Benny Jaberg
Switzerland, Russia
2013 | 0:20:33

The Green Serpent takes us on a journey into the depths of intoxication: drinking vodka as a transcendental experience. Bitten by the green snake, people enter a twilight zone. The beauty of life becomes indistinguishable from a devastating void where inspiration and destruction equally form. During this cinematic anti-postcard trip through the Russian winterland, we meet the actor Aleksandr Bashirov, the poet Mstislav Biserov and the physicist Nikolai Budnev. They reveal their relationship with vodka; the inner struggles and the pursuit of divine spirits awakened by drinking. This brusque Cinepoem explores the potential of vodka to extend the world beyond religion and materialism. THE GREEN SERPENT is a meditation on drinking, an ode to passion not only for inebriated barflies, but for everyone driven by a sense of wonder and a desire for ecstasy.

Simon Beaulieu
Canada
2014 | 1:15:00

A visual spectacle that pays tribute to the Quiet Revolution, which effectively secularised Quebec, and one of the province’s greatest poets, the late Gaston Miron, a key figure of the Revolution. Director Simon Beaulieu has created a pastiche of archival footage from the National Film Board of Canada, offering a glimpse into the political and social turmoil generated by the nationalist and independence movements of the sixties, and scenes of life and industry. Excerpts from Miron’s poetry and speeches place his voice at the centre of the film, as a rousing prophetic figure championing separatism, Quebec’s people, and hope for the continued survival of its culture and spirit.