Docs at goEast, Caravan’s films in competition

Pismo tati , Serbia, United Kingdom, 2011, 48 min, Digi Beta, HD, Creative, Personal View, Portrait, Society

"Hey Dad, you died suddenly." The filmmaker, trying to make sense of the way his father chose to die, opens several boxes, all that is left behind. The forgotten photos, letters and home videos take the film back to the 1970s Yugoslavia, when his parents became lovers. But the journey through the years, to family members, lost friends and places, reveals the lingering horrors of the recent Balkan wars still tearing people and families apart. A film that, in the most immediate way, questions the individual responsibility of ordinary people caught in the winds of war.

East Silver 2011 / East Silver Caravan 2012 / Silver Eye nominee 2011

Mrtvá trať , Czech Republic, 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…

East Silver 2011 / East Silver Caravan 2012

The Boy Who Was a King , Bulgaria, Germany, 2011, 90 min, HD, Creative, History, Politics, Portrait

A story of one of the most fascinating monarch figures in contemporary history - Simeon II of Bulgaria, cousin to the House of Windsor and a descendant of William the Conqueror. From his adventurous life as an exiled boy king who became a symbol of hope for a small European country, to his glorious return as a Prime Minister of Bulgaria after half a century of Communist dictatorship. This "happy-end" Balkan version of Princess Anastasia’s story will tell the real life fairy-tale of one of the greatest experiments of democracy today. The film tells its story through the people - by discussing a single contemporary historical figure, they tell us about themselves, their dreams and hopes, the dreams of a whole generation. It is a film about hope, faith, myths, reality, history, social anthropology and the long journey of democracy back home in Eastern Europe.

East Silver 2011

Tonia i jej dzieci , Poland, 2011, 54 min, Digi Beta, Docu drama, History, Human Rights, Portrait

11-year-old Werka and her 9-year-old brother Marcel wind up at the front door of a children's home in Wrocław. Asked who they are, Werka replies, "We are the children of communists." In return the teacher yells, "Why do they only send us Judeo communists?" It is 1949. Werka's and Marcel's mother, a pre-war communist, is arrested and charged with collaborating with American intelligence. She will do five and half years. Her children will spend these years in children's homes. A film about a brother and a sister marked by the ideological choices of their parents.

East Silver 2011 / Silver Eye nominee 2011

Netavi iq Teatri aris?! , Georgia, 2011, 55 min, HD, Creative, Experimental, History, Portrait

Soviet Union - tragic destiny of people who lived in this system, reflected in the biography of the great actor Kakhi Kavsadze. The film depicts the chronicle of a big family- family of great folk singers and their life ordeal, which reflects the lives of millions who lived in former USSR. These people participated in the World War II; wound up in concentration camps of Nazi Germany and afterwards in concentration camps of USSR... Kakhi is a clown and a tragic actor, a singer and a dancer simultaneously. The film resembles a mono play, where Kakhi embodies every person that had passed in his life: his Granny and Stalin, himself at the age of 10 and his mother. He is telling the audience about totalitarian system and the stories how people helped each other to survive. The documentary narrative is enriched by the elements of a feature film. Similarly to a drop of water which reflects the world, Kakhi Kavsadzes’ stories reflect the lives of people who lived in the former USSR.

East Silver 2011

Bakhmaro , Georgia, Germany, 2011, 58 min, HD, Social Issues, Society

A journey into a lively, yet desolate building in a provincial Georgian town. It once used to be a hotel called ‘Bakhmaro’. At the center of the building there is a restaurant with its walls covered in bright green and orange plastic foam and where the tables are set waiting for customers who rarely come. A Chinese shop, slot machines and a political party office can also be found here. The building is a microcosm sodden with the constant anticipation of change. It is a model of one troubled country with its endless demonstrations and opposition rallies. At the same time the backdrop of political situation only mirrors the life people live here.

East Silver 2011 / Silver Eye nominee 2011 / Doc Launch 2010 / East European Forum 2009 / Ex Oriente Film 2009

Qalebi saqartvelodan , Georgia, 2008, 53 min, Digi Beta, Human Rights, Social Issues, Society

Levan Koguashvili follows a group of illegal immigrant women from Eastern Europe's Georgia working in atrocious conditions in the United States in an effort to support their families back home. Exploring the women's stories and examining their lives in New York and New Jersey , Koguashvili reveals why they exist as ghosts in an alien culture in order to take care of children, spouses, siblings and parents.

East Silver 2009