March 2024 – POLITICAL Film Festival

Showcase of the best POLITICAL FILMS in the world today.

Over 2500 films were submitted from around the world today. Here are the 35 award winning films for 2024.

Audience Award Winners:
Best 1 Minute Film: HOW TO LOSE A FAMILY in 60 SECONDS
Best Animation: DREAM FROM BEYOND
Best Art House Film: MANIFESTATION
Best Artist Film: EARTH RIOT
Best Black & White Film: URBAN NOISE
Best Cinematography: ROSEWOOD
Best Direction: THE GREAT EQUALIZER
Best Drama Film: DISMISSAL TIME
Best Editing: ROGER CASEMENT – A BIOGRAPHY
Best Environmental Film: CLIMATE FACTS
Best Experimental Film: BICYCLE
Best Family Film: WEDNESDAY
Best Fantasy Film: THE COMMON GOOD
Best Feature Film: INNOVATION RACE
Best Hand Drawn Animation: FAR AWAY LANDS
Best Horror Film: STRANGERS
Best Human Interest Film: THE AMAZING JOURNEY OF JACOB A. RIIS
Best Inspirational Film: OUTCRY?
Best Kids Film: READ MY BODY
Best LGBTQ+ Film: EMERALD CITY
Best Long Form Documentary: CUBA, LIBRE?
Best Mystery Film: SALVAR
Best Performances: PROTHASIDDHO (The Story of a Cutomary Society)
Best Quest Film: TRADITION
Best Relationship Film: ARAPUCA / BIRD TRAP
Best Romance Film: PURGATORY
Best Satire Film: DEGRADATION
Best Sci-Fi Film: COMPRESSION
Best Short Form Documentary: KOFI’S DREAM
Best Social Film: TIME OF INSURRECTION
Best Society Film: INTERVIEW
Best Sound & Music: MISSION SPLENDID CRADLE
Best Spoken Word Film: MONEY IS AN INNOCENT AS THE GUN
Best Story: SIBERIADE
Best Student Film: INADEQUATE

KOFI’S DREAM, 5min., Italy
Directed by Francesca Stangoni
The film talks about the hopeful journey of an African refugee from Chad, who goes to Europe passing through the African desert and the Libyan coasts, in order to reach Europe and realize his dream.

https://www.instagram.com/frankyestan/


WEDNESDAY, 5min., Hungary
Directed by Botond Aszalós
When a Jewish woman (30) makes her son (5) pee on the wharf of Danube river in the night of mid-fourties Budapest, we don’t know yet that this is their last moment together.

http://newbornshortfilmagency.com/
https://www.facebook.com/NewBornShortFilmAgency
https://twitter.com/NewBornSFA
https://www.instagram.com/newbornshortfilmagency/


DREAM FROM BEYOND, 4min., Albania
Directed by Armand Bora, Bertrand Shijaku
THE CITY NEEDS TO SLEEP BUT THE ACOUSTIC POLLUTION DOES NOT ALLOW IT


MISSION SPLENDID CRADLE, 4min,. Brazil
Directed by Joel Caetano
In the future the government is totalitarian. Our leader is an immortal head in a cyber preserving jar.

https://www.facebook.com/joel.caetano.52
https://twitter.com/joelcaetano


THE AMAZING JOURNEY OF JACOB A. RIIS, 3min., Denmark
Directed by Marcus Mandal
A very short film about the legendary Danish-American Jacob A. Riis who was one of the 19th century’s most innovative journalists and the father of modern documentary photography.

Home


CLIMATE FACTS, 2min., Germany
Directed by Marcus Grysczok
A short claymation info film about the climate crisis and collaboration between climate researcher Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf – Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and media artist Marcus Grysczok

https://linktr.ee/marcusgrysczok
https://www.facebook.com/Hypertrashwonderland/
https://www.instagram.com/hypertrashwonderland/


BICYCLE, 2min., Afghanistan
Directed by Zainab Entezar

https://facebook.com/Oscarentezar
https://www.instagram.com/ZainabEntezar


DEGRADATION, 2min., Portugal
Directed by Carlos Trindade
This (experimental) animated film was started in 2015, and after a long hiatus due to numerous circumstances, it was only finished in 2022. It was started in reaction to the difficult period in which Portugal was subjected to an international financial assistance program, with the “Troika” (2011-2014) – the name given to the team composed of the International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European Commission – during which there was a major general degradation of the lives of the Portuguese; a period in which Pedro Passo Coelho was Prime Minister and Aníbal Cavaco e Silva President of the Republic. During the film, images (and texts) are subjected to a constant and continuous degradation.


HOW TO LOSE A FAMILY in 60 SECONDS, 1min., Israel
Directed by Ben Cotti
A short sum what poetic glimpse of the horrors that took place in Israel on 07/10/23 by Hamas terrorists


ROGER CASEMENT – A BIOGRAPHY, 4min,. UK
Directed by Danny Coyne
In 1904 Roger Casement exposed the atrocities committed in King Leopold II’s private fiefdom, the Belgian Congo. The estimation is that this occupation and slave trade led to the deaths of an upward estimation of 10 million people. This is a history that most people are unaware of.

https://www.sketchbookelement.com/hist-casement-case-study
https://www.instagram.com/dannycoyne_sbe/


CUBA, LIBRE?, 56min., USA
Directed by Dick Jordan
Using black-and-white archival film footage, it begins with “Voices of the Past,” a look back in time to the early decades of the 20th century when Cuba was a glamorous destination for American tourists. It then recounts the Castro-led revolution of the late 1950s that deposed the government of Fulgencio Batista, the subsequent severing of diplomatic ties between the U.S. and Cuba, and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

http://cubalibrefilm.co/
https://www.facebook.com/cubalibrefilm/
https://twitter.com/CubaLibreFilm


EMERALD CITY, 21min., USA
Directed by Josef Steiff
Two young men cross paths on the back roads of the American Southwest and despite their different backgrounds, find common ground along the Border.

https://invisibilitypro.com/
https://facebook.com/inVisibilityPro
https://twitter.com/josef_steiff
https://instagram.com/josefsteiff/


THE GREAT EQUALIZER, 19min., USA
Directed by Pritchett Cotten
When it comes to “Diversity” and “Inclusion”, effective patent rights are “The Great Equalizer”. Patents enable a garage inventor to create a new startup and compete with huge, entrenched interests. They are what provide the protection to put in the time and effort to perfect a novel invention for the marketplace. They secure investment to fuel innovation. Patents are the key to the innovation meritocracy, allowing Americans of any race, belief, or gender to raise their station in life and build a better life for themselves and for our country. But, in recent years patent rights have been actively dismantled by “Big Tech” greed and lost to infringing large corporations crushing the individual inventor, which presents the question; What good are “Diversity and Inclusion” when the Patent system fails at its mission to be the “Great Equalizer”?

US Inventor – Home


COMPRESSION, 11min., USA
Directed by Andrew Twibell
An experimental narrative about a group of young people forced to participate in an endless cycle of filmed performances.


INADEQUATE, 10min., USA
Directed by Elya Randrianaivo
A white professional woman opens her home to a black little girl, who was put into foster care after she overdoses. She spares no effort to take the best care of the child but keeps hitting a wall. This comes to a breaking point when the girl vanishes on visitation day after her birth mother fails to show up on time. Both moms have to work through their differences by teaming up to find the girl and face their parenting inadequacies.

http://newbornshortfilmagency.com/
https://www.facebook.com/NewBornShortFilmAgency
https://twitter.com/NewBornSFA
https://www.instagram.com/newbornshortfilmagency/


DISMISSAL TIME, 29min., USA
Directed by Andre Joseph
When a black high school student in a reputable prep school becomes the victim of a vicious form of cyberbullying, his history teacher makes it her mission to bring those responsible to task when the administration fails to act. Inspired by true events.

https://ajepyx1.wixsite.com/ajepyxdismissaltime
https://www.facebook.com/ajepyxdismissaltime/
https://twitter.com/dismissal_time
https://instagram.com/ajepyxdismissaltime


INNOVATION RACE, 70min., USA
Directed by Luke Livingston
For the past century, America has been the world leader in ideas, invention, and innovation. Developing new technologies to solve complex issues as well as tools to make our lives more comfortable and efficient is the realization of the American dream for many. But our grip on ‘world leader’ status is loosening as China has emerged as a powerful political and industrial force. Today China is threatening American innovation by exploiting weaknesses in US patent protection, and big tech is letting them get away with it. Innovation Race explores these critical issues impacting all Americans, and proposes solutions for how we can restore US dominance in invention, technology and innovation.

http://www.innovationracemovie.com/


SALVAR, 29min., South Korea
Directed by Sangwook Ahn
Su-hyeong, who visited the shrine after asking around to find his missing mother, meets Grandmother Shin, a shaman, there. She says he was possessed by an evil, so he needs a salpuri(exorcism). In the process, it turns out that he is being chased by debtors due to his mother’s surgery expenses. For finding his mother, he decides to exorcise. However, finding out that the salpuri was an organ extraction surgery performed in the name of saving the spirit in the body, he struggles to get out of it.


TRADITION, 15min., Turkey
Directed by Ali R?za BAYAZIT
Junkdealer Salim sets off on a journey to find the lost cat of Tailor Adem, whom he has just met, and in order to keep Tailor Adem’s memory alive, he must raise his voice against authority.
aliriza.bayazit@outlook.com


URBAN NOISE, 10min., Turkey
Directed by Alper Durmazs
Istanbul’s city noise, street music, and daily life are offered with city chaos. The film exposes the city’s panorama. This film questions the transformation of the city. It takes the viewer on an experimental tour of the city.

http://alperdurmaz.com/
https://www.facebook.com/durmazalper
https://twitter.com/alprdurmaz?lang=tr
https://www.instagram.com/alperdurmaz__/


OUTCRY?, 10min., China
Directed by Yuan Geng Zhang
The micro background of the story draws inspiration from Xu Lizhi’s experiences, serving as a reference point. The character of the son in the film is a tribute to Xu Lizhi. He and his mother were once assembly line workers in a factory. However, after the unbearable agony of his son’s suicide, the mother, who had been aging in the factory, lost her pillar of life. In an era of China’s strict one-child policy, the helplessness and anguish of families with a single child are unimaginable. This policy extinguished the cherished family lineage that Chinese people hold dear. The archetype of a Chinese mother often embodies self-sacrifice, and the death of her son completely derails her pursuit of hard work and life. The mother in the film experiences anger, regret, and sorrow over the loss of her child, yet she can only confront the traces left behind in her son’s former residence, shouting in bewilderment, unable to comprehend the reasons behind it all.


INTERVIEW, 13min,. Bangladesh
Directed by Mustak Muzahid
A needy young boy gets a call for a job interview. But he has no shoes. After much trouble he manages a pair of black shoes, and he happily goes to the interview.

https://www.facebook.com/MustakMuzaahid
https://twitter.com/muzahid_mustak
https://www.instagram.com/mustakmuzaahid


PURGATORY, 94min., Greece
Directed by Vassilis Mazomenos
Seven different stories about love in modern Greece, by people who seek it, find it, lose it.

https://purgatorymovie.wordpress.com/
https://www.facebook.com/purgatoryfilm2022


SIBERIADE, 6min., Belgium
Directed by Nado Poton
The journey of a political refugee from his native Siberia to Belgium where he applied for asylum…

http://www.camera-etc.be/
https://www.facebook.com/camera.etc/
https://www.instagram.com/camera.etc/


STRANGERS, 15min., Germany
Directed by Jonathan Behr
Farah and her sister Alima lie closely huddled in their small bed. They try to get their minds off an unknown looming thread – a rumor even the other kids in school talk about. Then – in the middle of the night – there is a knock on the front door.

https://facebook.com/fremde.derfilm


FAR AWAY LANDS, 20min., Belgium
Directed by Frédéric Hainaut
In the heart of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Paul runs a grain mill. This morning, he is feverish, which does not prevent him from grinding grain. The machine’s transmission belt breaks and that is a disaster. Paul sends Michel to Sakala to get a new belt. While he is hospitalized, he dialogues with his far away lands.

http://www.camera-etc.be/
https://www.facebook.com/camera.etc/
https://www.instagram.com/camera.etc/


ROSEWOOD, 30min., Germany
Directed by Jonathan Behr
East Berlin, 1989: As the Berlin Wall falls, Stasi agents Wernecke and Steiner chase after the stolen Rosenholz files. If they fall into enemy hands, the lives of all Stasi agents are at stake.


MANIFESTATION, 17min,. Denmark
Directed by Danny Germansen
Manifestation is an semi-autobiographical art-house short film about a mentally ill person who takes revenge on society because he feels neglected by his family, the social system, the community around him, and Society in general. He was mentally abused as a kid and adult by a psychopathic father. The film draws parallels to the environmental issues of the present and to the white supremacy that created our capitalist society that we live in today. It’s a tale of a social outcast who suffered weltschmerz and lived a life of loneliness, alienation and isolation in a society that is emotionally desolated. During the 17-minute film, the viewer experiences a nihilistic view of the world from the social outcast’s point of view.

https://brujoart.com/manifestation/
https://www.facebook.com/BrujoArtCompany
https://twitter.com/DannyGermansen
https://www.instagram.com/brujo_art_company


THE COMMON GOOD, 17min., Austria
Directed by Stefan Gutternigh, Eva Amann
In 2035 the earth is ruled by a world government called “The Global Organisation for the Common Good”. The “GOCG” wants to make everybody happy by monitoring the desires of its citizens with social media, omnipresent cameras, surveillance drones and – for those who can afford them – body implants. We join “GOCG” agent Cindy Karuso as she is visiting Mr. Berger, who has not spent his designated quota for lifestyle and entertainment products for the past months. Will she manage to complete her task for the mother-state and the father-corporation by taking care of Mr. Berger? And will Mr. Berger have something to say within the process?

http://4eyes2view.com/
https://instagram.com/4eyes2view


PROTHASIDDHO (The Story of a Cutomary Society), 23min., Bangladesh
Directed by Mustak Muzahid
A remote village. the Village people generally lead their lives based on various superstitions. One day a boy named Lavlu suddenly developed a mysterious disease. that time his mother called a Kaviraj, Kaviraj attributed the disease to immortal soul and later Jinn. Then he started his treatment…

https://youtube.com/@rokomariifilms
https://www.facebook.com/MustakMuzaahid
https://twitter.com/muzahid_mustak
https://www.instagram.com/mustakmuzaahid


ARAPUCA / BIRD TRAP, 20min., Brazil
Directed by Joel Caetano
: In “Arapuca” we follow the daily life of Marcos, a man who returns to his old home to take care of his father, an elderly man who is in an advanced stage of a degenerative disease that deprives him of seeing clearly the reality around him. Marcos is unable to communicate with his father and this invisibility is slowly corrupting him, mainly because it prevents him from finding answers to something that has bothered him for a long time in the relationship between the two.

https://www.facebook.com/joel.caetano.52
https://twitter.com/joelcaetano


READ MY BODY, 11min., Nigeria
Directed by Theo-ziny Joel
Bala wants to be a warrior like his father. He wants to own a machete too and go to war, instead of going to school.

https://web.facebook.com/theozinyjoel/
https://twitter.com/YorubaHausaBoy
https://www.instagram.com/theo_ziny/


TIME OF INSURRECTION, 11min., UK
Directed by Gabriel Fernández-Gil
In a modern take of Miguel de Unamuno’s 1930’s novel “San Martín Bueno, martir”, where a priest loses faith in god, “Times of Insurrection” tells the story of the CEO of a global corporation who starts to lose faith in capitalism after a mysterious external pressure forces him to change his company forever.


EARTH RIOT, 22min., UK
Directed by Immo Klink
Veteran anti-capitalist Earth artists Reverend Billy, Savitri D, & The Stop Shopping Choir bring their radical music and direct action performance to the streets of the UK, in a tour that culminates at Glasgow’s COP 26 Climate Summit. Featuring Clare Farrell from Extinction Rebellion and other friends on the frontlines of Climate Response, EARTH RIOT documents the legendary group’s searching and creative crusade to create community, meaning, and music in the face of ecological collapse.
“A powerful vision… Beautiful.” Adam Curtis

http://www.revbilly.com/
https://twitter.com/revbillytalen
https://www.instagram.com/immoklink/


MONEY IS AN INNOCENT AS THE GUN, 43min., UK
Directed by Chris Colling
a film of spoken word for action

http://moneyisasinnocentasthegun.com/
https://www.twitter.com/moneyisas


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