used or uniform provisions for spraying distances. On the contrary, the populations are obliged to provide proof of the causal link between their health damage and exposure to these substances, which is called the reversal of the burden of proof. This leads to every community going down the same long and costly legal path.
We are The Earth – Somos la Tierra
Zoé Rose
5 min. France. 2023
In a world crushed by pollution, conflict, ecological anxiety, alienation of the individual and fear of the future, a human being lies down, desperate and surrounded by shadows. However, the “anger” and refusal of the disaster to come will ignite in him – and in all of us – a flame of life, carrying the hope of a better tomorrow.
My neighbour Yuan
Alfredo Andreu Ríos
15min. Spain. 2023
Lucia is an 8-year-old girl who misses her grandfather who is in hospital. According to her father, it’s because of the Chinese. But with the arrival of a boy of the same age in the neighbourhood, new worlds collide in Lucia’s life.
Two Hearts
Cristina Herrero Laborda
18min. Spain. 2022
Mari is an intersex person in permanent transit who embodies two perspectives. A fighter and courageous, her life has been a constant battle in an almost uninhabited rural area. From sincerity, she narrates her day to day life, her desires, her illusions and anxiety in an attempt to pave the way for those who come after her.
GENERAL SECTION: MEDIUM-LENGTH FILMS
Encontres d’exili ii
Jorge Ramos Jaume Dura
34min. Spain. 2021
Econtres D’Exili II is a documentary to build bridges between our past as a society that suffered war, bombings, exile, dictatorship and repression; and the stories of refugees and immigrants arriving today.
State homophobia
Richard Zubelzu
51min. Spain. 2023
In this documentary we give voice to the Guinean LGTBI activists Angel and Gonzalo, who give testimony of the persecution suffered by women and LGTBI people in their country and the difficulty of “coming out of the wardrobe” as it is a taboo within the families.
A violation of human rights by the country’s current regime, with police abuse, torture, discrimination, sexual violence, forced pregnancies, child sexual exploitation of minors, a high mortality rate of transsexual people due to causes that the state cannot solve, family and social repudiation, or the terrible text of a draft bill in progress, aimed at overthrowing the legal personality of homosexual people.
Returnees
Pieter De Vos
35min. Belgium. 2021
In 1993, thousands of Guatemalan refugees returned from Mexico. They fled armed conflict and genocide against the indigenous Mayan population. Today, ‘Los Regresados’ are defending their agricultural land and territory in the jungle of Alta Verapaz against the construction of a hydroelectric dam. They draw on their past experiences to mobilise new generations.
Los Retornados’ is a film by Tessa Boeykens and Pieter De Vos, in collaboration with the Copal AA La Esperanza community.
No one is far away
José Antonio Vitoria
45min. Spain. 2023
Poverty or homelessness is not a characteristic of anyone, but a situation that can be brought about by many factors. There are many new forms of poverty, ranging from university students to people who have jobs but do not earn enough to afford housing or parents who suddenly find themselves unemployed. No one is safe from poverty or homelessness. All it takes is a series of adverse circumstances.
The documentary Nadie está lejos (No One is Far Away) is the experience of a group of people living in poverty, homelessness or economic vulnerability and, in particular, users of the PARIS 365 soup kitchen in Iruña, who participate with the company Ados Teatroa in the creative process of the show Aporofobia STOP.
Who Am I
Pablo A. Zareceansky Montserrat
31min. Spain. 2023
Judith is not called Judith. She changed her name for the better by fitting in with our country, but that is not the hardest thing she has done since she had to leave Nigeria when she was only 10 years old. Like her, Marouane and Youssef had to leave Morocco and everything they knew to escape extreme poverty when they were still minors.
Until that journey, the stories of the three young people had little in common. When they arrived in Spain, however, they found themselves part of the same group: Unaccompanied Foreign Minors (MENA).
El Qui soc explores the reality behind an acronym that the media has turned into a label linked to criminal acts, marginalisation and criminality.
Unite for Bissau
Iara Lee
50 min. USA. 2023
In the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau, this thought-provoking film takes you on a journey that follows courageous local women who challenge patriarchy by building institutions that promote self-sufficiency through agro-ecology. They also challenge social norms by opposing female genital mutilation and rejecting forced marriage. Overtaking the legacy of Amilcar Cabral, the Bissau-Guinean independence leader who placed women’s rights at the centre of the liberation struggle, women of a rising generation are taking back their power.
GENERAL SECTION: FEATURE FILMS
Cirerers. Images of a construction
Santiago González Pla, Valeria Ormaechea Otalora
92min. Spain. 2023
The process of a cooperative housing community in Barcelona, the construction of a building and also of a community. A struggle for decent housing against urban extractivism and for human rights linked to habitat.
In 2016, Barcelona City Council allocated plots of land for cooperative housing projects. One of these plots is awarded in the transfer of use to Sostre Civic, 27 subsidised housing units in the Roquetes neighbourhood. The Cirerers driving group was constituted in September 2017. The documentary is the record of the experience.
Inclusive education. To want it is to create it
Cecilia Barriga
83min. Spain. 2023
Building inclusive societies requires revising school systems, in which part of the student body does not fit in, is mistreated and segregated, while the rest learn to see discrimination as something correct and desirable.
Based on the story of Rubén Calleja, who was expelled from his primary school and forced to attend a special education centre, the documentary weaves together lives and struggles. After years of legal battle, Rubén obtains the backing of the UN against the Spanish state. But there are other gains to be made in transforming discriminatory school cultures, policies and practices. Inclusive education is a personal and collective task that enables the participation of all people in the world.
Until the Sun Goes Out
Jonas Brander
90min. Colombia. 2023
“Hasta que se apagague el sol” invites us into the stories of those who have defied the clutches of violence by demonstrating that the human spirit can prevail, leaving a legacy of hope in the midst of the deepest darkness. The stories unfold in the simultaneity of the opposite: life born out of death, and death as a result of devotion to death.
o result of devotion to peace and justice. It is the story of Nobel Peace Prize nominee Luz Marina, a mother fighting for justice in the extrajudicial execution of her son, and that of Albeiro, an indigenous leader from south-western Colombia. The ancestral indigenous saying “Until the sun goes out” is reflected in the uncompromising struggle of both leaders for a world where life prevails over death, equality over inequality, and the voice of the people over imposed silence. But their stories also reflect a condition of humanity, in which the beauty of life and resistance collapse into death and destruction.
Mankewenüy / Friend of the Condor
María Manzanares
63min. Argentina. 2022
On discovering the existence of a lonko (chief) called Mankewenüy (friend of the condor) who lived on the banks of the Nahuel Huapi in 1790, Anahí decides to make a journey through the Andes and retrace the paths taken by her ancestors. As a ñampulkafe and ülkantufe (traveller and singer) Anahí goes in search of sounds and stories that allow her to create songs that contain the newen of the manke (natural force of the condor).
During this journey she meets poets, singers, instrument makers, machis (spiritual leaders); to let us hear in them volcanoes that speak, mountains that sound and rivers that sing.
Mare Mediterraneum
María Chaquéss Serrano
65min. Spain-Senegal. 2022
Through a choral documentary, several sub-Saharan migrants recall the odyssey of a journey full of dangers, where women are forced to pay not only with money, but also with their bodies. On the other hand, in Senegal, the mothers and families of migrants are still hoping for news of their loved ones. Meanwhile, on one side of the Mediterranean as on the other, initiatives are emerging that promote encounters between diverse people and seek to create well-being for the human community.
The Dawsonians
Roberto Riveros Jiménez
63min. Chile. 2022
During the first days after the 1973 coup d’état, the political leadership of the Popular Unity government was arrested and taken to Dawson Island, the Magallanes region, at the southern tip of Chile and the mainland. The wives of the then political prisoners began a relentless effort to find out the whereabouts of their husbands and then try to return them alive. In these circumstances, they spontaneously got together and organised themselves into what they called the “Dawsonianas” group.
Tenderness the call of the Ñuke Mapu
Ricardo Von Mühlenbrock
120min. Chile. 2023
The story begins with volunteer work carried out in the winter of 1999 in the Mapuche community Choin Lafkenche in the southern part of Chile. Here we met Julio Huentekura Llancaleo, a young Mapuche from Santiago de Chile, and together we travelled through different communities of Malleko recording the voices of the moment. After 20 years we returned to Chile after the Social Outbreak and the COVID 19 pandemic to learn more about Julio who was treacherously murdered in a capital city prison. We travelled through the Wallmapu meeting and sharing with new Mapuche communities their struggle and their current demands in the process of territorial recovery.
Sarura. The future is an unknown place
Nicola Zambelli
80 min. Italiy- Palestine. 2021
At the gates of the Negev desert, a group of young Palestinians fight against the Israeli military occupation. “Youth of Sumud – the youth of steadfast perseverance – seek to return to their people the land that was taken away from their families by restructuring the ancient cave village of Sarura.
They meet aggression with non-violent action, fending off rifles with their video cameras; they oppose desolation and death with hope and life.
Ten years after their first documentary about the non-violent struggle in the West Bank, the filmmakers return to the village of At-Tuwani and, using archival footage from over 15 years, tell how the children have grown up.
A refuge in the stars
Felipe Carrelli, Demetrio Rodrigues
69min. Brasil. 2023
The Sahara desert occupies one third of the African continent and is one of the most inhospitable regions on the planet. The region is dry enough to mummify corpses and kill bacteria. For centuries, the Saharawis lived in these extreme desert conditions.
A journey to ourselves
Luis Cintora
65min. Spain. 2021
Spanish comedian Pepe Viyuela guides us on a journey where past and present merge as one: a time and circumstances shared by the victims of each armed conflict.
Un viaje hacia nosotros narrates a journey that begins with the family memory of actor Pepe Viyuela, as he undertakes an investigation following the trail of his grandfather Gervasio, a member of the Republican army during the Spanish Civil War. A journey that takes him back to his past, and a new perspective from which to re-evaluate his relationship with the present.