Last Day of Summer Wins in Wiesbaden

Koniec lata, Poland, 2010, 34 min, HD, Creative, Personal View, Youth Documentary

Two years ago, at my parents’ place in the village, I was looking for a book to read. Instead I found my old diaries. Two weeks later I went to Penza, 700km from Moscow. Provincial Russia looks like Poland twenty years ago. By accident I got to a cadet school. I noticed a group of boys wearing military uniforms marching in a column. Having found the diary and visiting the schoolbrought back my childhood memories and I decided to make a film about it. I chose 5 of the students to be the characters of my film. I observed their ordinary day with a camera. This is how I made a film which, on the one hand, is a travel back to my childhood and, on the other hand, is a story of a not easy life in contemporary Russia.

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?