LT, DE

2016

80 min

Finished

Good Afternoon, Dear Aunt!

Liebe Tante, Guten Tag!

Directing: Vilma SamoulionyteJurate Samoulionyte

Synopsis

The creative documentary Good Afternoon, Dear Aunt! is the film, where two sisters from Lithuania – a filmmaker Jurate (32) and a photographer Vilma (37) – start the journey get to know about their German grandmother’s Ella’s hidden period through the WWII and few years after.
The German woman Ella Fink (the grandmother of Vilma and Jurate) was born in 1918 on the Lithuanian – East Prussian border (present Lithuanian – Russian border) before World War II. The story starts during the period of expulsions of Germans from Lithuania in 1941. All Fink family starts the journey to the West. German-born Ella Fink has an Lithuanian admirer Kazimieras. As the war is unsuccessfully going for Germans the refugees have to move deeper to Germany to avoid Russian army. During the journey towards West, Ella is brought back to Lithuania by force. Kazimieras and Ella do not meet - and Ella does not unite with her family in Germany. Ella stays alone in Lithuania, gets married just after 5 years and has children. Her German roots are hidden and never spoken of seeing how Germans are not particularly popular in the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 60s.
Film protagonists sisters in search of missing details of Ella’s biography discovers that in 1990 - Ella commits suicide when she is 72 years old. This fact becomes a secret in the family for many years.
Two sisters search for the reasons that influenced Ella’s decision and what led her to an unplanned and tragic reality. The story is revealed during the journey through past events, facts, discussions and investigations. Vilma and Jurate aim to break the silence: they want to know what happened to their grandmother. They begin a journey back in time and suddenly encounter a sad family history: for three generations, the women in their family had to endure unfulfilled love, as well as suicides. It is high time now to face the past.
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