Almost Paradise

Marseille, today. Trapped in the rubble of a collapsing building, Malik, a young Comorian, manages to escape but is arrested for drug possession. In prison, where a war between rival gangs is raging, he must quickly find allies. Massoud, a real estate developer with more or less legal activities, offers him protection in exchange for his loyalty. But Malik soon realizes that he is merely a pawn in Massoud’s game and that he will have to seize power to survive.

The story of Romulus and his twin brother Remus, in eighth century B.C. as seen through the eyes of three people marked by death, loneliness and violence.

Hel receives an invitation to visit her estranged twin Siri at an exclusive residential sanatorium set against the idyllic setting of the Italian Alps. Tension soon rises when Hel refuses Siri’s plea for help in taking care of some business by swapping places with her for a few days. Much to her horror, Hel wakes up the next day to find Siri gone. She soon realizes that Siri isn’t coming back, and that the clinic is far from a place of recovery.

In the Wild West in the 1860s and 1870s, Sarah and John have founded New Babylon, a city of outcasts of all backgrounds. Haunted by the murder of his family eight years earlier, Django is still looking for his daughter, believing she may have survived the killing. When Django shockingly finds her in Babylon, about to marry John, Sarah - now a grown woman - wants Django to leave fearing he'll put Babylon in jeopardy. But Django, believing the city is in danger, is adamant that he will not lose his daughter twice.

Samuel has spent the last few years in and out a juvenile detention center for the crimes theft, assault and drug dealing. Without a real family, he is placed in a rehabilitation program and under the supervision Vincenzo, a social worker undergoing a profound existential crisis: having lost wife in a car crash, Vincenzo is convinced work is pointless and he is frustrated by the performance the down and out rugby team that he coaches after work. When Vincenzo catches the boy in a scuffle, he becomes convinced that Samuel, despite never having played rugby, is the only hope for salvaging the team.

A girl tries to attune her breathing to the movements of her bow, arrow after arrow. But her sporting talent hides her need to retrieve a primitive, violent instinct, an archetype.

A short film inspired by the work of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.