A teenager, Christina, loses her friends in the forest. Looking for them she finds the bodies of three drowned kids on the shore of a lagoon.
On summer holiday, deep in the woods, three kids, cousins, are playing around a lake when they find a drowned young woman drifting in the water.
Games, lies and rituals unfolding into a circular time in which death loses its ultimacy. What is real and what is a mirage?
Who is dreaming and who is being dreamed?
DIRECTOR: Maria Luz Olivares Capelle
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Sebastian Thaler
PRODUCER: Silvia Winzinger
LENGTH: 30min
YEAR: 2016
COUNTRY: AUSTRIA
FORMAT: 2,39:1
SHOT ON: ARRI Alexa Studio (RAW)
PRODUCTION: Film Academy Vienna
• Diagonale – Festival des österreichischen Films, 2016 (Österreich)
• VIS – Vienna Independent Shorts, 2016 (Österreich)
• FUTURE FRAMES – Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, 2016 (Tschechien)
• 9. Lviv Wiz-Art Festival, 2016 (Ukraine)
• Brno Film Festival, 2016 (Tschechien)
• 15. Hyperfest International Student Film Festival, 2016 (Rumänien)
• 14. Tirana International Film Festival, 2016 (Albanien)
• 27. Ljubljana International Film Festival, 2016
• 61. Cork Film Festival, 2016 (Irland)
• 36. Filmfestival Max Ophüls Preis, 2017 (Deutschland)
• Nominierung zum Österreichischen Filmpreis „Bester Kurzfilm“, 2017 (Österreich)
Variety:
"Lenser Sebastian Thaler, son of Ulrich Seidl’s regular cinematographer Wolfgang Thaler, lights and shoots with a crisp, limpid immediacy that makes him a talent to watch. His work gives even the simplest shot a vivid yet pensive effect, whether he’s filming a nightclub scene, a yoga routine, a wide shot of salmon-colored tower blocks in Kiev, or resting on one of the principals’ faces to catch their quicksilver expressions." by Jessica Kiang (view orginal critic)
Diagonale '17:
"In a fragmentary film with few dialogues, in which much is not pronounced, the imagery takes over an important part of the narrative. In "Ugly", the audience is given a lot of space, in wide tableaus as well as in intensive close-ups. Through the symbiosis of spontaneous and unkitted, but at the same time highly composed images, the film develops a veritable pull that is difficult to avoid. Due to the variety of subjects, lighting scenes and compositions and the always surprising new perspectives, the film is always in motion despite its quiet narrative style." by Julia Drack, Michael Loebensetin & Holger Stern
Michael Ballhaus Awards:
"An intelligent and intuitive cameraman accompanies two outstanding actors, in long moving sequences, with an instinct for body language and facial expression" by the Jury of FIRST STEPS