From January 24 to 29, the festival will introduce the Czech documentary All for the Good of the World and Nosovice by Vit Klusak, Polish docs Phnom Penh Lulllaby (Pawel Kloc), Argentinian Lesson (Wojciech Staroń) and Caravan's Planet Kirsan (Magdalena Pieta), breathtakingly tragic Outro by russian director Julia Panasenko, or recent Baltic documentaries such as Latvian The Field of Magic by Mindaugas Survila introduced during Baltic co-production breakfast in Jihlava.
One of the festival awards is known now – the DocPoint Apollo Award, which is handed to a person who has contributed significantly to Finnish documentary film and earned credit on the field of documentary film. The awarded person is Iikka Vehkalahti, long term producer of YLE Dokumenttiprojekti, who held his lecture about the changing media landscape during the IDF’s industry section in Jihlava last year.
DocPoint Helsinki, Finland
January 24 to 29, 2012
Selected East Silver documentaries:
Crulic - The Path to Beyond
Director: Damian Anca
Producer: Damian Anca
Production company: Aparte Film, Magellan Foundation
Crulic - Drumul spre dincolo , Poland, Romania, 2011, 69 min, 35 mm, DCP, Digi Beta, HD, Animated, Drama doc, Human Rights, Social Issues
The animated documentary feature "Crulic - The Path to Beyond" tells the story of Crulic, a 33-year-old Romanian who died in a Polish prison while on a hunger strike. The story is told from the point of view of Crulic, in the present tense, after his death. A strong visual style, the result of beautifully blending hand-drawn collage, stop-motion and cut-cut animation techniques, create a striking, surprisingly integrated and memorable film.
East Silver 2011 / Silver Eye nominee 2011
I Will Forget This Day
Director: Rudnitskaya Alina
Producer: Telnov Alexey
Production company: Saint-Petersburg Documentary Film Studio
Ya zabudu etot den , Russia, 2011, 25 min, 35 mm, Beta SP, Creative, Gender, Social Issues
You can forget. You have to forget. It's impossible to forget... A woman's feelings and thoughts just before having an abortion.
East Silver 2011 / Silver Eye winner 2011 / East Silver Caravan 2012
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
All for the Good of the World and Nosovice
Director: Klusák Vít
Producer: Klusák Vít, Remunda Filip
Production company: Hypermarket Film, Czech TV
Vše pro dobro světa a Nošovic , Czech Republic, 2010, 82 min, 35 mm, Creative, Personal View, Social Issues
An original portrait of a Czech village that houses a giant car plant built by South Korea's Hyundai. Before the village turned into an industrial zone, many of the landowners had no intention of selling their plots of land... Not until many of them faced pressure from their neighbours who had accepted approx. EUR 4000 in compensation and not until they received death threats. Using nine protagonists, the film paints a portrait of a village changed beyond recognition. A humorous yet compelling film about a field that yields cars.
East Silver 2010 / East Silver Caravan 2011 / Silver Eye nominee 2010
Planet Kirsan
Director: Pieta Magdalena
Producer: Kopczyński Krzysztof
Production company: Eureka Media, TVP Kultura
Planeta Kirsan , Poland, 2010, 50 min, Digi Beta, Arts and Culture, Creative, Portrait, Society
13-year old Alehan and his brother Amir spend several hours everyday hunched over a chessboard. It’s his biggest dream to become the next World Chess Champion. The first step on the way to become a grandmaster is a tournament in Chess-City. The event. Full of young players, allows us to see the actors and creators as well as expose the mechanisms behind the Kalmykian chess fairytale. For Alehan it’s a chance to examine his dreams more closely. Ilyumzhinov’s revolution was supposed to transform the whole republic, but can it even change the life of just one small boy?
East Silver 2010 / East Silver Caravan 2011 / Silver Eye nominee 2010
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
Argentinian Lesson
Director: Staroń Wojciech
Producer: Staroń Malgorzata
Production company: Staron Film
Argentyńska lekcja , Poland, 2011, 56 min, Digi Beta, Creative, Personal View, Society, Travel
In 1998 Wojciech Staroń made the documentary film "The Siberian Lesson". The film told the story of a young teacher who emigrated to the vicinity of Lake Baikal in order to teach Polish deportees’ descendants their native language. Many years later, as a married couple with two children, the director and his wife are leaving for Argentina. For their little son, this trip will not only be an encounter with an unknown language. Influenced by their Argentinian friend, Janek enters the fascinating world of imagination, and is introduced to the bitterness of childhood prematurely contaminated by the problems of grown-ups.
East Silver 2011 / Silver Eye nominee 2011
New World
Director: Rosdy Paul
Production company: Rosdy Film KG
Neue Welt , Austria, 2006, 100 min, 35 mm, Adventure and Sports, History
New World is a richly photographed journey through old and new worlds across much of Central Europe, which was once a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, through the lands known as Bohemia, Transylvania, Dalmatia, Galicia, and Bukowina, amongst others. The film travels from the old world into the new, from Sarajevo to Vienna to Romania, from Trieste to the Bay of Kotor, from the Hungarian Puszta to Ukraine. By means of music and stories, anecdotes and legends, turn-of-the-century guidebooks and newspaper clippings, scenes from today, and films and photographs from the early 1900s, a collage emerges of real people struggling, surviving, and living out their lives between the worlds of tradition, change and upheaval.
East Silver 2011 / Silver Eye winner 2011 / East Silver Caravan 2012
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.
Trendy Dog
Director: Siimets Moonika
Producer: Kallas Mari
Production company: Osakond
Moekoer , Estonia, 2010, 30 min, DVD, Social Issues, Society
Documentary Trendy Dog peeks into the glamorous world of lap-dogs, where dogs are not simply shaggy, four-legged creatures but personalities with a capital P. Heroines of the documentary are Nele and Marina and their lap-dogs Vishenka and Bellerd Öre Extreme Beauty aka Nufi. Together they face whatever life throws at them, be it good or bad, stressful preparations for a dogs' fashion pageant or a quest to find a true match made in heaven. It is a story about rather unconventional relationships between women and their dogs.
How Are You Doing, Rudolf Ming?
Director: Rubins Roberts
Producer: Cilinska Antra
Production company: Juris Podnieks Studio
Kā Tev klājas, Rūdolf Ming? , Latvia, 2010, 62 min, Digi Beta, Arts and Culture, Creative, Portrait, Youth Documentary
Rudolf is 13years old boy obsessed with filmmaking. As a matter of fact, it is the only thing he is really fond of. His main interest is horror films, and he uses a special technique to make them - drawing each shot on long strips of paper. He shows the films on a slide projector with a special live soundtrack. Rudolf´s story illustrates the conflict between the imaginary world of a boy and the society surrounding him, where everybody expect him to live according to certain rules and dogmas. How does he cope with it? The biggest surprise comes when the local priest asks Rudolf to make a film to be played during the service.
