13th Annual DocuWeeks
Theatrical Documentary Showcase
July 31 - August 20, 2009
Los Angeles / New York
DocuWeeks provides documentary filmmakers with week-long theatrical engagements in Los Angeles, CA and New York, NY that meet qualification requirements for AMPAS consideration. DocuWeeks premiered in 1997 as DOCtober, and over the past 12 years, DocuWeeks has qualified over 133 short and feature length films yielding 16 nominations and seven Oscar winners. Some of the past documentaries in DocuWeeks include Oscar winners Smile Pinki (2008), Taxi To The Dark Side (2007) and The Blood of Yingzhou District (2006), as well as Oscar Nominees The Betrayal, War/Dance, Salim Baba, and Sari’s Mother.
Rabbit à la Berlin/ Mauerhase | 2009 | 40’& 51’ | creative documentary
Germany, Poland 2009
Director: Bartek Konopka
Producer: Anna Wydra
Script: Bartek Konopka, Piotr Rosołowski
Cinematography: Piotr Rosołowski
Editor: Mateusz Romaszkan
SFX: Grzegorz Korczaky
Sound: Franciszek Kozłowski
Music: Maciej Cieślak
It's an important lesson of history that a system of order intended to produce one result will often give birth to something entirely unexpected. So it was with the Berlin Wall, which was, in fact, two separate walls, one on the east and one on the west with a 120-kilometre strip of land between them. The enclosed patch was unintentionally converted into a kind of rabbit reserve as the walls encircled the lush green meadows of Potsdamer Platz and cut its rabbit population off from both escape and predators. But then one day the walls came down and the rabbits were suddenly freed from a restrictive system, albeit one to which they had become accustomed. Told in the style of a nature documentary, with a captivatingly dreamy tone and a tongue-in-cheek nod to the story's allegorical significance, Rabbit à la Berlin provides a fascinating history lesson told through the eyes of animals.
The film was developed at the 2005 Ex Oriente Film workshop; it was also presented at the 2008 Docu Talents from the East.
Rabbit à la Berlin is Polish-German coproduction of Anna Wydra MS Films, Telewizja Polska and ma.ja.de Filmproduktion, MDR, RBB in association with ARTE, YLE, Lichtpunt, VPRO. Film is supported by Polish Film Institute, MEDIA Programme and Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing. The film was developed within following programs and workshops: Nipkow Foundation, Ex Oriente Film, IDF and the Discovery Campus Masterschool (now Documentary Campus).
Awards: 16th Hot Docs, Toronto, Canada: The Best Mid-Length Documentary Film Award; 6th Planete Doc Review, Warsaw, Poland: Magic Hour Award for the best mid-length film; 49th Krakow Film Festival, Poland: Grand Prix - The Golden Hobby-Horse and The Bronisław Chromy Sculpture for the Best Producer of Polish short and documentary films for Anna Wydra
Rabbit à la Berlin will be screened at the IFC Center in New York between the 7th and the 13th of August in the Short Docs section with 9 other titles.
Screenings:
Fri 8/7 4:47 PM
Sat 8/8 6:37 PM
Sun 8/9 8:32 PM
Mon 8/10 4:47 PM
Tue 8/11 6:37 PM
Wed 8/12 8:32 PM
Thu 8/13 1:22 PM