While Bear Islands, a film by Martin Ryšavý, appears in the section titled Destination… Russia, it is in Trento where the 2010 Czech documentary enjoys its international premiere. The same section offers yet another Czech title – Into Oblivion by Šimon Špidla – which has already reached for several international appearances on board of East Silver Caravan this year. The third caravan title to settle in Trento festival programme is Andras Kollmann’s documentary biography Strong – A Recovery Story. The Hungarian Film entered the main competition with the promise to win one of the Golden Genetian awards and cash prizes up to 5000 Euro.
Among other East European films included in Trento Film Festival are also former caravan titles The Border (dir. Jaro Vojtek) and Village Without Women (dir. Srdjan Serenac), a 2009 Silver Eye nominee Chasm (dir. Wojciech Kasperski), as well as former East Silver Market docs My Beautiful Dacia (dir. Julio Soto) and We Need Hapiness (dir. Alexandre Sokurov, Alexei Jankowski).
60th Trento Film Festival
April 26 – May 6, 2012
Bear Islands
Director: Ryšavý Martin
Producer: Šlajer Vratislav
Production company: Bionaut Films
Medvědí ostrovy , Czech Republic, 2010, 62 min, HD, Creative, Nature, Reportage, Society
In "Bear Islands", director Martin Ryšavý continues his exploration of subjects related to the Sakha Republic, or Yakutia, Russia's Far Eastern Federal District. The film captures the life of residents in the remotest part of the territory, Nizhnekolymsky Ulus. Bear Islands are located in the East Siberian Sea at the mouth of the Kolyma River. The camera follows park rangers who take care of the nature reserve as they travel to an isolated polar station through the vast space where the past meets the present. A portrait of a landscape, its history and people who inhabit it.
East Silver 2010 / East Silver Caravan 2012
Into Oblivion
Director: Špidla Šimon
Producer: Berčík Pavel
Production company: Evolution Films, s.r.o.
Mrtvá trať , Czech Republic, 2011, 52 min, Beta, Creative, Experimental, Personal View, Social Issues
Stalin grasps a pencil in his hand as he prepares to draw a line on a map of the Soviet Union. Where the graphite touches paper, some 80,000 people - almost all of them gulag inmates - will build a railroad in the gruelling conditions of the polar taiga. It is a railway line of almost no strategic importance, built on permafrost and polar marshes, using limited technology and equipment. For four years, they will slave away, succumbing to exhaustion, illness, cruelty, and solitary confinement before, finally, the death of Stalin himself. In just a few weeks, there will be nothing left of their hectic activity except for empty camp barracks, old locomotives, bits of track, embankments, telegraph wires. All left to slowly return to the taiga…
Strong - A Recovery Story
Director: Kollmann András
Producer: Tősér Ádám
Production company: Borbálafilm Kft.
Eross , Hungary, 2011, 85 min, HD, Adventure and Sports, Health, Portrait
Zsolt Eross is the most successful Hungarian mountaineer. So far he has climbed 8 of the highest peeks in the world, Mount Everest among others. On 2nd of January 2010 he suffered an avalanche accident in the High Tatras breaking both his legs. Because of the unexpected complications of the open, splintered fracture and for the possibility of the early rehabilitation – as his own decision – his right leg was amputated from knee downwards. The movie illustrates a moving, human story of an injured person rising back to his feet, far overwhelming his character. He tells a universal story which can happen to anyone. Zsolt Eross - whose family name means strong in Hungarian - shows his strengths in this situation. He wants to return to the moutains as soon as possible. Few months after the accident he returns to the Himalayas to attempt Cho Oyu, the 6th highest peak in the world, but he had to realize that the accident weakened him more than he had thought.
The Border
Director: Vojtek Jaro
Producer: Homolka Mario
Production company: LEON Productions, s.r.o.
Hranica , Slovak Republic, 2009, 72 min, 35 mm, History, Personal View, Politics
During the night of August 30, 1946, the village of Slemence on the eastern European border, was divided by the Red Army into two parts. One part, Veľké Slemence, remained in Slovakia [former Czechoslovakia]; the other part was renamed Malé Slemence and became a part of Ukraine [in the former Soviet Union]. The absurdly demarked border, similar to the famed Berlin Wall, divides estates, the cemetery, and closest families up to this day. This documentary pictures the bitter experience of people from Slemence, who dream of the opening of the most closely-watched border of the European Union.
We Need Happiness
Director: Jankowski Alexei, Sokourov Alexandre
Producer: Lalou Serge
Production company: Les Films d'ici, Alexei Jankowski
Il nous faut du bonheur , France, 2010, 52 min, Digi Beta, Creative, Personal View, Portrait, Society
Torn apart by history, the Kurdish community comes back to life each year during the Spring festival, an ancient juvenisation rite that predates Islam. At the heart of our tale, we find Senia, an elderly woman - the head of a large family, living in the village of Gawilan Botan, in the region of Bardarash, about an hour’s drive from Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. The film is a picture of a Muslim community in the Middle East through the portrait of a woman, a woman who rules her family with an iron hand.
Chasm
Director: Kasperski Wojciech
Producer: Janicki Dawid
Production company: Vostok8
OTCHŁAŃ , Poland, 2009, 34 min, Digi Beta, Creative, Portrait, Society
An intimate portrait of gold fever. The gold-bearing mountains of Northen Siberia are the background for the Jack London style story: A Lonely Gold Seeker is looking for his Treasure. He is surrounded by unfriendly nature and by people he can’t trust. Being chased by his own fears, he breaks up with the whole world and shuts himself in the trap of his great passion/desire. In this analytical, unusually beautiful and almost wordless film, solitude and everyday pains make up the portrait of a man who knows the simplest and the most important truths.
Village Without Women
Director: Sarenac Srdjan
Producer: Robin-You Estelle
Production company: Les films du balibari, Mainframe Film Production
Selo bez žena , Croatia, France, 2010, 83 min, Digi Beta, HD, Creative, Social Issues, Society
In Southwest Serbia, atop a mountain and four kilometres from the nearest road, the Jankovic brothers hold down the fort in the womanless village of Zabrdje. Dragan, Zoran, and Rodoljub, along with their neighbour, Velimir, represent the entire population of what was once a vibrant rural community. They live in tough conditions. No running water, no roads, not even a hint of a woman’s touch. Not to mention, the three brothers still share the same bedroom. Zoran, the eldest brother, dreams of marrying a woman capable of handling life in Zabrdje. Can he fulfil his dream and renew hope in his village?
My Beautiful Dacia
Director: Constantinescu Stefan, Soto Julio
Producer: Soto Julio
Production company: Hi Film Productions, The ThinkLab
Mi Hermoso Dacia , Romania, Spain, 2009, 74 min, Digi Beta, HD, Arts and Culture, Politics, Social Issues
My Beautiful Dacia is a humorous essay on the Romanian odyssey from communism to capitalism as seen from the perspective of one of Romania's most charismatic symbols: Dacia, a simple and discreet automobile, but also a mirror of Romanian society. The film follows several Romanians whose lives are interconnected by this humble car, thus showing the present transformation of Romanian society from past to present.
