harvest 2007

Dry Season (Daratt), Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, ČAD/FRANCIJA/B/A, 2006, 95'
Chad, 2006. The government has granted amnesty to all war criminals. Atim, 16 years old, is given a revolver by his grandfather so that he may kill the man who killed his father. Atim leaves his village for N’Djamena, seeking a man he does not know. He quickly locates him: former war criminal Nassara is now married and settled down as the owner of a small bakery. With the firm intention of killing him, Atim gets closer to Nassara under the guise of looking for work, and is hired as an apprentice baker.
The Lineman's Diary (Zapiski putevogo obkhodchika), Žanabek Žetiruov, KAZAKSTAN, 2006, 64'
An old blind man lives in a remote area of Kazakhstan in the train station where his son works as a railway traffic controller. Solely trusting on his hearing, instinct and wisdom he checks the condition of the tracks for his son. This arrangement proves difficult whenever the high-tech equipment - used by the railway personnel from the city - registers different results. The son finds himself torn between trusting his father’s wisdom and intuition on the one hand, and his own professionalism on the other hand. He is well aware that the life of the passengers depends on his decisions.
How Is Your Fish Today? (Jin tian de yu ze me yang?), Xiaolu GUO, KITAJSKA/VB, 2007, 83'
A young man in southern China has killed his lover. He starts a lonely escape across the whole country towards his land of wonder, a snowy village at the northern border. Sitting at his desk in Beijing, a scriptwriter is writing that man’s story. It is through his characters that his life gains its weight, meaning and freedom. His imagination blurs the boundaries between reality and fiction. The snowy village lies on the quiet border between China and Russia. Old villagers fish under the ice, school children study English texts about America. They endure the long winter nights waiting for the sun to come back. When the scriptwriter arrives in that mysterious village, he meets his own fictional character, lying on the frozen river at the border, covered in snow. Two men contemplate the icy landscape. One wants to cross the border to see the other side of the world. The other longs to head back to his hometown, which he left so many years ago.
Glue (Glue), Alexis Dos Santos, ARGENTINA/VB, 2006, 115'
Two boys, Lucas and Nacho, and their sidekick, Andrea, are growing up in a small remote town in Patagonia where they are experiencing the growing pains of adolescence. Lucas contends with his parents' imminent divorce. Nacho obsesses over music and sex, while Andrea is preoccupied with her too-slowly developing body. Once the three connect they become inseparable.
SARATAN, Ernest Abdidžaparov, KIRGIZISTAN/NEMČIJA, 2005, 85'
Discontentment reigns in a Kyrgyzian village: pensions are held back, money is not flowing as expected, everyone is trying to arrange their own business, if necessary secretly, communism is still finding adherents and the thief Tashmat is at work, pursued by the village policeman Salamat. It’s plain to all the villagers that nothing in life seems to have very much to do with what is right and just anymore and they regularly complain about it to the village administrator Kabylbek. They do not have much faith in a better future, and their belief in a fair God is weak. Be it Allah or Jehova, they prefer devoting themselves to earthly pleasures. But despite all the wistfulness and lamentations, everyday life is taking its course. While some are managing to profit from the situation, others are getting nothing. Surprise and dismay increase even more, when the rustler Tashmat is caught by the village policeman. The fabric of the community is put to the test and the village administrator tries to hold his village together.