13/10/2016 - The European Film Academy and EFA Productions selected the film by Maite Alberdi and Giedrė Žickytė for this year’s short film nominations

Back in June, the jury at the 56th Krakow Film Festival decided to give the Krakow Short Film Nomination for the European Film Awards 2016 to Lithuanian title I’m Not From Here, by Maite Alberdi and Giedrė Žickytė (read our review on Cineuropa Shorts here).

The film is the result of Lithuanian film centre collaboration with Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival‘s training and project development programme CPH:LAB, of which the Lithuanian Film Centre is a partner. Giedrė Žickytė says, “Me and Maite met each other by invitation from CPH DOX:LAB. It was like a blind date and we had to make a film together. We found we both were interested in the past and in collective mysteries of memory, especially the premise of forgetting. We wanted to explore how past can determine ourselves, even when we are not able to remember what happened yesterday. While researching, we learnt that in the first stages of Alzheimer’s, a person is likely to remember early childhood most clearly – in many cases, almost as if it is the present. We were thinking what this experience would be for an immigrant afflicted by the disease and decided to search for an European immigrant in Chile.”

The protagonist of the film is Josebe, a Basque woman who lives in a nursing home in Chile. Days slip by imperceptibly at this closed institution. Because of dementia, Josebe does not have an easygoing personality; she is stubborn and seldom manages to establish contact with other residents. Although the woman has lived in Chile for several decades, she still recalls her happy youth spent in the Basque town of Renteria. I’m Not From Here is a poignant documentary about old age and a desperate attempt at hanging on to the memories which are still very vivid.

The film was premiered at Switzerland’s Visions du Réel Festival, where it won Sesterce d’or Fondation Goblet for Best Short Film. The film has also been awarded at Sheffield Doc/Fest, Russia’s Message to Man, Budapest International Documentary Film Festival, Spain’s Documenta Madrid, Italy’s Concorto Film Festival and Spain’s Huesca Film Festival.

All the nominated films (read news on Cineuropa Shorts) will soon be submitted to the more than 3,000 EFA Members to elect the winner. The European Short Film 2016 will then be presented at the European Film Awards Ceremony on Saturday, 10 December, in Wroclaw.