Bizarre

Léo Mourey (France)
4:13 | Experimental

On an ordinary day, two garbage collectors are called in to clean and empty an abandoned house. Once inside the home, they are confronted with a disgusting display of garbage, fungus, mold and insects of all kinds. Everything's crawling, everything's moving, the house is alive. Yet, as they move forward, their appreciation of this biotope slowly shifts from disgust to fascination. From now on, all they have to do is enjoy the show.

About the Filmmaker

My name is Léo Mourey, I'm a french animation student. I am fascinated by uncontrollable growth and disgusting yet beautiful stuff!

Dead Trees

Annina Boogen, Nina Calderone, Michael Etzensperger (Switzerland)
14:00 | Documentary, Experimental

Unlike in most of the woodland of central Europe, in the Swiss National Park trees are left lying on the ground to rot away over decades. Since the park’s inception, this has been a hobby horse, a sign of unspoiled nature where humans have not intervened. The trees provide nourishment too for a fungus that is more than 1000 years old and has spread out over several hundred square metres. We roam the forest in search of the largest and oldest living creature in Europe and find instead an image.

About the Filmmakers

Annina Boogen, born 1986 in Zurich, Switzerland, is an environmental economist (PhD ETH Zurich) and an artistic researcher working with sound (MA in Transdisciplinary Studies, ZHdK). In her research-based practice, she is interested in social science issues, which she brings to negotiation and reflection through aesthetic strategies

Nina Calderone, born in 1989 is a freelance filmmaker and visual designer. In 2014 she graduated with a BA in Animation from the HSLU (Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts). 2021 MA in Transdiciplinarity from the ZHdK (Zurich University of the Arts). She is part of the Zurich-based illustration and animation collective Klub Galopp. She lives and works in Zurich.

Michael Etzensperger, born in 1982 in Winterthur, Switzerland, holds a degree from ZHdK (BA in Art and Media, focus Photography) and a MFA (Institut Kunst, FHNW Basel) in fine Arts. He has participated in various group and solo exhibitions in Switzerland and abroad. Michael Etzenspergers filmic work is usually non narrative with a strong tendency into abstraction.

Hematic Cultures

Anaís Córdova Páez (Spain / Ecuador)
2:20 | Experimental

After coating my own film with menstrual blood and silver for catching light, the film started to decompose on a period of 6 months during which I took samples of the micro fauna colonizing the film. I recorded the fungus growing on the film and then combine these images with intervened 16mm film. This performative experimental film is an exercise of thinking on the small ecosystems that exist on films and our bodies. It’s a sketch of mycelium and mycorrhizal connecting the film and the ecosystem.

Suggestion: watch with 3D glasses.

About the Filmmaker

Anaís is dedicated to reflecting on how politics, ecology, gender and moving images dialogue in the age of Internet. Her work puts care at the center as a way to challenge the processes of creativity in film production and exhibition. She has collaborated with artists and collectives from the global south. She is director of the short film Lubricas (2016) and the series Amazonia+Covid (2020). She holds a master's degree on film curating studies from Elias Querejeta Zine Eskola- San Sebastian/Donostia and was fellow from Flaherty seminar 2022. She is programmer of Equis Festival de Cine Feminista- Ecuador and has programmed in the Balkans, Spain, and Colombia. Anaís believes on science like an experiment and fungus like the future.

La Longue Pluie (The Long Rain)

Cassandre Léonard (France)
5:08 | Sci-Fi, Drama, Adventure, Other

A continual rain falls on the jungle of mold in which Mérove has crashed. In search of a shelter, waterspouts and increasingly intrusive mushrooms will put the endurance of the astronaut to the test.

About the Filmmaker

Coming from Lyon, France, I’ve always been interested in anime, cartoon movies and comics and I’m attracted by very different aesthetics. Whether they are on the edge of softness or in sharper registers, they often oscillate between the two, combining the strange and dreamlike to create fascination.

Lichen

Anita Pico (Spain)
13:20 | Adventure, Thriller

An ambitious botanist arrives at a mysterious island with her partner, ready for a little vacation. In the idyllic landscape, the young woman finds an unprecedented species in her field that drives her to madness.

About the Filmmaker

Despite her youth, Pico has participated in programs such as Screenskills Mentoring of the British Film Industry, the Widening the Lens Program of BAFTA Encounters Film Fest, or BBC New Creatives from BBC ARTS. In 2021, Pico is selected by the TV production company BANIJAY for its "Creators Incubator" talent residency, along with 15 other international talents in Cannes (France).
Pico currently works in Spanish TV productions as a scriptwriter while directing her creative studio with Ro López, Henfunk Studio, where they develop advertisements and fiction.

2023 Best of the Fest Award Winner

Of Dreaming

Brad Necyk, Gary James Joynes (Canada)
10:43 | Experimental

Of Dreaming is a meditation on an old-growth forest on Vancouver Island called Avatar Grove. It is currently adjacent to a land at threat from logging and has sparked a resistance called the Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek Blockade. When I sit and meditate in this forest, I imagine the network of Red Cedar and Hemlock roots weaving and knotting with mycelium exchanging nutrients and knowledge. I once read forests dream, and as I meditate, I wonder if I can dream with the forest and if we can fall into each other’s dreams, because sometimes falling is easier than resisting.

About the Filmmaker

Brad Necyk (PhD, MFA) is a visual artist, filmmaker, writer, and postdoctoral fellow in York University's Cinema and Media Arts department. His art, films, and writing deal with mental health advocacy. He is the co-founder and creative lead of the Psychedelic Puppet Show Non-Profit.

2023 Freshest Fungi Film Award Winner