One day at the archives, 60-something Andor decides to read through the file the secret police kept on him. To his surprise, he discovers that even his best friend János informed against him, for decades. This disturbing psychological drama from debuting Hungarian director and screenwriter Sára Cserhalmi treats a sensitive topic from the not-too-distant past that Hungary has yet to give due attention. The young director bravely asks unpleasant questions but she avoids absolute judgments. The film had its world premiere in the “East of the West” competition of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival and was awarded the prize of the Competition 1-2 in the Warsaw Film Festival.
Every year, in Italy, thousands of foreign citizens are kept inside the identification and expulsion centers because they lack a regular residency permit. They may be kept there up to a year and a half without being guilty of a crime and without being convicted by a judge. Administrative detention in Europe is the extreme consequence of the operation of the borders inside the Schengen area. For the very first time in Italy, the Home Office has authorized the access of a film crew to the identification and expulsion centers. Finally, the wall of silence surrounding these centers and the people kept inside, has opened up, for our short visit, as an exception. But it was soon after closed in its daily indifference. “A punch in the stomach”, writes about this film Giacomo Russo Spena în “La Repubblica”.
Alsemberg, Belgium, December 1975. Sarah, 8 years old, lives in a Catholic foyer. One day, her biological father, whom she has never met, comes to take her for a weekend in Paris. But it is in Morocco that Sarah wakes up, in a little town lost in the middle of the Atlas. Very soon, her father leaves, abandoning her without any explanation. She then slips into the life of a little Moroccan girl where the only schooling she is offered is that of knitting. Nine years later, we find Sarah, 17 years old, a teenager like all the others... At least, almost. We are in 1984, in the middle of a hunger revolt (The Revolt of ‘Aw-bach’). Sarah’s father has never sent the money he had said he would, and for the family where she is staying, each mouth to feed accounts for more and more. Sarah will have to find a way to earn her board. But then, there is also her wish of leaving, to going back to the Belgium of her childhood, the school, the books and a life that Sarah imagines free… The first feature written and directed by Kadija Leclere was selected in over 35 international film festivals.
