2022 AIFF | Friday program [11/04/22]

FRIDAY // NOVEMBER 4

7:00 PM - BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE | KLONDIKE (1hr 40min)

Maryna Er Gorbach | 2022 | DocuDrama | Ukraine | EAST COAST PREMIERE

Synopsis: Based on the actual events in July 2014 of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH-17 air crash catastrophe near their village of Hrabove in the Donetsk of Ukraine, KLONDIKE provides an unflinching look at the political situation through the lens of a Ukrainian couple who find themselves at the center of the conflict between government troops and Russian-backed separatists. Despite the impossible life choices facing them, the wife refuses to leave her house even as the village is captured by armed forces.

Awards: Directing Award Winner/World Dramatic Competition, Sundance FF; Ecumenical Jury Prize Winner, Berlin FF; Grand Jury Prize at Seattle Int’l FF; Best Film at Istanbul FF; Grand Prix Winner at Fribourg FF; 3Sat Broadcasting Award at Wiesbaden FF; Outstanding Acting Achievement at South East European FF; Jury Special Award at NEISSE-NYSA NISA FF.

Sponsored by Social Equity Access Fund

8:55 PM

Cuba a few months after the death of Fidel Castro provides the backdrop for PESSOAS an ethereal road movie that examines issues of privacy and image rights while chronicling the repair of a father/ daughter relationship. Arturo Dueñas (the director plays himself) and Greta Fernández (plays his estranged daughter) travel to the Caribbean Island looking for an unknown woman whose portrait hangs in Dueñas’ living room.

Awards: Best Feature Film at Ukrainian Dream FF; Best Feature Film at Festival de Cine de Madrid;

10:25 PM

This short chronicles an Armenian family who have lived in Iran since the Iran-Iraq war in 1980. The psychological consequences of this war are examined via the mind of an aging man with Alzheimer’s disease revealing the world inside the man’s mind, taking him back into the past and forward into the present.

Director’s Statement: “I am the product of Iran’s endless struggle between traditionalism and modernization.”

This family history is like an x-ray, laying bare the conflicts of Iranian society in the run-up to, and the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution in 1979. The director’s mother, a devout Muslim married a secular progressive Iranian who was studying radiology in Switzerland. Living in Europe was a challenge for her with sin being everywhere. Her father was a lover of culture, fine arts, and classical music and enjoyed the European way of life. Sponsored by Crown Café, Watertown

2022 AIFF | Friday program

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