MakeDox - Creative Documentary Film Festival
June 15 - 24, 2011
Skopje / Macedonia
Winner: Onion Award for Best Film in the International Competition
The Czech documentary film Katka by Helena Třeštíková won the Onion Award for the Best Film in the International Competition at this year’s MakeDox. This film, having caused a deluge of reactions that have both disturbed and amazed the audience, according to the jury comprised of Nadja Veluscek, Thomas Logoreci and Ivica Dzeparovski, is the winner due to its fierce and straightforward treatment of a drug issue. "It is our belief that Katka adheres to the documentary form in its purest incarnation, with few tricks and effects, that we find perfectly suitable for a subject of this nature," the jury said.
Katka
Katka , Czech Republic, 2010, 90 min, 35 mm, HD, Creative, Longitudinal, Portrait
Helena Třeštíková's film is a remarkable documentary tracing fourteen years in the life of a young junkie and her futile battle with drug addiction. Why did she start taking drugs? She claims she wanted to be different. The year is 1996 and 19-year-old Katka lives in the Sananim therapy community in the town of Němčice with hope for a normal life – she dreams of having a boyfriend and even a family, some day. But there's no happy ending. The director records Katka's descent over the years into a spiral of theft, prostitution, physical and psychological deterioration – a spiral that is broken only by brief flashes of hope and resolutions to stop taking drugs. Katka's desire is sincere, but in the end drugs always win. Will Katka finally find the strength when she becomes pregnant and motherhood offers her life-sustaining motivation?
East European Forum 2007 / Doc Launch 2009 / Catalogue of Upcoming Czech Documentary Films 2010 / East Silver 2010 / East Silver Caravan 2010
Winner: Onion Award for Best Newcomer
The Young Onion Award for the Best Newcomer was given to the aforementioned film which tells the tale of the President of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, and his way of running the country, shown through the development of the film industry. Agneta Morgen, Truls Lie and Atanas Georgievski, members of the jury, said that they were amazed at the way the director had made an important story from former Yugoslavia about film used as propaganda by Tito. "A precise way of combining archival material supplemented by commentaries from today."
Cinema Komunisto
Cinema Komunisto , Serbia, 2010, 100 min, Digi Beta, HD, Arts and Culture, Creative, History, Politics, Society
When reality has a different script from the one in your films, who wouldn't invent a country to fool themselves? Using rare footage from dozens of forgotten Yugoslav films, as well as never-seen-before archive from film sets and Tito’s private screenings, the documentary recreates the narrative of a country, the stories told on screen and the ones hidden behind it. Stars such as Richard Burton, Sofia Loren and Orson Welles add a touch of glamour to the national effort, appearing in super-productions financed by the state. Tito’s favorite film director, his projectionist who showed him films every night for 30 years, the most famous actor of partisan films, and the director of the film studios who was a secret policeman – all tell how the history of Yugoslavia was constructed on the screen. 2 x 52' version also available.
Doc Launch 2008 / East Silver 2010 / East Silver Caravan 2010
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