RESULTS OF THE FEBRUARY-MAY PRESELECTION COMPETITION
Official selection for the 2022 Dumbo Film Festival

NARRATIVE FEATURE
Runtime: 01:20:03
Director and writer: Gordon Kämmerer
Producer: Gordon Kämmerer and Staatstheater Cottbus
Cast: G. Kämmerer, Marie Rathscheck, Max Thommes, Lisa Schützenberger, Boris Schwiebert, Lucie L. Thiede, Markus Paul, Sophie Bock
FOREST REBELS
A young Berlin play-director team comes to the “Staatstheater Cottbus” to try out a play about the Germans and their forest. A documentary team is on site to accompany this process on film. But the rehearsals are not going as planned.

NARRATIVE FEATURE
Runtime: 01:12:48
Director: Kat Mills Martin
Writers and producers: Nigel DeFriez, Kira Pearson, Kat Mills Martin
Cast: Nigel DeFriez, Kira Pearson, Kat Mills Martin, Nigel DeFriez, Kanoa Goo, Dominique Toney, Maria Krovatin
WAKE UP, LEONARD
This is the story of a broken-hearted seeker with a tenuous grasp on his mental health, but an admirable faith in the Universe. Will Leonard learn how to not only love his higher self, but his lower self too?

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Runtime: 01:04:00
Director: Vincent Liota
Producer: Vincent Liota, Sally Roy
Cast: Robert Krulwich, Heidi Julavits, Rick Rawlins
OBJECTS
‘Objects’ follows three unique people who have held onto things which have gained incredible meaning for them over decades. These objects are not things they flaunt. They are things that touch them secretly…a fifty-year-old clump of grass, a sweater that once belonged to French actress, and a forty-year old sugar egg.

SHORT NARRATIVE
Runtime: 00:17:26
Director and writer: Tumpal Tampubolon
Producer: Mandy Marahimin
Cast: Muhammad Umar
THE SEA CALLS FOR ME
Sura lives alone in the fishing village, waiting for his father to return home. When one day he finds an inflatable sex doll, he finds a companion and a surrogate parent. But this companionship is threatened by Argo, who wants to take it away from Sura.

SHORT NARRATIVE
Runtime: 00:22:48
Director and writer: Aleksandra Odić
Producer: Stanislav Danylyshyn
Cast: Vicky Krieps, Aenne Schwrz, Geno Lechner, Horst Günter Marx
FRIDA
An encounter between a young nurse and her patient of the same age, Frida, on the border of professional distance and the desire for closeness.

SHORT NARRATIVE
Runtime: 00:21:18
Directors and writers: Vincent and Alena Turturro
Producers: Alena Turturro, Jerome Raim, Daniel Hanson
Cast: Tammi Cubilette, Kenny Borland, Giselle, Baraka and Segun Fapohunda, Zerabruk “Z” Cavallaro
GERI AND RICK
Two over-the-hill hustlers find themselves sharing confidences, reflecting on past failures, and observing the shifting sands of their neighborhood – and the world at large. An unexpected transcendent experience allows them to set aside their differences and make a human connection.

SHORT DOCUMENTARY
Runtime: 00:11:00
Director and writer: Joey Izzo
Cast: Max Baumgarten, Ian Bratschie, DeMorge Brown, Phil Burgers
YOU’VE NEVER BEEN COMPLETELY HONEST
This short hybrid-documentary uses animation and reenactment footage to bring to life Gene Church’s original, never before heard audio from an interview where he recounts the harrowing physical torture and brainwashing that he endured at a secretive 4 day business seminar in California, 1970.

SHORT DOCUMENTARY
Runtime: 00:11:21
Director and writer: Christina Leonardi
Producers: Christina Leonardi, Scott Sweitzer
Cast: Philip Leonardi, Irene Leonardi, Dana Lombardi, Len Lombardi
A TABLE IS AS GOOD AS NINE LIVES
Through conversations with her elderly family members, the filmmaker unearths the spirit and traditions of her Italian family using archival footage spanning several generations. A love letter to the memories that connect us to our past.

EXPERIMENTAL
Runtime: 00:10:13
Directors and producers: Meg Case and Brad Porter
Cast: Meg Case
MESHES OF THE AFTER
Meg Case and Brad Porter’s work explores a personal cinema at the intersection of the collective unconscious, exploitative power structures, and the continual becoming of each person through the liberating medium of experimental filmmaking.

EXPERIMENTAL
Runtime: 00:06:33
Director and Producer: Nina McNeely
Cast: Karen Chuang, Diana Schoenfeld, Angel Mammoliti
ONCE THERE WAS III
3 women bound to a shared soul oscillating between the throes of brutality and piety. A visceral display of true sisterhood- they suffer together, thrive together and bleed together.

ANIMATION
Runtime: 00:14:00
Director: Ülo Pikkov
‘TIL WE MEET AGAIN (Taaskohtumine)
An animated documentary about an old lady who returns home after sixty years. The film is based on a true story and taking place on a remote island of Baltic sea.