Stories, characters, emotions and relationships.
The films gathered in the Cinema & Narrative category place storytelling at the heart of their approach. Through fiction, cinematic documentary or hybrid forms, they use shibari as a narrative language, exploring intimacy, connection, vulnerability and transformation.
Across diverse aesthetics and perspectives, these works invite us to follow journeys, encounters and lived experiences, revealing the many ways rope can inhabit a story and become part of a cinematic world.
Portrait of desire
By Nina Degraeve - With Nick Van de Vel and Romina Remmo - (Belgium)
For one night, artist Romina Remmo invites us to experience the sensation of her suggestive work, imbued with eroticism and femininity. Exploring the imagination and the hidden side of the artist, the film takes us into a labyrinth of thoughts and fantasies where desire brushes up against violence and where seduction borders on suffering.
Anthos
By Maartje Hensen - With Jessis Yingying Gong and Vincent Theunissen (The Nederlands)
In a burned landscape, two bodies lean toward the earth, becoming porous to what grows. Bound, touched and entangled, “anthos” unfolds as a quiet meditation on regeneration, intimacy, vulnerability and care.
Tar n' TINO ROPE SHOW
By Chady Smith - With Faust Shibari and Daria - (France)
A sultry journey through ropes, cinema, and raw aesthetic tension.
Inspired by the universe of Quentin Tarantino, Tar N’ Tino RopeShow reinvents the codes of shibari through an intense and unapologetic cinematic staging. The audience will recognize iconic moments inspired by different movies that helped shape the creation of this show. The performers deliberately push away from traditional shibari to deliver a more narrative, immersive, and provocative experience. Each scene pays tribute to Tarantino’s signature atmosphere, visual tension, and some of the kinks that define his unique artistic world.
This performance does not aim to reproduce conventional shibari. Instead, it embraces a hybrid artistic approach blending visual performance, cinematic homage, and entertainment for a mature audience.
Dur a queer
By Cyanhur - With Cyanhur and Rei Hino - (France)
Rémy Hino, a shy young man invited to a party, falls for the host at first sight. But Dédéconstruit, surrounded by women, seems already quite busy… and Rémy, well, his heart is already in knots.
Shibari Snow
By Alex BG - With Martin Tercia and Jane Tonic - (Canada)
Errance symbolique du passage d’un état vers un autre.
