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Bulgaria
THE BLACK SEA PIRATES AND SIR NORMAN FOSTER
Director: Svetoslav Stoyanov
Co-author: Vanya Rainova
Producer: Anna Stoeva, AGITPROP Ltd.
The last Bulgarian pirates inhabit a remote Black Sea beach, getting by on questionable means, swimming in alcohol fumes, testosterone, and rugged tenderness. Meanwhile, in a London high-rise, a world-renowned architect sketches a large private marina where the pirates’ lone wooden boat now rests. With strong government backing, it seems that an exclusive green development will span thousands of hectares of what are now protected territories replacing the pirates’ old trailer. In this clash of two diametrically opposite civilizations emerges a contemporary real-life story about the choices we make, the treasures we hunt, and how they change our lives here and now.
Croatia
HUNTING BEARS
Director: Marko Rukavina, Marko Prpic
Producer: Jana Śivak, Nukleus U.
The idea of the film is to follow several artists who are involved in graffiti art, all around the world (US, UK, France) to show their aims and hopes, their problems, obstacles they face when doing their art, as sometimes they might even end up in jail. Through their explanations of how the art works, we would like to form some sort of visual lexicon of the art that is very present, but very marginalized.
Czech Republic
FILTERING MY DESTINY
Director: Tereza Tara
Producer: Lubomír Konečný, endorfilm
Filtering My Destiny is a film about kidneys, based on personal experiences of the director herself, following her on the journey from sickness to health and well-being. It shows the physical, mental, symbolic and spiritual aspect of the disease with its sociological and historical implications and puts forward various ways of simple self-treatment inspired by traditional as well as complementary medicine. If there is any chance to heal ourselves without being dependent on pills, we have the right to know it!
LAND BESET BY DARKNESS
Director: Rozálie Kohoutová
Producer: Martina Knoblochová, FAMU, Hypermarket Film
Land Beset by Darkness talks about how we actually create a relationship to our landscape. The story is based on a journey of two different people in a the strange, historically troubled region of Sudetenland - abandoned by its natives - the Germans - after WWII and not really inhabited until today. The film tells a story of a lunatic painter from a local asylum and a director of the film, a girl, who spends her every summer holidays- her childhood in this region, who plan to make a image of the landscape together. The film describes, using the visions and fantasy of these two people, how the relationship to a certain landscape, they don’t originaly belong to, is being created.
YALLAH! UNDERGROUND
Director: Farid Eslam
Producer: Dana Wilson, Mind Riot Media s.r.o.
A documentary about the blooming cultural underground scene in the Middle East aimed to introduce different aspects of Arab culture and lifestyle unknown to most people in the Western World. Throughout the Middle East young artists start to emerge and develop new interesting projects in all different fields of culture (music, fashion, arts, etc). They challenge the differences between modern global youth culture and their traditional Arab culture and try to find a way to combine these differences. They not only have to struggle with certain conservative restrictions of their own society but also with prejudices and misinterpretations in the Western world, which leaves them often with a feeling of isolation and being stuck in the middle.
Georgia
RESTAURANT BAKHMARO AND THOSE WHO WORK THERE
Director: Salome Jashi
Producer: Anna Dziapshipa, Nino Orjonikidze, Sakdoc Film
A concept made absurd - two cast off women are stuck in the Soviet pop art of a provincial town restaurant. They have become part of the building which resembles the whole country desperate for survival. This building, where the colorful restaurant is located, is a microcosm, a model of the country. It is a chaotic place that houses a diverse mix of people - Chinese men who run a shop here, refugees from the war zone. Even a dog has found shelter in one of the corridors and a dentist has his office in the building's fanciest room.
Hungary
DISCO TRANSIT
Director: Gergő Somogyvári
Producer: Sára László, Campfilm Ltd.
Obligations, obligations, obligations. Always running, always behind schedule, never a minute to relax, to do nothing. Spending one day in the Debrecen Refugee Camp, these thoughts suddenly lose their negative connotation and at least for some time, we become grateful and relieved for having things we have to do. Doing nothing, long term. How to capture the collective depression of a group of people stuck in the same situation. This is what this film is trying to do, by emphasizing the contrast between everyday’s “nothing” in the provincial refugee camp and a Saturday night disco in the capital through the eyes of three young Muslim refugees.
Latvia
LARGER THAN LIFE
Director: Gints Grube
Producer: Inese Boka, Mistrus Media Ltd.
Larger than Life is a film about one of Europe’s best theatre directors, Latvian-born Alvis Hermanis, and his distinctive directing method, which is marked by a renunciation of classic dramatic material and a search for points of contact between theatre, documentary art, and life stories. In his work, Hermanis seeks possibilities for transforming life stories into theatre. Working in different European theatres he sends his actors on expeditions to the countryside to meet with different people, in order to form a collective work—a play—from their stories. When perfected by the actors, this “theatre of observed reality” becomes fiction.
Lithuania
CAUGHT IN TRANSITION
Director: Goda Rupeikaite, Bram Crols
Producer: Goda Rupeikaite, Studija 2
Every change is a transitional momentum within time, caught between past and future. The present moment is there to be faced, with homage to the past, and respect for the future. The transition is eternal, time does not change people. It just unfolds them. Caught in Transition connects a few different stories, distinct, but nonetheless related, as all characters reflect the ‘state of change’, the constant balance between the capability and incapability of transformation. These stories combined create a panorama on the human attempts to handle the unnoticeable mysteries that are generated within every transition.
THE FIELD OF MAGIC
Director: Mindaugas Survila
Producer: Giedre Beinoriute, Jurga Gluskiniene, Studio Monoklis
The Field of Magic – that is how the dump people call the Kariotiškės dump. They work here, build houses, interact with friends, cook, celebrate, grieve, have fun. Theirs is a special subculture that reminds of a small nation with their own traditions, customs, way of life and philosophy. On March 15, 2008 the old dumping ground was closed, and no one is allowed to enter the new one, surrounded by a tall fence of barbed wire. The struggle for survival begins. This is a long-term observation film, telling about the daily life of the dump people and changes in their destinies brought up by the closedown of the dumping ground.
Romania
DRACULATURA
Director: Cecilia Felmeri
Producer: Róbert Lakatos, Argo Audiovisual Association
The film is a 26-minute animated documentary about what the people of Dracula’s homeland know about this Hollywood created myth which became global and in which they don’t even believe? We also want to show how the Transylvanian people feel about exploring Dracula’s myth by the Dracula tourist tours. This inevitably leads to a mix of historical truths and imaginary facts which also gives us the opportunity to reflect in an ironic way on the present transition of the eastern European nations into the economic market society.
LONESOME SPRINGTIME
Director: Laura Capatana Juller
Producer: Alexandru Solomon, Hifilm Productions
Lonesome Springtime is a story about loneliness and the need for love told by urban teenagers, who live on their own for years. Their parents work abroad and raise them over the telephone or internet. They meet hardly more often than once a year. The adolescents get all what they desire: money, the latest cell phones or clothes. But that has its price: emotional poverty. Hundred of thousands of children live like that in Romania.
Serbia/Germany
DRAGAN WENDE – WEST BERLIN
Director: Vuk Maksimovič & Lena Müller
Producer: Lena Müller
Vuk is a young Slovako-Serbian filmmaker hoping to make a fresh start in Berlin. His uncle Dragan Wende wants to help him and introduces him to an unforeseen Berlin underground: suddenly, a bizarre and surreal world of fallen millionaires, old playboys, forgotten music stars, pimps, hookers and criminals are to become Vuk’s new everyday reality. Two generations of immigrants and two worlds collide against the backdrop of an unknown West-Berlin that looks beamed straight from 1982. While trying to remain sane himself, in Dragan Wende - West Berlin Vuk intimately observes the life of a burnt-out and crazy man who refuses to live in the present. This man is his uncle. A complex relationship unfolds.
Serbia
RUN FOR LIFE
Director: Mladen Matičević
Producer: Mladen Matičević, Starhill d.o.o.
Run for Life is a story about three Ethiopian athletes who had participated at Podgorica half-marathon in November 2007 and afterwards decided to stay in Serbia and applied for political asylum. When Zoran Molović, a former Yugoslav athletic champion found out about their situation, he took them from the refugee camp, found them accommodation in the village of Pambukovica and became their coach. There the athlets train, wait for Serbian citizenship and hope that one day they will run for Serbia at world competitions. Should they return to Ethiopia, they would face poverty, war, and even jail. This is a film about their expectations, hopes, about their struggle with the situation, sorrow for their families but also about how Serbia will accept them.
Substitutes:
Note: The projects are listed alphabetically by country and not in any order of preference.
Armenia
THROUGH THE EYES OF THE DONKEY
Director: Arman Yeritsyan
Producer: Vardan Hovhannisyan, Bars Media
Hungary
FLOURISHING NEW CITY CENTER
Director: Klara Trencsenyi
Producer: Akos Toth, Titania Master Pro
Romania
THE LUCKY ONES
Director: Andreea Bogdan
Producer: Csilla Székely, Argo Audiovisual Association
Serbia
I'LL MARRY THE WHOLE WILLAGE
Director: Zeljko Mirkovic
Producer: Zeljko Mirkovic, Tamara Dinic Mirkovic, Optimistic Film
