East Silver Caravan at DOCAVIV

Ženy SHR, Czech Republic, 2010, 58 min, Beta SP, Current Affairs, Portrait

A documentary portrait of two women, who plays a very personal game with the fate of Horni Jiretin, a town endangered by coal-mining industry. With typical mixture of sensitive approach and irony the authors shows the whole case and uses both women, press agent of mining company and chatelaine/eco-activist, as their guides. Their personal stories mirror the current case of total liquidation of Horni Jiretin, small town that stands in the way of another coalmining.

East Silver 2010 / East Silver Caravan 2010

Sinee nebo. Cherniy hleb, Russia, 2010, 21 min, 35 mm, Creative, Personal View, Youth Documentary

It is summer, the harvest season. A festival of dust and light. The village is effervescent. Life flows by, peaceful and joyous. The image plays with time, the sound plays with space. A poetic gathering at an up-tempo rhythm, lively, swirling shots framing human beings and nature.

East Silver 2010 / East Silver Caravan 2010 / Silver Eye nominee 2010

Ģimenes lietas, Latvia, 2010, 58 min, HD, Drama doc, Portrait, Social Issues

"Family Instinct" is a film about incest - an illegal act, social taboo and a violation of religious norms. Zanda is a 28-year-old woman, worn out by hard work. Surrounded by poverty and despair, she is trying to survive with her two children in a god-forsaken Latvian village. Her hardships can be traced back to living in a relationship with her brother Valdis. When Valdis is put in jail, the local community forces her to make a difficult choice: to stay with him or with her children. Despite her ill fortune, she manages to express her love for the children, still hoping to save her family. The film offers a tragicomic but highly authentic insight into the bleak reality of Latvian countryside today.

East Silver 2010 / East Silver Caravan 2010 / Silver Eye Winner 2010 / Docu Talents from the East 2010

Nesvatbov, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, 2010, 72 min, Digi Beta, HD, Creative, Society

A situational documentary film about a village mayor trying to match local people in their thirties who are still single. Slowly but surely, the Slovak village Zemplínské Hámre is dying out. Its mayor, a retired general, doesn't want to give up though. Fighting the thirty-year-olds' loneliness, he has used various means such as offering a financial reward for each newborn child or encouraging people to make children in the local public address system. None of it has worked. However, the mayor has a new plan. He decides to organize a dating party for singles from all the neighbouring villages...

East Silver 2010 / East Silver Caravan 2010 / Silver Eye nominee 2010 / Docu Talents from the East 2010

Koniec Rosji, Poland, 2010, 72 min, Digi Beta, Society

Alexei is a nineteen year old recruit being flown in to perform his military service on the frontier of northern Russia. The base is one of few such remaining outposts on the Arctic Ocean. There are five other seasoned and long serving soldiers stationed here, each with their own personal story or secret that has caused them to retreat from the real world. Their training and breaking in of the new arrival is sometimes humorous, at times harsh. Gradually, they each reveal something of themselves in their daily interactions and private moments as they continue their absurd duty in this snow covered no man's land, hundreds of miles from the nearest human settlement.

East Silver 2010 / East Silver Caravan 2010 / Silver Eye Winner 2010 / Ex Oriente Film 2006 / East European Forum 2006

Katka, Czech Republic, 2010, 90 min, 35 mm, HD, Creative, Longitudinal, Portrait

Helena Třeštíková's film is a remarkable documentary tracing fourteen years in the life of a young junkie and her futile battle with drug addiction. Why did she start taking drugs? She claims she wanted to be different. The year is 1996 and 19-year-old Katka lives in the Sananim therapy community in the town of Němčice with hope for a normal life – she dreams of having a boyfriend and even a family, some day. But there's no happy ending. The director records Katka's descent over the years into a spiral of theft, prostitution, physical and psychological deterioration – a spiral that is broken only by brief flashes of hope and resolutions to stop taking drugs. Katka's desire is sincere, but in the end drugs always win. Will Katka finally find the strength when she becomes pregnant and motherhood offers her life-sustaining motivation?

East Silver 2010 / East Silver Caravan 2010 / East European Forum 2007 / Docu Talents From the East 2009

Cinema Komunisto, Serbia, 2010, 100 min, Digi Beta, HD, Arts and Culture, Creative, History, Politics, Society

When reality has a different script from the one in your films, who wouldn't invent a country to fool themselves? Using rare footage from dozens of forgotten Yugoslav films, as well as never-seen-before archive from film sets and Tito’s private screenings, the documentary recreates the narrative of a country, the stories told on screen and the ones hidden behind it. Stars such as Richard Burton, Sofia Loren and Orson Welles add a touch of glamour to the national effort, appearing in super-productions financed by the state. Tito’s favorite film director, his projectionist who showed him films every night for 30 years, the most famous actor of partisan films, and the director of the film studios who was a secret policeman – all tell how the history of Yugoslavia was constructed on the screen.

East Silver 2010 / East Silver Caravan 2010 / East Silver TV Focus 2011 / Docu Talents From the East 2008