Among the selected titles are the following East Silver Caravan titles and former Silver Eye Award nominees: A Letter to Dad by Srdjan Keca, the director’s family history, tracing his father’s Balkan war story; Outro by Julia Panasenko, a deeply moving film capturing the last moments of her friend's dying on cancer; Salome Jashi’s portrait of a decaying building and its inhabitants titled Bakhmaro; ES Caravan's Our School about Roma school in Romania, made by Mona Nicoară and Miruna Coca-Cozma, or Pawel Kloc’s Phnom Penh Lullaby.
Trieste Film Festival will also feature Filip Remunda’s recent documentary The Epochal Trip of Mr. Tříska's to Russia – a humorous insight into contemporary Russian society; or Lithuanian The Field of Magic by Mindaugas Survila, which was presented during our Baltic co-production day last year in Jihlava.
Trieste Film Festival, Italy
January 19 - 25, 2012
Selected East Silver titles at Trieste IFF:
Outro
Director: Panasenko Julia
Producer: Panasenko Julia
Production company: VEDA Film Studios
Outro , Russia, 2010, 43 min, DV, Health, Portrait, Social Issues
There are two weeks left before a meeting with her mother. There is one month left before death. But the first frightens her much more.
East Silver 2011 / Silver Eye nominee 2011
A Letter to Dad
Director: Keca Srdjan
Producer: Keca Srdjan
Production company: National Film and Television School
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
Our School
Director: Coca-Cozma Miruna, Nicoară Mona
Producer: Nicoară Mona
Production company: Sat Mic Film, Motto Pictures
Şcoala Noastră , Romania, Switzerland, USA, 2011, 93 min, 35 mm, Beta, HD, Creative, Human Rights, Social Issues
Alin, Beniamin, and Dana fighting to overcome racism as they are moved from a dead-end Roma school into a mainstream Romanian school. Alin falters in isolation, while Beniamin finds the strength to stay on in the friendship of Romanian classmates. Dana abandons school for early marriage and motherhood. Shot over four years, the film follows the workings of race relations from close up. The hand-held camera allows for the complex construction of scenes, lingering on whispered exchanges between children during class and using the evocative settings of the small Transylvanian town to convey the subtle shifts in atmosphere that come with fear of change and unresolved, long-standing racial tension.
East European Forum 2006 / East Silver 2011 / East Silver Caravan 2012 / Silver Eye nominee 2011
Phnom Penh Lullaby
Director: Kloc Pawel
Producer: Kloc Pawel
Production company: Parallax
Kołysanka z Phnom Penh , Poland, 2011, 103 min, HD, Creative, Personal View, Portrait, Social Issues
Everyone holds a secret. The secret of the future. Phnom Penh Lullaby is an intimate story of a man looking for love and acceptance. Ilan Schickman left Israel dreaming of a new life. He now lives in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, with his Khmer girlfriend Saran and daughters Marie, 2 years old, and Jasmine, 6 months, trying to make ends meet as a street fortune teller.
East Silver 2011 / Silver Eye nominee 2011
Bakhmaro
Director: Jashi Salome
Producer: Deckert Heino
Production company: Sakdoc Film, ma.ja.de. Filmproduktions GmbH, Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, YLE - Finnish Broadcasting Company, Ikon, TVP Kultura, ETV
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.
Doc Launch 2010 / Docu Talents from the East 2010 / East European Forum 2009 / Ex Oriente Film 2009 / East Silver 2011 / Silver Eye nominee 2011
The Boy Who Was a King
Director: Paounov Andrey
Producer: Bozhilova Martichka
Production company: Agitprop Ltd., Zero One Film GmbH, BR - Bayerischer Rundfunk, Channel 4, TSR - Télévision Suisse Romande, YLE - Finnish Broadcasting Company
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
The Epochal Trip of Mr. Tříska's to Russia
Director: Remunda Filip
Producer: Ketkovich Vlad, Plešák Pavel
Production company: Czech TV
Epochální výlet pana Třísky do Ruska , Czech Republic, 2010, 57 min, Digi Beta, Creative, History, Travel
Few years ago teacher Jaroslav Tříska found his grandfather's legionary diary. His grandfather spent several years in a russian captivity during the First World War. Jaroslav takes grandpa's diary and sets out on his life journey. The route goes exactly in the footsteps of grandfather's journey, following the axis Prague – Moscow – Yekaterimburg – Novosibirsk – Chita. On his journey he reveals not only external changes that have occurred during the time. He also tries to find answers to the questions - Is Russia a democratic state? What form of democracy is it, where journalists are beeing shot and Putin still seems to be dangerous.
East Silver 2011
The Field of Magic
Director: Survila Mindaugas
Producer: Beinoriute Giedre, Gluskinienė Jurga
Production company: Monoklis
Stebuklų laukas , Lithuania, 2011, 62 min, DCP, Human Rights, Personal View, Social Issues, Society
The Field of Magic is a docu-poem about people living for over two decades in Buda forest near the closed down Kariotiškės dump, 40 km from Vilnius, Lithuania. A result of four year's work, the film captures the perspective of the dump dwellers in telling the story of a dissolving community, its uniqueness, daily rhythm, peculiar way of life, every-day joys and sorrows.
East European Forum 2009 / Ex Oriente Film 2009 / East Silver 2011
Vortex
Director: Szekeres Csaba
Producer: Pál Sándor
Production company: Hunnia Filmstudio, The Open University
Örvény , Hungary, 2009, 76 min, HD, Social Issues, Society
Filmed over a period of six months, this social documentary feature film shows the lives of Roma families in a small village in Hajdu-Bihar county, North-East Hungary, close to the Romania border. Unemployment is close to 100% in this community, and the isolation, poverty and discrimination against Roma create a situation in which families find it hard to live decent lives. The film focuses on the experiences of three families, following the various hardships and setbacks they faced over this period. Problems of illness, poor living conditions, lack of basic amenities and even house collapse combine with fears of children being taken into care, with ever-present challenges of finding enough food, and wood to heat their houses. This creates a situation in which hope is hard to find and in which children suffer as well as the adults. Solutions are not simple or easy, and the local services struggle to find ways to help these people out of their desperate plights.
East Silver 2010
Our Newspaper
Director: Flipse Eline
Producer: Flipse Eline
Production company: Elifli Film
Nasha Gazeta , Netherlands, 2010, 58 min, Digi Beta, HD, Creative, Human Rights, Personal View, Society
It’s the region of Uljanovsk, birthplace of Lenin. A prosperous district before, a remote countryside now. After losing his job at the offcial paper The Leninist, journalist Andrey Schkolni decides to make his own newspaper, though the villagers are not interested in politics at all. Moscow is very far away from here, and the rest of the world even more so. Still, Andrey manages to create his own public. But do the offcials appreciate his initiative?
East Silver 2011
A Letter from Germany
Ein Brief aus Deutschland , Germany, 2011, 50 min, Creative, Personal View, Social Issues
The film focuses on the experiences of three women from eastern Europe who left home in hope for something better and whose life is now dominated by pain and exploitation. While anonymous voices read letters which enforce the feelings and experiences of these women, the images of the film range from their hometowns to abstractions of possible places and memories. It’s the effort trying to eliminate the lurid character of the issue of human trafficking and to deal in a strict and reduced form of film.
East Silver 2011
Additional documentary films at Trieste Film Festival:
33 Animals of Santa Claus (33 zvēri ziemassvētku vecītim by Laila Pakalnina, Latvia)
Album by Branko Ištvančić, Croatia
The Alexandrians (Aleksandrinke by Metod Pevec, Slovenia, Italy, Egypt)
Anna Pavlova Lives in Berlin (Anna Pavlova lebt in Berlin by Theo Solnik, Germany
Ivan&Ivana by Jeff Daniel Silva, Usa-Kosovo
We Will Be Happy One Day (Kiedy bedzieme szczesliwi by Paweł Wysoczański, Poland
Mama Illegal by Ed Moschitz, Austria
