To The Inland Ocean

A combination of time-lapse color cinematography and grainy black-and-white footage produces a bifurcated cinematic study of light and shadow

In his documentary feature debut, filmmaker Mauro Colombo immerses himself in the Darién Gap, a dense and mysterious jungle that divides Panama and Colombia. At the dangerous border between the two countries, guerrillas, immigrants, indigenous people, farmers, drug traffickers, local police and wild animals cross paths.

Somewhere in inland Spain, a shepherd dreams of visiting Lake Titicaca, a retired musical duo recall their golden age, two young sisters search for Pokémons without any luck and an old man counts the empty houses of the village in order to fall asleep at night. The characters of this cartographic film tell the tale of a rural world whose ancestral culture is vanishing in time. Through a multi-dimensional gaze we move among an emotional landscape that ranges from melancholy to humour. With an observational tone and an almost surreal manner, INLAND proposes a sensorial trip through the empty territory of Spain.

Algerian filmmaker Tariq Teguia wrote and directed this impressionistic look at a man whose life takes an unexpected turn far away from home. Malek (Abdelkader Affak) is a surveyor from Algeria who is semi-retired, but at the urging of a friend he takes an assignment in Oran. The region in question was the site of frequent battles during Oran's civil war, and an earlier survey that would make it possible to bring electrical utilities to the area was cut short by the fighting. While the zone is still unstable, Malek sets out to complete charting the area, and finds the locals regard him with suspicion and hostility. However, not everyone is disrespectful, and he discovers a young woman (Ines Rose Djakou) who is attracted to him, which leads him to consider abandoning his old life to run away with her. Inland was an official selection at the 2008 Venice Film Festival.

We're at Hungary's western gateway. The landscape is ruled by the representatives of economy: motorways, cities, industrial parks, wind farms, as well as the hydroelectric power plant commissioned exactly 20 years ago. But something hides among them. A giant alluvial fan with small, island-like villages, forests, wetland fields, reed beds, all of which are encircled by countless small and big watercourses and prongs. This inland delta is unique in Europe, and was created by the Danube coming out of the mountains. But today the river is not as free to move as once. Seeing the grip of the built environment, the question arises: Can the wildlife retain its former richness and beauty?

For the Igloolik Inuit, summer is the time of Nunaqpa, 'going inland,' that is, hunting for caribou to get sufficient meat provisions for the cold winter ahead. During a summer in the 1930s, two Igloolik families go hunting, while an old couple awaits their return.

Tiago Pereira invites geographer and author Álvaro Domingues for a journey through Terras da Chanfana. The film portrays a present without presuming to guess its future or longing for a gone past, looking into the question of what is a territory.

Wai-chan is one of the last remaining fishermen in Ushimado, a small village in Seto Inland Sea, Japan. At the age of 86, he still fishes alone on a small boat to make a living, dreaming about his retirement. Kumi-san is an 84 year old villager who wanders around the shore everyday. She believes a social welfare facility “stole” her disabled son to receive subsidy from the government. A “late - stage elderly” Koso-san runs a small seafood store left by her deceased husband. She sells fish to local villagers and provides leftovers to stray cats. Foresaken by the modernization of post-war Japan, the town Ushimado's rich, ancient culture and tight-knit community are on on the verge of disappearing.

Crazy chat between neighbors in the house. The unemployed loser Pandych becomes the boss of the entrance and falls into the chat of the most ordinary neighbors: a family of trees, a vampire in law, a grandfather, a villainous mime, etc. A domestic apocalypse, screenlife scandals and the search for the meaning of life on the scale of a murdered entrance.