Cold Wa(te)r, Paris by Night, Invisible State

SUBJECT: INVISIBLE STATE

Cold Wa(te)r
Portugal, 2004, 5:56 min                                                                                                   
director: Teresa Villaverde

Is there no one in the world who has chosen his or her place to be born? There are frontiers, which it is enough for one to stretch out an arm in order to cross them. What use is a frontier?
The European Union is growing, but may a set of countries grow by closing
itself off to other countries geographically next to it?
This short film is made up of images we see everyday on television and which pass by our eyes as though they were nothing but a Formula 1 racing car. They have been reworked, reframed and set to a slower speed.
Teresa Villaverde was born in May 1966 in Lisbon. In the 1980s she acted, co-authored and co-directed plays with the Fine Arts School Theatre Group. She made her first film as a director in 1991.
Defining Film:
THE MUTANTS (1998)
WATER & SALT (2002)
TWO BROTHERS, MY SISTER (1994)

Paris by Night
France, 2004, 4:50 min
director: Tony Gatlif

Three young adults freshly arrived in Europe underneath a truck.
They cross clandestinely, in the early morning.
Paris as it is depicted on postcards...
Tony Gatlif was born in 1948 in Algeria of Gypsy origin and French nationality he studied dramatic arts at Ecole de Beaux-Arts. Tony Gatlif received five-star reviews for his documentary of gypsy music, Latcho Drom (1993). He followed with Mondo (1997) and Gadjo Dilo (1997) again, a gypsy tale, this time fiction. Gatlif debuted with Les Princes in 1982, which received the Grand Prize Festival of European Film
Defining Film:
LATCHO DROM (1993)
SWING (2002)
VENGO (2000)
CHILDREN OF THE STORK (1999)

Invisible State
Ireland, 2004, 5 min
director: Aisling Walsh

"They are coming but they will not be welcome.  The only people pleased to see them will be their traffickers"
There is an invisible state in Europe that is made up of the thousands of nameless - stateless - and disenfranchised citizens. Refugees.  Asylum Seekers.  "The recycled.  The turned away."  They are prisoners.  They have no identity.  They have no rights.  They have no freedom. 
Gerard Mannix Flynn, prominent Irish author, playwright, and former inmate of Letterfrack and Daingean Industrial Schools, has written and narrates Invisible State.
Aisling Walsh graduated from the National Film and Television School in England. She then returned to Ireland to make the film, "Joyriders", her first feature, in 1989.
Defining Film:
SONG FOR A RAGGY BOY (2003)
SINNERS (2002) - TV
LITTLE BIRD (2000) - TV