Figli del Minotauro / Storie di Uomini e Animali

In 1864, the Spanish poet Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-70), suffering from health problems, retires to the monastery of Veruela. Far from the noise and worldly activity of the capital, he immerses himself in the landscape of the mysterious Moncayo mountain. There, he discovers a new world full of legends that converge in a small village located at the foot of the mountain: Trasmoz, the Village of the Witches, the only officially cursed village in Spain.

When is the moment you think: I'm going to hoist my regional flag? Who are these flaghoisters? And what does it mean to identify with your region? These are questions that filmmaker Okki Poortvliet, theatermaker Hans van der Werf and designer Vera Vos asked. So, they went through the whole of Drenthe, a region in the North of The Netherlands where all three of them grew up, to collect as many stories as possible from hoisters of the flag of Drenthe. The Flaghoisters is a film about the confrontation between the countryside and, as people from Drenthe call it, “the city dwellers”. A story about a disappearing language, the safety of your village, greeting each other, being proud, and just acting "normal".

In 1950, a French expedition led by Maurice Herzog went to central Nepal to conquer the highest peak (8,091 meters): Annapurna. The film is not only made of what we see, but even more of what we don't see. Its imperfections are the negative imprint of the adventure. Memory is the most faithful of films.

A multi-billion-dollar mining project is launched by the American Newmont Mining Corporation and lays claim to the land belonging to Preuvian highlander Máxima Acuña.

Although the mountain volcano Mauna Kea last erupted around 4,000 years ago, it is still hot today, the center of a burning controversy over whether its summit should be used for astronomical observatories or preserved as a cultural landscape sacred to the Hawaiian people. For five years the documentary production team Nā Maka o ka 'Āina ("the eyes of the land") captured on video the seasonal moods of Mauna Kea's unique 14,000-foot summit, the richly varied ecosystems that extend from sea level to alpine zone, the legends and stories that reveal the mountain's geologic and cultural history, and the political turbulence surrounding the efforts to protect the most significant temple in the islands: the mountain itself.

In the absence of any physical connection, this short explores alternative forms of contact among neighbors by making use of an old 16mm camera, a zoom lens, and a few meters of expired film.