The end of the world is imminent. A man goes into a parallel dimension, a limbo between reality and fantasy where the normal rules of time and space have ceased to apply. His wife goes to rescue him. Both will be trapped in a strange and cruel world where a ruthless Queen organizes reality as a mad game of chess, a post-apocalyptic dystopia of domination and subjugation where characters can’t eat, speak or move about freely and are periodically viciously attacked.
5 short films, from 5 directors and 4 different countries on the theme of the Alter-Ego. The "Alter Ego Film Project" is inspired by the spirit of Maya Deren and her way of making films. Between double personality, secret identity, doppelgänger and impossible love we have discovered several unconventional stories halfway between narrative and experimental.
The Tenant continuously fails to escape his deadly apartment within a 5 minute time limit as his blood-thirsty neighbor threatens him from behind the front door
Mateo, a young Mexican man, embarks on a pilgrimage through Spain to confront his past, but becomes entangled in a dangerous Catholic cult where forbidden love threatens his very survival.
Events take a sinister turn one night in London, when two very different couples arrive at a double-booked apartment. Actions have consequences and not all debts are paid for with money. Leaving, it's harder than you think.
Samantha Moon, A young woman who lives by herself in the city must confront her past and future through her dreams whilst being stalked by a mysterious entity…
To mark the 30th anniversary of L'Étrange Festival, Gaumont is opening up its archives to offer the best of its most secret, bizarre and crazy images, digitized for the first time. A unique program featuring black magic, surrealistic happenings, world records, the evolution of feminism, wild bets, vanished places, forgotten inventions and other delights.
Karma, an international high school student from Sikkim struggles to fit in and hold onto his cultural identity when he is stuck at home with his host sibling, Alex.
Described as 'a fairytale with its roots in the worlds of dadaism and surrealism'.
With input from actor and writer Jan Hlobil, director and cinematographer Rene Smaal presents a film in the true surrealist tradition, in the sense that only 'found' elements were used, and that it defies interpretation based on ordinary cause-and-effect time sequence.
Marta, a young girl, finds herself locked in a library at night. The books begin to come to life and the real and the unreal merge.
This film is about what the routine of everyday life can do to the human mind and psyche. It also reflects on the importance of the choices we make and how limited these choices are in the first place. The plot evolves around a family of four. They live in the suburbs, in a strange villa that appears, through a complex game of mirrors, to be more like a piece of installation art than a real house. The main character, who hardly appears on screen, is the son, a man in his thirties. Suffering from asthma and eczema since childhood, he uses his condition to manipulate his parents and his sister. Thus the existence of the terrorized family turns into an endless ritual of attempting to satisfy his whims, and always on the alert for yet another one of his “health crises”. Las Meninas resembles the scattered pieces of a puzzle. It is up to the viewer to assemble them in order to form his very own picture – something that makes the film itself personal and unique.
A student moves into their accomodation, only to find their room already decorated, a strange, inhuman flatmate, and a kettle that won't stop boiling.
Estranged lovers reconnect through the power of the Magic Conch Shell.
An art film produced using 'Darwinian' evolution with artist controlled aesthetic selection. Artificial life rules define the processes of mutation, breeding, birth, growth and decay to generate an imagery evolution of a complex three dimensional structure.
A woman is unaware that she is having a conversation with God.
After accidentally breaking a statue of the guardian god of the Asakusa district, middle school students Kazuki, Toi and Enta are transformed into kappas -creatures from japanese folklore- by Keppi, self-proclaimed prince of the Kappa Kingdom. If they want to regain their human form, they must collect the five Dishes of Hope for him, which fulfill the wishes of whoever possesses them. To do so, they will fight against the kappa-zombies and extract their "shirikodama", the mythical organ containing humans' deepest desires. Two policemen, Reo and Mabu, are the ones behind this evil scheme, turning humans into zombies as agents of the Otter Empire, enemy of the Kappa Kingdom since ancient times. In the guise of "Kappazon, Inc.", they control society by manipulating the desires of the masses for their own goals. To succeed in their mission, the boys must be connected through the "Sarazanmai", revealing their most intimate secrets in the process...
