Alberti & Zickyte: I’m Not From Here
From the production side it is interesting. The film is commissioned by Danish festival CPH:DOX under its program CPH:LAB, where filmmakers from different countries meet to work together. 10 intensive workshop days, original ideas to develop, one year to make the film. I have no idea about the budget but see that there is Chilean as well as Lithuanian funding for this film that is made by Maite Alberti and Giedre Zickyte. A quote from the CPH:LAB page (link below): ”CPH:LAB encourages creative risk-taking, celebrates raw talent, facilitates collaboration across borders andbusiness sectors and supports frontrunners within the film industry to push the existing boundaries of filmmaking as we know it.”
Yes, Chilean Albert and Lithuanian Zickyte have taken the creative risk to make a film that with its minimalistic film language conveys perfectly the situation for the 88 old Basque born Mrs.Josepe, who lives in an old people’s home in Chile, and has done that for almost a year but thinks it is for days and that she can soon return to Renteria, her Basque town near Saint Sebastian. She has to educate some of the other residents about the Basque country, she turns to Basque language on occasions of arguments against the Spanish speaking, she is a proud woman, who also rejects to hold the hand of a 90 year old flirter – and tells a woman next to her in the couch to take care not to fall when she gets up, after which she herself gets up and falls…
Small situations, touching observations like in Alberti’s award-winning “Tea Time”, humour is there, reminds me of Jon Bang Carlsen’s “Before The Guests Arrive” and Eva Stefani’s “In the Box”. Back to the CPH-LAB word “Risk”… well, on the other side you could say that Alberti already showed her skills with the old lady drinking tea, and Giedre Zickyte had her international breakthrough with the film on legendary photographer Luckus in “Master and Tatyana”. On the other side this succesful collaboration would never have happened without the initiative of CPH:DOX.
Best short film at Visions du Réel 2016, the film will have a long festival life, and TV stations, wake up, this is a film with a universal them and a duration that will fit your 26 minutes slots.
Chile, Lithuania, Denmark, 26 mins., 2016
