The short documentary animation Chronicle of Oldřich S. will enjoy the third appearance at North American festival grounds, which makes it one of the most successful East Silver caravan titles this year. On top of that the 2012 Silverdocs documentary film festival is presenting Chronicle of Oldřich S. together with the latest Helena Třeštíková’s documentary Private Universe, an East Silver Caravan member since March. Silver Spring festival will see Private Universe contest in the international Sterling World Feature Competition, attempting to reach for the Sterling Award after last year’s success of the caravan title Family Instinct (dir. Andris Gauja, Latvia, 2010).
Founded ten years ago, AFI-Discovery Channel's Silverdocs takes place June 18 - 24, 2012 near Silver Spring, Maryland. The programme is split into sections for US films, international features and shorts.
This year, the Guggenheim Retrospective will focus on the work of Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger who made several docs together, including the 1992 award-winning Brother's Keeper and a few music-themed films...
Music docs will open and close the festival - Don't Stop Believin': Everyman's Journey by Ramona Diaz and Big Easy Express by Emmet Malloy.
The following East European documentaries will be presented in competition:
Private Universe
Soukromý vesmír , Czech Republic, 2012, 83 min, 35 mm, Longitudinal, Personal View, Social Issues
Honza was born in 1974 into the cheerless era of socialism in Czechoslovakia. At that time, his parents Jana and Petr lived in one room in the apartment of Jana's divorced mother and her widowed grandmother. A few years later, the family moved from Prague to Liberec where Petr found a job and a little house for the family. When Honza was born, his father began writing a family chronicle and he has continued to do so for 37 years. “Family Diary“ shows not only the life of one ordinary family but also how the Czech society has changed in the last four decades. Who are we, where do we come from and where do we go?
East Silver / East Silver Caravan 2012
Argentinian Lesson
Argentyńska lekcja , Poland, 2011, 56 min, Digi Beta, Creative, Personal View, Society, Travel
In 1998 Wojciech Staroń made the documentary film "The Siberian Lesson". The film told the story of a young teacher who emigrated to the vicinity of Lake Baikal in order to teach Polish deportees’ descendants their native language. Many years later, as a married couple with two children, the director and his wife are leaving for Argentina. For their little son, this trip will not only be an encounter with an unknown language. Influenced by their Argentinian friend, Janek enters the fascinating world of imagination, and is introduced to the bitterness of childhood prematurely contaminated by the problems of grown-ups.
Chronicle of Oldřich S.
Kronika Oldřicha S. , Czech Republic, 2011, 18 min, DVD, HD, Animated, History, Personal View, Politics, Social Issues
Mr Sedláček was writing one-sentence entries in his chronicle from 1981 to 2005. The chronicle includes everyday stories of his and his family's life (Today our Gypsy neighbour Gina broke my hand. I was taken to hospital in Mladá Boleslav), the life of the village and its surroundings (A man called Bartoš, 32 years old, killed his wife, 30, today in Příšovice and threw her body into the pond) as well as international events (L.I. Brezhnev died today). The real chronicle has more than two thousand daily notes. The authors picked two hundred and used about eighty of them for the screenplay. These eighty notes provide a concentrated overview of Mr. Sedláček's life and of our society. English voiceover by Jan Triska will be available soon.
East Silver / East Silver Caravan 2012
Amateur Filmmaker
Kinaamatar. Vosenski Son , Belarus, 2012, 27 min, Creative, Portrait
81-year-old documentary filmmaker Anatoly Antonovich lovingly films the last surviving residents of a dwindling village in Belarus. Like the lonely attic cabinet brimming with Anatoly’s films of bygone days, these old farmers, who were young during Stalin’s time, mutely guard their memories even as the world has forgotten them.