In addition to her 2011 animated documentary film Crulic – The Path to Beyond, Crossing Europe's Tribute to Anca Damian screens her previous documentary film To Be Or Not To Be and the short Faces. The section Artist in Residence introduces the work of filmmaker Heidrun Holzfeind, including her latest film Behind the Iron Gate.
East Silver Caravan’s A Letter to Dad (dir. Srdjan Keca) and The New World (dir. Jaan Tootsen) will be featured in the Panorama Docs section, while a special section dedicated to animated documentary shorts will include Leonid’s Story by Rainer Ludwigs. Other titles from the East Silver Caravan selection are available to industry guests in the festival’s videotheque.
Crossing Europe, Austria
April 24 - 29, 2012
East Silver Caravan titles in the programme:
A Letter to Dad
Director: Keca Srdjan
Producer: Keca Srdjan
Production company: National Film and Television School
Pismo tati , Serbia, United Kingdom, 2011, 48 min, Digi Beta, HD, Creative, Personal View, Portrait, Society
"Hey Dad, you died suddenly." The filmmaker, trying to make sense of the way his father chose to die, opens several boxes, all that is left behind. The forgotten photos, letters and home videos take the film back to the 1970s Yugoslavia, when his parents became lovers. But the journey through the years, to family members, lost friends and places, reveals the lingering horrors of the recent Balkan wars still tearing people and families apart. A film that, in the most immediate way, questions the individual responsibility of ordinary people caught in the winds of war.
East Silver 2011 / East Silver Caravan 2012 / Silver Eye nominee 2011
The New World
Director: Tootsen Jaan
Producer: Kilmi Jaak
Production company: Kuukulgur Film
Uus Maailm , Estonia, 2011, 86 min, HD, Creative, Politics, Society
How to create an urban living space? How to change the world/your neighborhood? How to make the revolution? This film is about the New World Society, a citizens’ initiative in Tallinn, Estonia. The New World is an observational documentary. It follows the main characters and the dynamics of their revolution from the very beginning of it - four years ago. We see euphoria, passion, compromises, frustration, hurt feelings and broken hearts. It is the anatomy of one revolution.
East European Forum 2009 / East Silver 2011 / East Silver Caravan 2012
Leonid's Story
Director: Ludwigs Rainer
Producer: Ludwigs Rainer
Production company: IMAGE-BUILDING
Istoriya Leonida , Germany, Ukraine, 2011, 19 min, DVD, Animated, Environmental, History, Human Rights
A Soviet family searching for a modest paradise is swept into an immense disaster. Chernobyl 1986. Leonid grew up in the village next to the reactor. The film comprehends the development of this world disaster through the destiny of the protagonist and his family. The small episodes reconstruct the emotional dimension of the tragedy: The children who run to the burning reactor, getting a look at the spectacular drama, the unsuspecting village people in the surrounded area, the animals which remain behind after the evacuation, and the helpless tries of mankind to eliminate the impact of the nuclear disaster, accompanied by the faceless Soviet system. In the end there is a happy ending: The triumph of life over the disaster.
East Silver 2011 / East Silver Caravan 2012 / Silver Eye nominee 2011
Tribute to Anca Damian
Crulic - The Path to Beyond
Director: Damian Anca
Producer: Damian Anca
Production company: Aparte Film, Magellan Foundation
Crulic - Drumul spre dincolo , Poland, Romania, 2011, 69 min, 35 mm, DCP, Digi Beta, HD, Animated, Drama doc, Human Rights, Social Issues
The animated documentary feature "Crulic - The Path to Beyond" tells the story of Crulic, a 33-year-old Romanian who died in a Polish prison while on a hunger strike. The story is told from the point of view of Crulic, in the present tense, after his death. A strong visual style, the result of beautifully blending hand-drawn collage, stop-motion and cut-cut animation techniques, create a striking, surprisingly integrated and memorable film.
East Silver 2011 / Silver Eye winner 2011
To Be or Not To Be
Director: Damian Anca
Producer: Damian Anca
Production company: Editura Video
A fi sau a nu fi , Romania, 2007, 86 min, DV, Arts and Culture, Human Rights, Society
This movie is about a theatre troop from the high-security penitentiary of Arad. Who are the "actors", this long line of names, of IDs, of sentences, of guilts...? What's happening to them, and to us, the people who are watching them sentenced by our own fears, dependences, preconceptions? And after all, where does real freedom, genuine guilt, true repentence, or real theatre, exactly stand?
East Silver 2007
Artist in Residence
Behind the Iron Gate
Director: Holzfeind Heidrun
Producer: Burger-Utzer Brigitta
Production company: sixpackfilm
Za Żelazną Bramą , Austria, Poland, 2009, 55 min, Digi Beta, HD, Personal View, Social Issues
The film portrays everyday life in the communist era housing estate Za Zelazna Brama (‘Behind the Iron Gate’). The housing estate was built by a team of architects between 1965-1972 in the center of Warsaw on the ruins of the so-called Small Ghetto. The 19 blocks, each 16 floors high, are based on modern rational principles. They were occupied by workers, functionaries, academics and the Warsaw intelligentsia. In the 1970s the housing estate was considered a symbol of Polish socialist prosperity and technological progress. Today the small apartments are regarded by many as substandard and an unpleasant reminder of the communist era. Since 1989 many post-modern apartment buildings, office towers and hotels are being built in between the blocks, destroying green areas and the original lay-out of the housing estate.
East Silver 2010