Fulgurance

Questioning the suspicious death of his mother, a university professor and his enigmatic gardener descend into a hypnotic maze of mirrors and memories. As family secrets surface and painful truths emerge, they spiral toward a devastating reckoning with the darkness lurking within us all.

In 2000, following a century of American occupation, Panama regained control of the Canal Zone territory. A Panamanian soldier enters the old military bases for the first time. While assigned to clean an artificial lake, he stumbles upon a mysterious woman in the jungle. She is revealed to be the former leader of the Culebra community’s resistance who had once fought against forced displacement. Their encounter sparks a journey of personal transformation, forcing the soldier to confront his own roots.

Jamal Hindawi, a 50-year-old Palestinian, lives with his family in the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, where he makes political theatre. Together with a group of friends, he is working on a play that tells the story of an old jacket that symbolises the Palestinian identity. One day, after rehearsals, Jamal goes into the mountains with his friend Zreik, and on the way there he loses the jacket on a bus. A journey unfolds that takes Jamal from the mountains through Beirut, a city in radical transition, where successive crises and protests have left deep scars.

Belgian civil engineer Gustave Verniory still had a lot to learn when in 1889 he was hired to construct a railroad across the unspoiled natural landscape of Araucanía, a region that had recently become part of Chile. The tumultuous past and the ever-changing landscape are a constant background presence in Notes for a Film.