LIKE A WIND

WORLD PREMIERE

Director, Raquel Ruiz
Documentary, 65’, Argentina, 2020

Q&A with Raquel Ruiz

Synopsis

The circumstances of life lead Mara, a Creole woman, to become a gypsy. Through this character we will delve into the depth and daily life of this community. We will see them tell in the first-person fragments of their life, their customs and the contradiction that is generated every day between the old gypsies and the new generations.

Directors Biography

Raquel Ruiz is an administrative employee, but her vocation is cinema. With her husband, she set up a production company, filmed a documentary and arrived at the Cannes Festival.

Raquel Ruiz is one of those who wants something and has the talent and the fortune to achieve it. But without great fortune -in economic terms- and yes with enormous capital in terms of talent, vocation and commitment. She is a movie lover. And not only as a spectator: she likes to see it, but above all, to do it. And to such an extent is that in May of this year, for one of her films - a documentary - she had the privilege of arriving in Cannes, one of the most important cinematographic festivals in the world.

DEALTHLESS WOMAN

Director Roz Mortimer
Fiction, 89’, United Kindom, 2019

Synopsis

The Deathless Woman is a ghost story for the 21st Century. This urgent and magical hybrid documentary fluidly interweaves fantastical re-imaginings of buried secrets with a ghostly narration and direct to camera testimony from survivors and witnesses of historic and contemporary crimes against the Roma in Poland and Hungary.  A Roma woman buried alive in a forest in Poland during WWII returns to haunt us, uncovering a history of atrocities against the Roma in Europe. She is the Deathless Woman. Motivated by rage, she rises from her grave to draw our attention to the persecution of the Roma people from the 1940s to the neo-Nazi hate crimes of the present day.

Directors Biography

Roz Mortimer is an artist, writer and independent filmmaker who lives and works in London. She initially trained as a textile artist and exhibited installation and sculptural work before starting to make films in 1995. She has an MA in Visual Sociology and a PhD in Documentary Film, teaches alternative documentary practice at universities in the UK and USA and is currently Senior Lecturer in Film at University for the Creative Arts. Her work has been supported by Arts Council England, Wellcome Trust, Rockefeller Foundation, British Council, Film London, Animate Projects and Channel 4 Television.

Her award-winning short and mid-length films have been widely screened around the world in cinemas, galleries, online and on TV and include: This is History, The Flayed Horse, Passages, Invisible, Tales from the Arctic Circle, Safety Tips for Kids, Gender Trouble, Dog of My Dreams, Neverland, Airshow, Wormcharmer and Bloodsports for Girls. Roz’s genre-breaking films blur the boundaries between staged theatre and documentary whilst challenging our social and political understanding of the world. The Deathless Woman is her first scripted feature.

Gheto Balboa
90’
Director, Árpád Bogdán
Creative Documentary, Hungary, 2018

Synopsis
The documentary follows a boxing coach and his trainee from the very beginning to the first successes. Both characters are of Roma origins from the infamous Ghetto in the middle of Budapest. Misi Sipos (60), an ex member of the 8th district mafia, while recovering in a prison hospital after a shootout with a rival gang, turned to God and left behind his criminal past. As his personal “mission” he started a local community boxing club aimed at young children from troubled families, to keep them away from crime and show them an alternative for their future. Zoli Szabó (21) is one of these kids. He has been boxing in the amateur league under Misi’s guidance for 6 years. Zoli lives in a one-bedroom apartment with his dad, stepmother, half sister and his fiancée, who is already pregnant. Despite his young age he has to face up to the responsibility of providing for his new family. He has a tough decision to make, as he either becomes a professional boxer, which comes with a lot of sacrifices or he follows in the footsteps of his mobster father.

The film is about the path they take together. Misi as a father figure does everything in his might to spare Zoli from the mistakes he had made in his past. The documentary follows them through this journey, day by day, in real life situations, avoiding talking heads and other formative elements of traditional factual movies.

Directors Biography

Árpád Bogdán Born in 1980, Árpád Bogdán lived in a children’s home from the age of four. He started working as an actor and stage director in theaters during his college years. He organized creative forums for disadvantaged children using various aspects of art. After establishing a strong background in theatre and film, Árpád Bogdán made his feature-film debut with ‘Happy New Life‘ that collected a number of awards including Best First Film at Hungarian Film Week 2007 and premiered at the Berlinale, where it received Special Mention from the Manfred Salzgeber Jury. ‘Happy New’ went on to tour the globe and was extremely well received by audiences and film critics alike.