Fourth Edition
Day One / 11.10.2024
18:30
Andrea Burelli / Refuge Worldwide
Opening / Ambient DJ Performance
20:00
Selection 1/ Plunge
76 min.
Plunge takes you on a journey to another dimension, where fundamental questions about life, connection, love, and obsession are explored from radically different perspectives. Through a series of thought-provoking stories, this selection invites you to confront these themes and challenges you to reflect on them in new and unexpected ways.
Dadá
Luisa Arraes
Brazil
18 min.
Brunch
Caner Sunar, Kasper Bisgaard
Germany
28 min.
The Debris
Nino Klingler, Frédéric Jaeger
Germany
15 min.
Forever Yours
Elliott Louis McKee
Germany
15 min.
22:00 - 00:00
Temple Rat / Refuge Worldwide
Ambient DJ Performance
Day Two / 12.10.2024
14:00
Panel: Responding to the Now: The Power of Film in Times of Conflict and Injustice
With Şirin Fulya Erensoy, Viola Shafik and Basma Al-Sharif
During this year’s edition of Hive International Short Film Days, we will host a panel titled, with the participation of film scholar and filmmaker Viola Shafik and filmmaker Basma Al-Sharif and in conversation with film and media scholar Şirin Fulya Erensoy. In line with this year’s festival theme of reaction, the panel will explore how we maintain our voices amidst the ongoing failures of humanity and how, as filmmakers and scholars, we respond to the horrors of our time while finding hope, even when history seems hopelessly to repeat itself. What strategies can we adopt to create not only images of resistance that inspire political action and shift public opinion, but also to challenge the structures that uphold representational hierarchies and biases within film production and academic work? How do we confront the deliberate repression and censorship of certain knowledge systems in these fields and build a cultural resistance movement?
Viola Shafik is a German-Egyptian film theorist, curator, and filmmaker, who has written extensively on the history and culture of the so-called Arab world. Drawing on her recent book on documentary filmmaking in revolutionary contexts across Algeria, Morocco, Palestine and Syria, Shafik will discuss the complexities of documenting resistance and the ethical dilemmas faced by filmmakers capturing the realities of war and political upheaval. She will explore what it means to film and record such charged realities—how cinema can serve as both testimony and intervention, and the responsibility filmmakers bear when representing trauma, violence, and resistance.
As a Palestinian artist, Basma Al-Sharif's work examines the cyclical nature of political conflicts and seeks ways to produce images that not only reflect the consequences of colonization and occupation on a historical level but also incorporate the subjective experiences such histories have generated. She consciously bears witness to life itself, in an effort to represent Palestinian existence beyond the frames constructed by Western and Israeli media narratives that aim to erase, deny and obstruct the sight of such stories. Her contribution to the panel will focus on her approach to creating new visual languages to confront erasure and offer alternative representations of Palestinian life.
Viola Shafik is a German-Egyptian film theorist, curator, and filmmaker, who has written extensively on the history and culture of the so-called Arab world. Drawing on her recent book on documentary filmmaking in revolutionary contexts across Algeria, Morocco, Palestine and Syria, Shafik will discuss the complexities of documenting resistance and the ethical dilemmas faced by filmmakers capturing the realities of war and political upheaval. She will explore what it means to film and record such charged realities—how cinema can serve as both testimony and intervention, and the responsibility filmmakers bear when representing trauma, violence, and resistance.
As a Palestinian artist, Basma Al-Sharif's work examines the cyclical nature of political conflicts and seeks ways to produce images that not only reflect the consequences of colonization and occupation on a historical level but also incorporate the subjective experiences such histories have generated. She consciously bears witness to life itself, in an effort to represent Palestinian existence beyond the frames constructed by Western and Israeli media narratives that aim to erase, deny and obstruct the sight of such stories. Her contribution to the panel will focus on her approach to creating new visual languages to confront erasure and offer alternative representations of Palestinian life.
17:00
Selection 2 / Ouroboros
76 min.
This selection will present the feature film by our panelist, Basma Al-Sharif.
Ouroboros
Basma Al-Sharif
Palestine, France, Belgium, Qatar
76 min.
20:00
Selection 3 / Reaction
72 min.
Reaction delves into our responses to the various stimuli that surround us. Reactions are triggered by the myriad influences we encounter daily—whether societal, cultural, personal, or environmental. As human beings, our agency lies in how we navigate and respond to these situations, transforming limitations into creative opportunities. Embracing our role as reactants in this ongoing interaction, we recognize that our responses—much like chemical reactions generating new substances—lead to the formation of transformative outcomes.
So, this year’s theme invites us to be responsive, present, and aware, acknowledging that even choosing not to react is a form of response in itself. How do our reactions affect our identity and worldview? In what ways can our expressions offer new perspectives on our collective and individual responses? How do filmmakers interpret and depict these interactions through visual storytelling?
So, this year’s theme invites us to be responsive, present, and aware, acknowledging that even choosing not to react is a form of response in itself. How do our reactions affect our identity and worldview? In what ways can our expressions offer new perspectives on our collective and individual responses? How do filmmakers interpret and depict these interactions through visual storytelling?
Wall, the Wall
Yusuf Ölmez
Turkey
16 min.
The Cascade
Pablo Delgado Sanchez
Mexico
21 min.
I don’t want to be just a memory
Sarnt Utamachote
Germany
20 min.
Between Delicate and Violent
Şirin Bahar Demirel
Turkey, Netherlands
15 min.
22:00 - 23:45
Richard Akingbehin / Refuge Worldwide
Ambient DJ Performance
23:55
Selection 4 / Midnight
56 min.
When everything is at its darkest, we hope for the morning.
Lake of Fire
Neozoon
Germany
11 min.
Voice Messages From Bakhmut
Ihor Babaiev
Ukraine, Lithuania
15 min.
Elefsina Notre Amour
Mahdi Fleifel
Greece
9 min.
Villa Madjo
Elen Sylla Grollimund
Belgium
13 min.
Fin. Finito. Infinito.
Laurence Henriquez
Netherlands
8 min.
Day Three / 13.10.24
17:00
Selection 5 / Rock Paper Scissors
61 min.
The randomness of our physical existence on this planet doesn't recognise any human-made borders. We do not choose where we are born, or what circumstances we will face. This selection explores the political implications of this randomness. It looks at how the circumstances we are born into can have a profound impact on our lives, and how the choices we make can have far-reaching consequences. It shows that we are all subject to the forces of politics and power. But it is also a reminder that we are not powerless even if the odds are stacked against us.
Involuntary Obsolescence - Floating Grounds
Jaeik Kim
Korea
20 min.
The Song
Bani Abidi
Germany
22 min.
Chasing the Sun: El Shatt
Ana Bilankov
Croatia
19 min.
20:00
Selection 6 / Awakening
60 min.
Awakening is about the moments of realization and transformation we experience as we grow and age. It speaks to the subtle yet profound turning points in life that shape who we are and reminds us that we can move closer to our authentic selves by daring to rewrite both the stories we are told and the ones we tell ourselves.
Monster
Olga Melanich
Russia
15 min.
And I Talk Like a River
Qian Ning
China
12 min.
The Boy With the Pearl Earring
Jonas Erler
Germany
9 min.
The Pointy Slippers
Christina Acevedo
The United States
8 min.
Farewell to Myself
Shixiong Luo
China
16 min.
22:00
Closing