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Film short abstract

In a coastal town in Calabria, southern Italy, a woman who prefers to remain anonymous breaks the silence surrounding the issue of abortion in the region.

Film synopsis

Denouncing the abuses of medical institutions through a poetic and experimental lens, Il silenzio dei melograni is a creative short documentary that attempts to shed light on the privileges and inequalities women face in accessing their own reproductive rights.

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Film short abstract

Sheep flocks in the Lake District are ‘hefted’ to the fell - overtime they developed an instinct to remain on a patch of land. Through intimate engagement with the process of craftsmen (farmers and people who create with wool), we learn/reflect on the ways in which they too are 'hefted' to the land.

Film synopsis

On the fells of the Lake District, sheep graze without being fenced in, yet they do not wander. Centuries ago, shepherds taught them the invisible geographical boundaries of their land. The flocks are now ‘hefted’ to the fell; meaning that over time, they developed an instinct to remain on this patch of land, otherwise known as their ‘heft’.

Today, the tradition of hefting is threatened due to the de-stocking of the fells in an effort to make way for re-wilding projects. While conservation measures continue to advance, it is vital to understand, at this moment of transformation, the ways in which people express their connections to the land.

I investigate this question through the medium of wool as a storytelling device. Yan Tan Tethera is the title of that story. This ancient method of counting sheep and stitches in the Lake District connects my two craftsmen, farmers and those that create with wool. With this in mind, I follow the journey of the sheep’s fleece as these craftsmen interact with it. From the sheep, all the way to the end woven product.

The Lake District is deeply important to me. My film serves to reflect on this place at this particular moment in time. To hear the stories of those who have built their lives there, those who feel bound up with the land, or in other words, 'hefted' to it.

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Film short abstract

A sensory ethnographic documentary about Jin Li, a 29-year-old autistic artist from South Korea, navigating family, art school, and a transnational art career. Through her painting and humming, the film explores how neurodivergent communication challenges normative ideas of relationality.

Film synopsis

The Cat that Lives in Your Dreams is a sensory ethnographic documentary about Jin Li, a 29‑year‑old autistic artist from South Korea, as she navigates family life, art school, and a transnational art career between Korea and New York. The film centers Jin Li’s painting and her distinctive humming as forms of embodied, non‑verbal communication, asking how neurodivergent ways of being challenge normative expectations of language, intelligibility, and relationality. Rather than framing her communication as a deficit to be “translated,” the film treats her painting and vocalizations as a legitimate, rich language in their own right, one that resists easy assimilation into neurotypical frameworks.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and collaborative filmmaking, the documentary traces how Jin Li’s communication is received, interpreted, and often pathologized in clinical, familial, and public settings, while also showing how she and her family actively claim and defend her way of being. In doing so, it engages with linguistic and medical anthropology on embodied difference, exploring how pain, sensory variation, and atypical sociality shape and are shaped by diverse ecologies of interaction. The film also examines the moral and epistemic polarization that arises when certain forms of communication are deemed credible and real, while others are relegated to the margins as unintelligible or obscure.

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Film short abstract

Loose Ends reveals a silent disaster in Dutch nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Care workers faced mass death, fear, and impossible ethical choices, while residents died isolated from loved ones. This film gives voice to experiences that were often left unseen.

Film synopsis

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a silent disaster occurred in Dutch nursing homes. Nursing home employees saw how elderly people died en masse and abruptly, often without being able to say goodbye to their loved ones. There were little to no tests or protective equipment available. Employees faced impossible choices. Because how do you take into account the one and a half meter distance measure, when you have to wash and dress the elderly? How do you provide good care and prevent the elderly from dying? These ethical dilemmas, uncertainty, and panic were investigated by Lianne (A.L.) Cremers and Cato Janssen of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam during a visual ethnographic study from October to December 2021. This research took place in collaboration with Dutch nursing homes and is part of the European-funded HERoS project. The aim of this project is to collect and share lessons learned and best practices from the COVID-19 crisis response in Europe.