Event

Z -- SCREENING 1. Bronx World Film Cycle 2016.

SPECIAL NOTE ON OPENING: Come to the venue at 10 am and meet our guests and visiting directors while enjoying a sampling of Central American-style breakfast foods!

Toto the Thief (SCR/DIR Mercure Ralphton, HAITI, 2016, color, 3:31.) (US premiere.) Toto wakes up one fine morning and his ears itch him something fierce. He must visit the office of a lady at all costs to filch a goose feather. Nothing else will do. Be careful Toto! Original title: Toto le voleur (World Premiere)

Wi-fi (DIR/SCR/PROD Douglas Alonzo. HONDURAS, 2016, color, 3:52) Comedy. A näif, frenzied collage spoke in gibberish by shadow puppet figures captures our visceral dependence on technology, particularly our smart phones. A small high-definition screen tells is what to do and where to go, turns us into spectators of a reality often best ignored and show us the power we have when we use it to denounce and document like historians in real time. The price is extended loneliness. (New York City premiere)

Fragu (SCR/DIR Antonello Murgia, ITALY, 2016, black and white, 5:00.) Comedy. A stranger fake astronaut? Semi-God from afar? sweeps into a quiet Sardinian village. They recognize him as eminent and exceptional, therefore follow him without further ado, leaving everything behind work, relationships, social life to go with HIM. (US Premiere. In Sardinian, with Italian subtitles)

Beside Oneself (SCR/DIR Karolina Specht, POLAND, 2016, color, 11:00.) Comedy. The white-on-black animation in this comic short works like an X-ray, portraying the interplay of our inner being and outer being caught between the boundless desires of our spirit and the sobering limits of our bodies, expressed through the interaction of couple. Do we live with real people, or only with who we imagine them to be? (US premiere)

Cupids (SCR/DIR Gilbert Mhanna, LEBANON, 2016, color, 11:00.) Drama. This short film puts a 21st-century spin on the Creation story and retells the old allegory of angelic beings appearing among humans to restore love. In this version, two sexy cupid angel sisters appear in the downtown area of a modern city at night. They roam the streets shooting arrows into the hearts of people who lust but have forgotten how to love. They must not touch human beings lest their hearts hallow out and fall back in darkness. (United States premiere.)

Sonar (SCR/DIR Mohammad Salam, IRAQ, 2016, color, 09:05). Drama. When several young men arrive in an Iraqi village and set up a tent to screen movies, a young girl finds an ingenious way to get two in for the price of one. The film speaks for childrens rights in its portrayal of the innocent mischief they resort to in order to navigate the overwhelming world of adults with all its restrictions. (In Arabic with English subtitles)

Might (SCR/DIR Emil Sallinen, FINLAND, 2016, color, 09:00.) Futuristic science fiction. Maryam, a rebel leader in an archaic world of the future governed by ruthless religion, is determined to prove that the huge metallic object hovering in the sky is not a god as the priesthood claims. During a mission she runs into a holy warrior, her long-lost father Thesus, who abandoned her as a child. Theyll soon be forced to face each other, change their lives and reveal a secret only a god can keep. (New York City premiere).

Assembling a Helicopter. (DIR/SCR Izabel Acevedo, MEXICO, 2015, color, 37:42). Documentary. Oliverio lives in a building taken over by Mexican immigrants who work constantly to provide basic services. He is 17 and always playing video games, even with electricity unstable and in short supply. Summer rains start, and when a short-circuit shots down the patch tying the building to the grid, Oliverio comes up with a new way to get power. (In Spanish with English subtitles)