A short film about two friends playing ping pong shown at the Locust Valley Film Festival By Leone Bartolani
Social & External
Leone
Bilike has never seen a ping-pong ball before. He and his family live without electricity and running water in a solitary tent home among the vast steppe grasslands. The magnificent landscape here has changed little since the days of Genghis Kahn. But life in the middle of nowhere can be exciting for a young boy. The smallest of details become big events for curious Bilike and his best friends Erguotou and Dawa. The mystery of the small white ball floating in the creek leads to questions about the world around them, as well as innocent mischief.
Everyday a woman feverishly practices ping pong by herself. She play ping pong to distract herself from the reality of her life which includes the occasional sexual harrasment at work. A chance encounter one night slowly begins to change her world.
As children, the introverted Smile was being bullied by a gang of kids until the brash Peco comes by and chases all of them them away. Peco then takes Smile under his wings and teaches him how to play the game of ping pong. From there a life long best friend relationship comes into existence between these two polar opposite kids.
Shin and Joe, former ping-pong rivals who once faced each other in a national youth match, meet again years later on very different paths from the dreams they once had. They decide to play together once more — in an empty practice room, a match with no score, no audience, and nothing at stake. Yet through the quiet rhythm of the rally, they begin to revisit their past, listen to each other’s hearts, and rediscover what the game truly means to them.
Arthur “Art” Prince finds escape from his otherwise unremarkable life by dominating the “Sting-Pong" scene at a local underground club. However, when a mysterious challenger suddenly appears, Art is forced to confront his self-destructive tendencies.
A timid journalist's life spirals out of control when a routine interview with a competitive ping-pong team turns into a ruthless obsession with winning at all costs. As he rises through the ranks of the club, he alienates everyone around him, proving that in this game, the biggest losses happen off the table.
A unified team representing the two Koreas competed at the 1991 Chiba International Table Tennis Championships. It was the first such sport team since the division of the Korean peninsula. The unified team won the group competition event, beating the front runner, China.
A young journalist befriends a businessman and learns that after his dream of becoming a Ping-Pong player was cut short, he escaped to Hong Kong in search of a better life. Inspired by his story, the journalist decides to pursue her dreams.
After a freak accident leaves a young man in a surreal limbo, he must team up with a talking puppet to map a mysterious island from fragments of memory — a journey that forces him to confront his deepest regrets, reclaim lost connections, and decide if life is worth finding his way back to.
A middle-aged man walks up to young man who is sitting under a tree and shoots him. The film then flashes back to 1981, where a young woman steals a car with a baby strapped inside. She decides to raise the child as her own, and teaches him to shoplift from stores while she works as a prostitute. She strikes up a relationship with a convenience-store clerk, and the two eventually settle down together.
A disciplined new student slowly unravels as he begins to mirror the careless habits of those around him, losing pieces of himself in the process.
A look into the mind of a teenage girl as she reflects on her past mental health struggles.
After returning to Harringay for a supposed job interview, a young man drops in on old friends.
When her lifeline - a new technology for mental health - mysteriously vanishes, a reclusive young woman must infiltrate a chaotic underground rave scene to uncover the truth behind its disappearance.
Oskar is on the night train heading home after an interview in Stockholm. With a long night ahead of him, he makes eye contact with Ahmad. For the first time, he meets the gaze of someone who feels the same desire as he does.
During a nature retreat class, two incompatible students and their oddball instructor are forced to get along after everyone else drops the course.
Dustin, a lunkheaded college student, curates an evening of letdowns and unmade promises all while battling himself and his people-pleasing behaviors.
The relationship of a couple who meet by chance in New York City is put to the test when they encounter a life or death circumstance.
Pari, a 14-year-old girl, dreams of becoming a pilot while growing up in a society that doesn’t allow her to dream.
In revolutionary Iran, as fundamentalists tighten their grip on society, a professor secretly gathers seven of her most dedicated female students to read and discuss forbidden classics of Western literature, including Lolita and Pride and Prejudice. Based on the bestselling memoir by Azar Nafisi. A film by Eran Riklis starring Golshifteh Farahani (Paterson), Zar Amir (Holy Spider), and Mina Kavani (No Bears).
Anti-Catholic and anti-cleric policies in the Mexican state of Tabasco lead the revolutionary government to persecute the state's last remaining priest.
When a rebellious teen embarks on a solo summer journey to connect with her roots, she finds herself in a new world, geared up for the ride of her life, and discovers she had the drive in her all along.
On a whim, a greedy tycoon decides to corner the world market in wheat. This doubles the price of bread, forcing grain producers into charity lines and others further into poverty. The film contrasts the differences between the lives of those who work to grow the wheat and the life of the man who dabbles in its sale for profit.
Katy McLaughlin desires to work on her family's mountainside horse ranch, although her father insists she finish boarding school. Katy finds a mustang in the hills near her ranch. The headstrong 16 year old then sets her mind to tame a mustang and prove to her father she can run the ranch. But when tragedy happens, it will take all the love and strength the family can muster to restore hope.
Young, beautiful, talented Alexis Winston comes from nowhere to become a figure skating superstar. But her rise to stardom isn’t easy. She has to push herself, reinvent herself, and most painfully of all, leave her hometown boyfriend behind. When a tragic fall leaves her blind, she needs someone to believe in her, to love her; someone to convince her she has the strength to skate and dream again.
A young girl tries to help her grandfather, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, navigate his increasing forgetfulness, and ends up going on a remarkable adventure with him.
Inspired by a true story, Girl Fight recounts the harrowing story of a 16-year-old, stellar high school student whose life spirals downward when her former friends conspire to upload onto the Internet a shocking video of them beating her up.
A corrupt D.A. with governatorial ambitions is annoyed by an investigative reporter's criticism of his criminal activities and decides to frame the reporter for manslaughter in order to silence him.
When a brilliant nine-year-old working in a sweatshop gets a chance to attend school, she must make a difficult choice for her and her sister's future.
A nobleman vows to avenge the death of his father by the hands of pirates. To this end, he infiltrates the pirate band; Acting in character, he single-handedly captures a merchant vessel, but things are complicated when he finds that there is a beautiful young woman of royal blood aboard.
A young priest, Father Chisholm is sent to China to establish a Catholic parish among the non-Christian Chinese. While his boyhood friend, also a priest, flourishes in his calling as a priest in a more Christian area of the world, Father Chisholm struggles. He encounters hostility, isolation, disease, poverty and a variety of set backs which humble him, but make him more determined than ever to succeed.
A lonely typographer with a cruel speech impediment but an eloquent inner voice must face his greatest fear.
Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.
Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, has long ago disowned his son for marrying an American. But after the death of the Earl's remaining son, he decides to accept Cedric as his heir.
94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.
Jonathan is a young man with a strange condition that only his brother understands. But when he begins to yearn for a different life, their unique bond becomes increasingly tested.
Prerna, a teenager growing up in rural India, comes of age when she’s introduced to the sport of skateboarding. As a result, she has to fight the odds to follow her dreams and compete in the national championship.