The Culture Commission of the PhD Students’ Association of the Jagiellonian University invites you to vote for the film we will watch during the next edition of the Doctoral Students’ Film Club, which will take place on Thursday May 13, 2021.

This month, you can choose from among the following films (all descriptions come from the distributors):

Arab Blues, France, 2019, dir. Manele Labidi

 

Miami Film Festival 2020: Knight Marimbas Award (nomination)
Palm Springs International Film Festival 2020: Jury Prize (nomination)
Stockholm Film Festival 2019: Best Film (nomination)

East or West, home is best? The comedy Arab Blues reminds us that returning to where we are from is not always easy. That is the case with Selma, who was brought up in France and has decided to return to Tunisia in order to open her psychoanalysis clinic. After her arrival, however, she learns that not only no one was waiting for her but that in fact her profession and lifestyle seems at least suspicious to her closest relatives. Cultural differences lead to a series of mistakes and misunderstandings, which Manele Labidi presents with disarming humor in her directorial debut.

The independent, single Selma, who lives according to her own principles, is a thorn in the side of her conservative family and the local authorities. She moves across the streets, corridors, and rooms clad in her favorite jeans and with a cigarette in her mouth, discovering both the absurdity of local legislation and her own identity along the way. The charisma, charm, and on-screen magnetism of the main actress Golshifteh Farahani (who starred in Jim Jarmusch's Paterson as well as Ashgar Farhadi's About Elly) make us root for the psychoanalyst's crazy plans as well as her patients who, having been brought up in an oppressive culture, finally admit they have the right to depression, anxiety, and be who they truly are.

This sunny, luminous comedy filled with juicy color directed by Manele Labidi is about the universal conflicts of tradition and modernity as well as the collective and the individual.Tunisia presented in Arab Blues is recovering after the Arab Spring and needs collective therapy like never before. This film underlines in a warm, lighthearted, and joking tone that there can be no political revolutions without a social revolt: against one’s parents, school, politicians, and suffocating, strict rules. It also reminds us that humor has always been the best therapy.

Monos, USA/Colombia, 2019, dir. Alejandro Landes

Called the “youthful Apocalypse Now,” this film was the great discovery of the Sundance Film Festival (Special Jury Award) and the Berlinale 2019. Alejandro Landes’ film was Columbia’s official submission for the Best International Film Oscar.®

Wolf, Lady, Rambo, Bigfoot, Boom Boom, Swede, and Dog are teenage commandos who are guarding an American hostage somewhere in the mountains of South America among the phenomenally shot, succulent, and wild landscapes. The secret “Organization” gives them commands through the radio and provides them with a cow named Shakira, machine guns for fun, and allows them to have ritual orgies after a day of military exercises. When Shakira accidentally dies, they begin to struggle for leadership in the Organization, which must flee from the mountains to the Amazon jungle. The chaos and tension that accompany the teenagers turns into a brutal struggle for survival amidst a mood and surroundings that recall Apocalypse Now. The hostage senses an opportunity to flee, so she destroys the radio and, therefore, contact with the “Organization.” As they are left alone with their demons, the young guerrillas recall the shipwrecked protagonists of The Lord of the Flies. As they cut across the tropical forest, death follows them...

Mica Levi's score perfectly underlines the hypnotizing atmosphere.

The Father, Bulgaria, 2019, dir. Kristina Grozeva, Petar Valchanov

MFF in Karlovy Vary 2019 - Crystal Globe; MFF in Sachalin 2019 - Audience Award, Award for Best Direction; Golden Rose Bulgarian Future Film Festival 2019 - Best Film, Best Screenplay; MFF in Toronto 2019 - Main Contest

This is the tale of a difficult relationship between a father and his son that is filled with absurdity and situational tragicomedy.

The film opens with the funeral of an elderly woman. We quickly recognize her husband Vasil among the mourners. The hotheaded man's irritation increases when his son does not want to take a commemorative photograph of the coffin with the body of the deceased despite his pleas. This is the first of many quarrels between the protagonists.

After his mother’ funeral, Pavel would most like to return to his everyday duties and his pregnant wife, especially since he does not feel very comfortable in his father's presence. His father, however, has completely different plans; he believes that the deceased woman is trying to contact him from beyond the grave. A visit to a well-known local medium is supposed to help to solve this puzzle. Whether he wants to or not, Pavel becomes entangled with the intrigue planned by his father, which will allow them to re-evaluate their relationship.

For a brief moment, the directorial duo of Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov shifts the emphasis from the social contest, which had been key in their previous works, to the dynamic relationship between the protagonists. They deal with the fragility or perhaps strength of family bonds, the individual approach to mourning, and the absurdities that await the father and son. This is low-key, intimate, warm cinema.

You can find the survey here. You can cast your vote up until Sunday May 2, 2021.