The third day of the festival brings stories of what remains – after fights, after losses, after trying to understand the world and ourselves. In three programme blocks – AFTER ALL, BOLD BATTLES and TIMELESS STORIES – we explore the traces left: those that hurt, those that comfort, and those that testify human endurance.

AFTER ALL gathers films that look at those left behind – the forgotten, the unspoken of, the unseen. These are the tales from the margin, but tales of endurance, of people that quietly find a way to be seen. AFTER ALL reminds us that the care for the other starts the moment we decide to see them.

BOLD BATTLES bring the struggles within and without. The quiet ones, but also those that rebound in the society. Films in this programme open up themes of sexual violence, digital vulnerability, identity and performativity. Each battle, no matter the size, is bold – and is capable of healing through truth.

TIMELESS STORIES bring us back to the basic questions of human nature and belonging. In three films, the essence of life overcomes boundaries of space and time and reminds us that circumstances change, but not the human need for closeness, understanding, and love. Films in this block connect the past with the future, the reality with the dream, and show that the human story never stops – it just changes its shape.

AFTER ALL

Dry Clothes

While the border divides lives, Nada collects discarded clothes and restores humanity to those everyone else has forgotten.

Our Shadows

The sky occults bad omens. Where nature is despised, people disappear, trees fall and the sun is devoured

Run, Monnie, Run

Monica runs and trains alone every day. She was born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. In her early teens she started running and participating in sport competitions. It become her life purpose. When Monica loses at World Championships, she returns to her hometown and waits for some change in life. The film director forms a close relationship with her and strongly believes that Monnie will succeed.

Sphere Supreme

Follow Arama, guided by a mystical pomegranate tree, meeting a mysterious man. Along the way, Arama faces parts of himself, slowly putting together the puzzle of his identity. But before he is able to put everything together, will he manage to keep himself in one piece?

Till Tomorrow

One day in the life of two brothers reveals the harsh contrast between the cold four walls of their home and fleeting moments of peace. On their way from school to home, they have no idea what challenges await them behind closed doors. Amid constant conflict and a broken family, they discover that despite their differences, their bond is their greatest certainty.

BOLD BATTLES

Caught in 4K

CAUGHT IN 4K: Someone is captured in 4K, high definition, caught red-handed on the internet. Eleven-year-old Ava is home alone. She skilfully presents herself online. Takes Selfies. Dances. Puts on make-up. TOM_X12 likes this.

Yet Another One

Vida Skerk was supposed to be the future of Croatian cinema until she decided to continue her studies in London due to sexual harassment by a professor at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. Through Vida’s story the film shows how the Croatian film community treats victims of sexual violence.

Pillow talks

Luna, woman of 25, decides to meet men for relationships outside traditional couple rules. She lives with the trauma of a violent ex-boyfriend. She doesn’t understand men’s behavior, and finds herself stuck in unsatisfying, objectifying and violent relationships.

Projekt Nika

The relationship between a young influencer and her mother, who is also her manager, is the center of the film. Through the two perspectives of the main characters, we follow Nika’s transition from adolescence to adulthood. Everything is uncertain, except for her desire to become famous.

TIMELESS STORIES

Esca

On a rainy day, two schoolgirls from opposite boarding schools meet. Under the immobile gaze of two giant statues, they begin to lose track of time, as the rain seems never to stop…

Koka

The story centres on an intimate relationship between Koka and his father Stas that live on the edge of Chukotka, the shore of the Bering Sea. The harshness of the local climate and living conditions determines not only the life cycle of its inhabitants, but also dictates its own specific forms of love, expression and devotion. Stas is a harsh parent, but it seems that this strictness comes from the desire to prepare him for the future life in difficult circumstances. The knife that Stas teaches Koka how to use appears more than once in the frame throughout the film. A ritualistic object that will pass from father to son, a metaphor for survival in the harsh tundra. In the same relationship love is omnipresent and found on the edge of the Arctic Circle. Love hidden somewhere in the depths of the harsh inhabitant of the tundra. Stas raises his son alone and tenderness reveals in moments of intimacy. It’s a story that brings up questions of the patterns of upbringing, whether it is possible to harden human will, not by force (even if the circumstances seem to demand it), but by the soft power of love, which can create an even more powerful inner strength but break the pattern.

Their Eyes

How does a machine learn to read the world? Testimonies and screen recordings introduce the experience of online micro-workers from the Global South: their job is to teach the AI of self-driving cars to navigate the streets of the Global North.

The third day of STIFF closes the journey over the traces left after everything – after the battles that form us, and stories that defy time. As the festival draws to its end, we finish looking for traces, arriving to the understanding that what is left – memory, vulnerability, and love – is what left the biggest trace.

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The International Student Film Festival — STIFF is organized by Filmaktiv and the Student Cultural Center of the University of Rijeka, in co-organization with Art-kino and with the support of the Croatian Audiovisual Centre (HAVC), the City of Rijeka, Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, the Rijeka Tourist Board, the Serbian National Council, the Council of the Serbian National Minority, and the Goethe-Institut Kroatien. The work of Filmaktiv is supported by the Kultura Nova Foundation and the National Foundation for Civil Society Development.