Brother and sister Alexandre and Jeanne look back on their childhood following the brutal murder of their mother, a Portuguese political refugee. As adults, they attempt to reconstruct their relationship after being separated and forced to grow up in different places. Recounted through letters and remembered fragments, their traumatic past inescapably bleeds into the present. Alexandre works as a police detective, investigating a series of murders identical to that of his mother, whilst Jeanne, a dancer, strives to recover her lost identity. Can the love of another woman help her to rebuild a sense of belonging, and can brother and sister escape the past that continues to haunt them? The film’s strangely hypnotic trajectory weaves together reality and fantasy, lived and remembered in a complex layered narrative. Beautifully shot in luscious Super-8 and 16mm, and alternating between black and white and colour photography, West Point’s images elegantly translate a sense of fractured identity and emotional alienation.

Screening with:

1, 2, 3

• Siobhan Jackson /
• Germany, Australia /
• 2009 /
• 15 mins

Mesmerising and deeply affecting portrait of troubled lives and hearts. A couple, apparently newlyweds, find themselves in the middle of a field. The viewer is told nothing about them but simply observes their detached interactions with the landscape and must bear witness to the strange, inexplicable course of events that unfolds.

Director: Siobhan Jackson
Producer: Sanne Kurz
Scriptwriter: Siobhan Jackson
Editor: Siobhan Jackson
DoP: Sanne Kurz
Production Designer: N/A
Sound Production: N/A
Music: Nick Batterham

Horse Camp

• Ella Gallieni /
• Austria /
• 2008 /
• 11 mins

Like the other films in this programme, Horse Camp goes beyond conventional narrative structures to create a strange world that seems to exist outside normal experience. Filmed in a series of intricately composed tableaux, seemingly banal actions and events take on surreal qualities.

Director: Ella Gallieni
Scriptwriter: Ella Gallieni
Editor: Ella Gallieni
DoP: Florian Krügel
Sound Production: Lukas Gnaiger