A fox drawing a mysterious image. A tiger which is now extinct, pacing around in its cage. Rocks falling to the sound of the pumping bass. A wooden rod that tells the way. Will we dare to jump?

Q&A after the screening

Stick Climbing

Daniel Zimmermann

Austria, Switzerland / 2010, 14 min

A contemplative walk leads to a bizarre climbing tour. From the perspective of the climber we experience a seemingly impossible ascent.

Symphony No. 42

Réka Bucsi

Hungary / 2010, 10 min

Forty-seven brief but vivid vignettes about the paradoxical nature of our world, seamlessly intertwine perplexing scenes of poetical absurdism with the ironic, the grotesque, and the beautiful.

Le Tigre de Tasmanie

Vergine Keaton

France / 2018, 14 min

A Tasmanian tiger wanders around in his zoo enclosure. A glacier is slowly melting. Facing its predicted disappearance, nature exerts its fury, bursts over the frame and resists its extinction by transformation.

Step by Step

Ossama Mohammed

Syria / 1978, 23 min

In a rolling area of Syria, the villagers live their everyday life, in toil and poverty. Trapped between the hardships of farming, religious and political ideologies, they barely survive. Their children are the only ones that are still full of hope. They imagine their future lives and picture themselves as doctors or engineers.

Hopptornet

Axel Danielson, Maximilien Van Aertryck

Sweden / 2016, 17 min

On a 10-meter high diving tower, fear of taking the jump is pitted against the personal loss that would arise if you didn't dare. What do we look like when we hesitate and when we make a decision? What does it look like when we overcome our fear?

Hiwa

Jacqueline Lentzou

Greece / 2017, 11 min

In Jay’s dream, Athens’ sun is so weak, you can look straight at it, without getting blind.

17°33′22″ W, Pointe des Almadies, Dakar, Senegal, the westernmost point of Africa. It is here that KISSF begins the journey throughout this magical and yet unknown continent with the retrospective of three prominent Senegalese directors: ‘the father of African cinema’ Ousmane Sembène, one of the winners of the 1st World Black Arts Festival Ababar Samb-Makharam and the holder of the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival Joseph Gaï Ramaka.

Q&A after the screening

Borrom Sarret

Ousmane Sembène

Senegal / 1963, 20 min

Often considered to be the first authentic African film, ‘Borom Sarret’ tells the story of an impoverished cart driver working in Dakar. When he does not receive payment for his labor, the cart driver is left feeling disenchanted.

Et la neige n’était plus

Ababar Samb Makharam

Senegal / 1965, 22 min

After winning a scholarship to study in France, a young Senegalese man returns home and questions his experience and his future, with honesty, courage and humor.

Ainsi Soit-il

Joseph Gaï Ramaka

Senegal / 1997, 33 min

A foreign doctor discovers the “heart of darkness” in the Wolof village where he works, when a mentally ill child he befriends becomes the scapegoat for “bad spirits.”

How it feels for two wives to live under the same roof? What is poligamy about? How not to get lost in chaotic streets of Dakar? What can you find in its landfill? And why do Africans need wise men? And after all: is life in Senegal so different from ours?

Q&A after the screening

Xale bu Reer

d’Abdou Kharid Ndiaye

Senegal / 2017, 19 min

A young boy from an affluent family has the experience of a lifetime after his first day of school. When his father does not come to pick him up, he simply walks off. He gets lost and wanders without direction through the noise and chaos of a poverty-stricken metropolis. Unexpectedly, the boy receives help from an old scrap metal collector and a gang of street children. A striking portrait of Dakar, with elements of a fairytale.

Ordur de Momar

Talla Kandji

Senegal / 2018, 15 min

The life of a debt collector Kader turns upside down when he loses a bag full of money. The bag belongs to his boss. While looking for the lost possession, he discovers a huge Dakar landfill, Mbeubeuss. In this dramatic and somehow enchanted place, Kader meets Gnilane, a scavenger who tries to recycle the trash.

Un air de Kora

d’Angèle Diabang

Senegal / 2015, 26 min

Two new co-wives are alone in a house. They don’t want to talk to each other; at the same time, the voices of two other women tell us about their own experiences of polygamy. This film is an essay that mixes visual elements of fiction and documentary sound excerpts.

Boxing Girl

Iman Djionne

Senegal / 2016, 25 min

After getting hit by a motorbike, Adama, a bored 17-year-old hairdresser, finds boxing gloves. But when she puts them on, she gets mysteriously carried away on a journey all over the city of Dakar. Mentally and physically put to the test, she will have to fight her demons to face the ultimate fight…