A surreal meditation on the passage of time, Anteu tells the story of a teenager who finds himself the last surviving resident of a remote village. Portuguese director João Vladimiro blends myth, fiction and documentary realism to create an otherworldly parable. Produced by Portuguese production company TERRATREME (featured in FoR 2018), noted for their commitment to experimental forms of filmmaking, Anteu unfolds like a dream, unbounded by the conventions of narrative cinema.

A forensic reconstruction played out on 35mm film, Backyard stems from a 1998 photograph of a cactus field taken by director Khaled Abdulwahed near his home, southwest of Damascus in Syria. The picture is scanned, projected, dissected and passed through a 3D printer as Abdulwahed embarks on a meticulous process of reconstruction to create a version of the landscape in miniature. Confronting themes of borders, resilience and identity, Abdulwahed reflects on the aggressive military intervention and violence that has reshaped the terrain where the image was originally taken. 

Cryptic and compelling, Yalda Afsah’s Tourneur is an abstract study of the archaic tradition of French bullfighting. Through elliptical footage in which we only glimpse brief snatches of action – the bodies of young men taunting and running from a bull that periodically tramples into the frame – Tourneur removes the practice from its cultural and geographic specificity, transporting it to an abstract cinematic space. Afsah’s sound editing and use of music emphasise the sheer physicality of the event, silencing everything beyond the dance of man and bull.

This screening is followed by a Q&A with film directors João Vladimiro, Khaled Abdulwahed and Yalda Afsah.

£14 full, £12 concs.

Join the conversation on social media with the hashtag #FoR19.