Distant lights draw the city. Shining ships arrive with sleeping people and the night turns liquid. The stars’ sower wakes them up and they travel through the city, talking about this and that, while saying goodbye to everything.
English Title The Sower of Stars Year of production 2022 Length 25min Country Spain Shooting Format HD Aspect Ratio 16:9 Dialogue Japanese Director Lois Patiño Writer Lois Patiño Cinematographer Lois Patiño Editor Lois Patiño Sound Designer Xabier Erkizia Voices Yumiko Teramoto, Tetsuro Mareda Festival selections Berlinale, Berlin International Film Festival 2022 Germany - World Premiere, Nomination For The European Film Academy Awards 2022 FICUNAM - Festival Internacional de Cine UNAM 2022, Mexico Vilnius International Film Festival “Kino Pavasaris" 2022, Lithuania FICCI: Festival Internacional De Cine De Cartagena De Indias 2022, Colombia Festival de Málaga 2022, Spain IndieLisboa - International Film Festival 2022, Portugal Las Palmas International Film Festival 2022, Spain Jeonju International Film Festival 2022, South Korea D'A Film Festival 2022, Spain Play-Doc - Festival Internacional de Documentales 2022, Spain Documenta Madrid 2022, Spain Mieres International Short Film Festival 2022, Spain - Best Director Award, Best Editing Award International Film Festival Kino Otok - Isola Cinema, Slovenia Leiden Shorts 2022, Netherlands Cinema Jove - International Film Festival Valencia 2022, Spain Manlleu Film Festival 2022, Spain Lago Film Fest 2022, Italy European Film Festival Palić 2022, Serbia Hong Kong International Film Festival 2022 Seoul International Alt Cinema & Media Festival 2022, South Korea New York Film Festival 2022, USA Shorts México - Mexico International Short Film Festival 2022 Tirana Film Festival 2022, Albania Festival Internacional de Cinema de Bueu 2022, Spain - Best Galician Short Film Award Camden International Film Festival 2022, USA Festival du nouveau cinéma de Montreal 2022, Canada - Dada Award (Best International Short Film), Les Nouveaux Alchimistes Section Reykjavik International Film Festival 2022, Iceland Filmfest Sundsvall 2022, Sweden Abycine - Festival de Cine de Albacete 2022, Spain Alcances- Festival de Cine Documental de Cádiz 2022, Spain Curtocircuíto - International Film Festival 2022, Spain Underdox - Festival für Dokument und Experiment 2022, Germany Lima Alterna International Film Festival 2022, Peru Mediterranean Film Festival 2022, Bosnia and Herzegovina Kaohsiung Film Festival 2022, Taiwan Linea d’Ombra Festival 2022, Italy - Jury Special Mention Festival Internacional de Curtas de Belo Horizonte 2022, Brazil Imagine Science Film Festival 2022, USA Viennale - Vienna International Film Festival 2022, Austria Festival Internacional de Cine de Mar del Plata 2022, Argentina Cinema South Festival 2022, Israel Caminhos Film Festival 2022, Portugal Antofacine - The Antofagasta International Film Festival 2022, Chile Baku International Short Film Festival 2022, Azerbaijan - Best Documentary Film Award Festival de Cine Frontera Sur 2022, Chile Kyiv International Short Film Festival 2022, Ukraine - Special Mention Mente Locale - Visioni sul territorio 2022, Italy - Sound and Territory Award Passaggi d’Autore: intrecci Mediterranei 2022, Italy Laceno d'oro International Film Festival 2022, Italy - Laceno d’oro Award “Gli Occhi sulla città" Zubroffka Short Film Festival 2022, Poland - Special Mention Transcinema Festival Internacional de Cine 2022, Peru Bogoshorts - Bogotá Short Film Festival 2022, Colombia Ningbo Short Film Festival 2022, China Festival du Court Métrage de Clermont-Ferrand 2023, France Sanfici - Santander Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente 2023, Colombia - Best International Short Film Award Ribalta Experimental Film Festival 2023, Italy Website Lois Patiño
Director's Statement Tokyo at night is dazzling, a fantasy of hypnotizing lights. Observed with distance and stillness, if you let yourself be carried away by them, you can find a meditative atmosphere there. The first thing I tried to capture was this peaceful feeling, hidden within the vertigo of a megalopolis like Tokyo.
I worked on the image with two plastic references that emerged very quickly: Zen landscape painting -from where I could underline the idea of emptiness and silence- and the cyberpunk aesthetics of films like Blade Runner -to build futuristic neon architectures by superimposing planes-.
From this atmosphere I began to think the story. I am always interested in the limbo space between life and death, imaginary and real, where the borders between both blur to make the spectral and dreamlike emerge. I wanted the story to pass through this ideas, giving shape to it from a dialogue of disembodied voices. Voices that cross the city-limbo while being both outside and inside the image, as a kind of depersonalization.
I constructed the dialogues from a certain poetic crypticism inspired by the koan -mystical teachings of Zen Buddhism-. And they gradually settled down, from readings, in a script more of an editor than a writer, like a book of aphorisms that keeps little jewels. Very condensed thoughts related mainly to contemplation, because this was the biggest challenge for me here: to find a balance between narration and contemplation, between text and image, ensuring that they enhance each other, despite each one demands a different attention from us: one more sensitive, the other more rational.
