November 12–15, 2024 | Maracaibo, Venezuela
50
Short Films
15
Countries
4
Days
300+
Attendees
DAY 1 — Tuesday 12.11
DAY 2 — Wednesday 13.11
DAY 3 — Thursday 14.11
DAY 4 — Friday 15.11
The short film that opened Biencortos 2024.
International Competition | Fiction - Non-Fiction
A young Haitian man living in Chile has a car accident during his workday. With a false identity and unable to speak Spanish, he must face the firefighters' rescue, then get into an ambulance where his only solution is presented by a passerby who speaks French.
Malena, a Mexican neuroscientist living in Oxford, is finishing an article on chronic pain when there is a knock at the door. Her brother Fernando, whom she has not spoken to in 10 years, is on the other side holding an urn with their mother inside. The siblings set off on a journey to the English countryside to honor her last wish.
Clara is a girl who works as her father's assistant in an informal dental office. That day a new patient arrives and catches her attention, since Clara did not have her in the appointment registry.
It follows professional soccer player Bruno Rendón after he decides to defect from his native Cuba to try to start a professional career in the United States.
Alex, a 10-year-old boy in a shelter, is about to be reunited with his mother, Lis, after 3 years without seeing her since she was in prison. Alex is very excited about this reunion, but it does not happen as he imagined.
A Chinese grandmother goes to the bakery with her granddaughter to buy a cake for her daughter's birthday, but she does not speak Spanish. She will try to communicate with the baker through her 6-year-old granddaughter.
While the mother and father try to put their baby to sleep, a competition arises between them: Who will get the baby to say the first word?
Mustafa, a quiet 10-year-old boy, travels with his mother Kübra to his grandfather Hasan's house upon receiving the news of his grandmother's death. When they arrive at the funeral home, it is night and the burial is scheduled for the next day, so they will spend the night at the funeral home.
Mikel writes a final poem to his mother. Isabel packs her suitcase for a last trip with José. Ainhoa puts the photo frame without photos in a box. Three stories joined by grief that try to complement one another.
Elena, bewildered by the physical and emotional changes brought on by her pregnancy, moves alone to the outskirts of the city. Surrounded by nature, she forms a bond with a cow, the only one she does not hide from.
Just as Mbaye is about to return to Dakar to see the woman he loves, France announces that it is closing its borders due to the Covid epidemic. The young Senegalese man decides to urgently try to reach Casablanca, where the flight he was supposed to take will make a stopover.
The moving story of a refugee forced to leave his home in search of safety, healing, and a new sense of belonging.
The preparations for a birthday party are thrown into chaos by a horrific event.
Maria and Waldemar Nowak, a couple of officials from the Immigration Office, visit Lilianna and Édouard without warning to assess whether their marriage is real or fake. The decision to grant Édouard residency depends on how the visit unfolds.
National Competition | Fiction - Non-Fiction
A young woman must leave her apartment for reasons beyond her control. As she moves out on her last day, she reflects on the emotional journey of the place she managed to call home.
A spirit awakens in a dollhouse, embodying a body. Moved by some higher force, and despite a constant feeling of resistance, it tries to create livable conditions.
A young filmmaker explores his parents' worn-out relationship through old archive footage, poems, and songs, while both prepare for the sale of their old family home in Guatire and their imminent separation.
Six months after ending a relationship, a frustrated illustrator and a young filmmaker meet again at an art exhibition. The glances, the silences, and the coincidences make them wonder whether the possibility of being together still exists between them.
A tribute to the migrant experience and the intimacy of modern uprooting through voice messages from relatives and friends, as well as memories the author and his family were able to carry with them to the new home they are building.
Walls, windows, curtains, and furniture evoke the sounds of childhood for a traveler who returns home to remember everything that has gone and the people who will soon be gone.
In the suburbs, Benjamín must face, at his young age, the abuse and exploitation of his mother. Unaware of what is happening, he dreams of freedom and of being able to change the reality he is led into.
We are a conglomerate of circumstances in a borrowed body, pierced by the soul and filled with life. Memory when there is no one left to remember it.
Roy wakes up in his room next to a beautiful girl, but he remembers nothing of the previous night. Only blurry images and some marks on his body reveal a night of furious passion.
The harshness of the land, the magic of Wayúu myths, and the longing of a Venezuelan poet, at the design of a 'foreigner' or, in Wayuunaiki, the Wayúu language, the desire of an 'Alijuna'.
A wild region that combines nature and uncivilization when 30 inhabitants of a clandestine community move in search of a new home to escape repression and build a new society in a foreign land.
Roxana, a young Venezuelan exiled in Mexico City, after her father's death in a transient boarding house, tries to convince the woman in charge not to notify the authorities. Alone in an unknown country, Roxana must part with her father's body, with neither money nor logic.
Mimi and Sol, best friends in Maracaibo, face a night out before Mimi's imminent migration, revealing the depth of their friendship amid the uncertainty of the future.
The short film unfolds from a concert composed by Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero titled "Ex Patria". In her own words, the piece "is not a political statement, but a musical portrait of the current social and human crisis, and the systemic collapse of law and order".
Venezuelans take the capital of the world as their new home.
A journey through the Merideño highlands to the Humboldt and Bonpland peaks.
A documentary about the creation cycle of the Ye'kuana Indigenous people, compiled by Jean Marc de Civieux. A tribute to the legacy of geologist and ethnologist Cyrille Burt and to the recognition of the cultural and intellectual wealth of Venezuela's Amazonian peoples.
Mixed Competition | Dance Video - Music Video
It explores the excavation of the earth beneath our feet and the steps of our history through movement. A celebration of humanity and its relationship with the land.
In dialogue with Barcelona street art murals, the dance company explores the link between the human body and urban space.
The weight of the modern world keeps us trapped in a maze of emotions and responsibilities. Through movement, three performers explore the search for a way out.
In search of answers, a group of dancers defy their skepticism and delve into the ritual of the Völva, the Norse seeress who predicts destiny.
A visual and emotional journey that delves into the depths of anxiety through the body in motion, exploring its effects and its transformation.
Classmates, teachers, friends, and relatives gradually left the city. Héctor Jerez records those departures from the perspective of the one who stays.
Alone in a world without human connections, an elderly woman finds refuge in rhythm and music, weaving memories of love through dance.
A woman lives in a world that feels foreign and hostile to her. Through dance, she seeks to reconnect with nature and with her own inner self.
Submerged in a dark vortex, an intricate geometry emerges from inside a wild hive, revealing the invisible dance that sustains all life.
It explores the sharp contrast between the daily lives of four characters and their deepest dreams, through a musical journey that fuses past and present.
During what seems like a deep night, a young man discovers a bar for the first time, a place where jungle animals gather to listen to good music.
It tells the story of a bored young man who decides to create a wave in the middle of the city so he can surf, bringing the freedom of the ocean to the urban asphalt.
An animation work that ranges from conventional drawing to stop-motion, telling the story of a man seeking to break free from the chains of society.
Junior seeks revenge for Dhogo's murder, but along the way he will discover that life and death are more intertwined than he believed.
In 2023, the band was going to tour the United States for a month, but they were stopped at the border. This music video recounts that Kafkaesque experience.
Bárbara and León, fugitive lovers in search of freedom, roam the city's boulevards while time and passion intertwine on every corner.
A young woman who lives on the moon, isolated and without a real life, decides to come down to Earth in search of authentic human experiences.
Opening your eyes to go further and finally awaken. A sonic and visual journey toward introspection and the discovery of new horizons.
Puntaplás travels to the 1990s to tell the story of their new song, immersing themselves in the nostalgia and warmth of a golden era.
National and international film professionals who evaluated the official selections at Biencortos 2024.
Y SI MAÑANA ME DAN MUERTE
Dhogo · Venezuela
LES MOTS D'AMOUR
Laetitia Demessence, Marc Bourdeau · Canada
HEARTLANDS: EARTH AND BONES
Clare Reynolds · United Kingdom
For achieving a period setting that stands out for its meticulous attention to every detail. The choice of furniture and props, in harmony with the costumes and the location, creates an atmosphere in which all the elements blend subtly and precisely, transporting the viewer to another era with elegance and authenticity.
BOULEVARD
Pierina Espinoza · Venezuela
Because it integrates several contemporary artistic codes, woven together kindly to give rise to a work that moves and communicates through its cinematic expression.
LES MOTS D'AMOUR
Laetitia Demessence, Marc Bourdeau · Canada
STRAIGHT AND IN A CIRCLE
Laurynas Kamarauskas · Lithuania
For the use of music in the atmosphere of a story as subtle as it is symbolic, managing to evoke the sensations of wanting to belong to a place.
CUARTO DE HORA
Carlo Sánchez, Mario Cáceres, Mauricio Flores · Chile
For how the sound design accompanies us throughout the story, creating an entire off-screen world that adds layers to the film's tone. And for how it effectively builds a dreamlike moment—of delirium, of life and death—for its protagonist.
PAR-DELÀ LES MONTAGNES
Aymeric Schoens · France
Because in its editing we notice pulse and precision, making us part of the journey—frustrated, yet transformative—of its protagonist.
THE STEAK
Sadeq Es-haqi · IRAN
For the ambitious commitment of an art direction that leaps into the void, accompanying and strengthening the director's vision. For how space and objects play a fundamental role in that balance that will soon be broken by the tragedy of a war off-screen.
PAR-DELÀ LES MONTAGNES
Guillaume Le Grontec · France
Because it takes us by the hand throughout the story, naturally and without stylistic pretensions, so that we enter and leave each scene. The moment when the protagonist is in the dark room, lighting his face only with his cell phone, moved us deeply.
CUARTO DE HORA
Steevens Benjamin · Chile
Because his work with the body, the face, and the gaze, throughout the complexity of a long take and a scene demanding pain, life, and death, is worthy of recognition. And because he gives a face to minorities made invisible in Latin American cinema.
LA ASISTENTE
Illari Pérez · Peru
We are witnessing impressive talent, a girl who gives us a restrained performance like that of actresses with years of experience. We believe in the future, in new talents, but above all, in refined forms of acting, which sometimes only a debutant can give us.
YA HANOUNI
Lyna Tadount, Sofian Chouaib · France
For its masterful storytelling, stripped of artifice. For its simplicity in making us think, in so little time, through a single shot and with very little dialogue, about life and death. But above all, for how it takes on a tragedy that is very current today and that we should all be talking about.
THE STEAK
Kiarash Dadgar · IRAN
For the precision, austerity, and rigor of a seemingly simple staging that nonetheless demanded courage and the supervision of many details. Because it is undoubtedly a proposal that takes risks. We see an author who portrays a tragedy in a way that leaves no viewer indifferent.
WIZYTA
Paulina Zając · Poland
Because we are convinced that it narrates a terrible reality that deserves to be made visible, and it does so in a very simple and moving way, which is coherent with its own discourse. It contrasts life and death in just a few minutes while bringing us closer to a culture so distant, without our failing to recognize the elements that make it such a universal story… the beautiful and naïve competition between a father and a mother who will not live to see their goal fulfilled is the saddest and most beautiful thing we saw in this edition.
YA HANOUNI
Lyna Tadount, Sofian Chouaib · France
Because in times of unjustified wars and a genocide to which we all bear witness day by day, it is a necessary and urgent film that portrays the tragedy of peoples under siege by power, hatred, and pettiness. And it does so forcefully and sensitively. A film that does not resort to cheap shots, but to the viewer's empathy, in a world where images of war seem normalized on social media.
THE STEAK
Kiarash Dadgar · IRAN
For tackling a current, relevant, and everyday subject—bureaucracy and borders—in such a fresh way. For entertaining us through a particular humor and unconventional characters that at the same time feel so natural and engaging.
EL DESEO DE MALEIWA
Orlando Jusayu, Jorge Enriquez Apshana
INMARCHITABLES
David De Luca Ferrini
LA ESTANCIA
Gabriel Jorge
DEVENIR
Judas Betancourt, María Redondo
LEJOS DEL MAR
Amanda Pérez Contreras
Its director, with a sensibility worthy of a poet, immerses us in an intimate exploration that delves into family ties, into the soul, revealing the beauty and melancholy in every corner and shadow of a space that is part of his life. A unique, genuine, and shamelessly personal portrayal.
LA NIÑEZ
Benjamín Cabrera
LEJOS DEL MAR
Samantha Castillo
LA ESTANCIA
Gabriel Jorge
WATUNNA
LA ESTANCIA
Gabriel Jorge, Ibrahim Alfonzo
CICLOS
Génesis Zambrano
The awards ceremony of Biencortos 2024. Four days of screenings culminated in the recognition of the most outstanding works.
Thanks to our sponsors, collaborators, and institutional partners who made Biencortos 2024 possible.
