Astra Film

A Bar At The Victoria Station

Director: Leszek Dawid
Country: Poland
Year: 2003
Length: 56

Marek and Piotrek are two friends in their late twenties. They live in Poland, and the prospect of turning thirty, without having a job, forces them to make critical decisions. After exhausting all possibilities to find jobs in their hometown, they turn their hopes towards England. Other people, even some of their friends have made it there, so why shouldn’t they give it a try? Their dream is to open a bar at the Victoria station. This goal may be rather hard to attain, especially as neither of them speaks any English. After many efforts, they eventually arrive in London. What they find, however, is far from what they had expected. The two friends soon find themselves easy prey for the local racketeers. They even fall victim to their more experienced compatriots, who have lived in London for some years. The film explores, in an observational manner, the status of immigrants from former communist Western European countries.

All That Glitters

Director: Irene Petropoulou
Country: Greece
Year: 2003
Length: 33

The small village Olympos on the Karpathos Island in Greece has been almost isolated from the rest of the world until a quarter of a century ago. Since construction of the road that crosses the island from north to south, the locals can travel more easily. At the same time, Olympos has become an accessible place for tourists, who are attracted by the archaic atmosphere. The film observes the impact on traditional life within the “opening to the world.” Although preserved in its appearances – after all, tourists come to Olympos to experience the picturesque village life, and, take pictures of the local women wearing traditional costumes with heavy gold coin necklaces – the elders feel tradition is no longer preserved in spirit. Transmigrants, who return to their home village every summer for the great St. Mary Festival, also deplore the recent changes in the village life. For the villagers, tradition has always been a cultural pride, and more recently, a source of income.

In Love Zone

Director: Arkady Morozov
Country: Russia
Year: 2002
Length: 28

The film follows a Mansi family, living on the shore of the Pelym river in Western Siberia. Pelym is on the northern edge of the Urals, on the divide between Europe and Asia, and it used to be a location for some of the many remote penal colonies during Stalinist times. In the middle of the taiga, and among the remains of a deserted forestry area, people attempt to reinvent themselves in the midst of abandoned socialist infrastructure. We meet a teenager who has never seen a village or a town in his life, a blind man who sets traps to catch wild animals, and a mechanic who assembles spare parts into weird machineries. The documentary proposes an encounter with one of the many faces of Russia.

Landscape

Director: Sergei Loznitsa(see interview )
Country: Russia
Year: 2003
Length: .60

A provincial Russian town. A cold winter day. People waiting for the bus. The camera slowly pans over faces, while we hear scraps of conversations. Under the appearance of a candid-camera documentation, we discover a keen eye for relevant details which make up the picture of the miseries and worries of Russian every-day life. Landscape experiments with cinema language, using almost exclusively left-to-right long tracking shots cut to give the impression of a continuous camera movement.

Life In Fresh Air

Director: Danko Volaric
Country: Croatia
Year: 2002
Length: 60

Today, the Yugoslavian wars may seem remote to most of the world. Since they were making the headlines, there have been so many conflicts and tragic events. The locals, however, still have to deal with the aftermath. It is one thing to discuss the complex issues of ethnic conflicts and refugees at round tables and in official meetings, yet it is completely different to deal with these issues in the field. The rural village of Djulovac in eastern Croatia is far removed from the political and administrative mainstream. Still, the local community is confronted with ethnic dissension. There are the native Serbs, who had rebelled in 1991, and the native Croats. There are also the Croat refugees from Kosovo, who are trying to make a fresh start. The film follows the stories of the people of Djulovac. It shows the strategies created and used by the community officials in their attempt to facilitate communication between all the present inhabitants of the village.

Muslim Labyrinths

Director: Antoniy Donchev
Country: Germania
Year: 2002
Length: 51

The village Breznitsa, in southwestern Bulgaria, is a multiethnic locality. The film focuses on the Pomak community, a Bulgarian-speaking Muslim population who considers itself of Turkish origin. Although submitted to assimilation during the socialist period, these people have preserved, to a great extent, their cultural and religious identity. Since the downfall of communism, the Pomak enjoy more civil and cultural liberties. A public revival of Islam, related to Turkish identity, is clearly visible. While many families in Breznitsa still keep traditional forms of living, everyone faces the pressures of change brought about by democracy. This film is a result of the cooperation between Canadian anthropologist Asen Balkci and Bulgarian film director Antonii Donchev. Cameraman Ibrahim Djunin is a young local who was trained in ethnographic video methods, through a visual anthropology seminar organized in Breznitsa, ten years ago. The film describes changes that have occurred in the Pomak villages since the early 1990s. It makes use of film material from 1995, as well as, contemporary material.

My Lost Russia

Director: Iossif Pasternak
Country: France
Year: 2004
Length: 52

The film was shot in the small town Efremov, where Pasternak’s camera identified a variety of characters whose stories are brought together to reconstruct today’s Russia: the ruined farmer writing letters to President Putin in his quest for justice, the priest who can finally inaugurate the new church after years of struggle, the striptease dancers who dream to become school teachers, the old pessimist who declares that Efremov is the worst place on earth, the young soldiers on their way to Chechnya. The filmmaker explores the life of the town in a non-intrusive way, to give a sometimes nostalgic and sometimes humorous insight into the stories of common people. Putting all their stories together, the viewer eventually understands what has changed, what is in the process of changing and what will never change in Efemov and in Russia.

Oath

Director: Elizabeta Koneska
Country: Macedonia
Year: 2003
Length: 43

The film is an accurate ethnographic description of a traditional custom of the Yuruks, a Turkish ethnic group living in southeast Macedonia. The Yuruks were nomadic tribes who migrated from Anatolia to the Balkans about five centuries ago. Since their settlement, they have lived in closed communities, preserving their cultural identity. The custom described in the film reproduces a wedding where the bride is a little girl. The ritual, an oath to the Almighty, is meant to ensure the welfare of the family. The camera carefully observes the participants throughout all stages of the ritual and includes reactions of both actors and spectators.

The Opinionator

Director: Meelis Muhu
Country: Estonia
Year: 2003
Length: 54

The film touches in a very subtile way the issue of Russian citizens living in former Soviet Union countries outside the present Russian Federation borders. To 68 year-old Esja Sur, a Russian citizen residing in Estonia, retirement is anything but boring. She is a natural born agitator who finds plenty of issues to fight for. On the background of today’s Estonian reality, the filmmaker chronicles the efforts of this woman. Putting together different groups and associations, she is also seen organizing protests, meetings and demonstrations. The fact that most of her events are mere mockeries of the grandiose Soviet parades of the past, with barely more than a dozen people attending, does not seem to discourage her. The filmmaker achieves a slightly ironic, yet honest, approach to an extraordinary character. With that same view, he depicts the colorful people and absurd situations of the transition period in an ex-Soviet country.

Piter

Director: Jessica Gorter & Frank Gorter
Country: The Netherlands
Year: 2004
Length: 80

“Piter” is a nickname for Sankt Petersburg, a city as spectacular as the chronicle of its creation. The filmmakers explore the city following the every-day lives of seven St. Petersburg residents. Alexander Ivanov, once a senior party official, now runs a floristry empire. Anatoli, formerly an editor with a local newspaper, is unemployed and survives on charity and from collecting recyclable bottles. Elena Yakovlevna is a great Stalin fan. She is 87, and believes that life was much better under his regime. The people portrayed in the film are not connected directly, but they live in the same transitional milieu. They must now adapt and create new expectations of the future, fifteen years after Gorbachev’s perestroika.

Pretty Dyana

Director: Boris Mitic
Country: Serbia
Year: 2003
Length: 45

The story is about Kosovo refugees. They live in improvised shelters in a Belgrade suburb. They are Gypsies. At this point, we all expect to see the tragedy of these people’s miserable lives. Instead, we are drawn into a bizarre setting, where we soon learn that spare parts of old Citroen cars can be used for virtually anything. They are shown building vehicles with a SF appearance, even using the car battery as a private power plant. It is not an eccentric hobby, it is a way to survive. The film follows them throughout Belgrade in search of abandoned 2 CV and Dyana Citroens. We see them negotiating with owners of wrecked cars. We also find them interacting with police, who are not exactly fans of their recycled vehicles. The filmmaker introduces his characters with humor and empathy, revealing their ingenuity and adaptive skills.

The Rule of Vera

Director: Peter Stepin
Country: Russia
Year: 2004
Length: 42

In the 50s, the Communist Party honored Vera Rybatchek with the Labor Hero Golden Star. She received this award for achieving record production in the dairy where she worked. She later received praise as the exemplary mother of many children. Vera was one of the faces of communist propaganda, used to promote the model of the new Soviet woman. Today, few remember, and even less care about, her honors. There are also some, in the village, who contest the veracity of her record productions. Vera and her large family must now struggle to survive. The film combines newsreels of Soviet history with glimpses into Vera’s present life. There are interviews with her, her family, and, people in the village. These glimpses portray a hard-working, good-hearted woman. She is someone who, once used by the Soviet propaganda machine, and now lives forgotten in a remote Russian village. In the meantime, the Golden Star medal had to be exchanged for a sack of sugar.

The Tv and Me

Director: Bojána Papp
Country: Hungary
Year: 2004
Length: 47

Alexa is addicted to television shows. By day, she works as a post woman, sorting and delivering letters. After hours, however, she is a completely different person. Her whole life is focused on TV shows and TV stars. In the past ten years, she has been in the audience of hundreds of television shows. She has surrounded herself with posters, photo albums, and relics. She even goes on “pilgrimages” to visit the hometowns of her idols. The film portrays a woman who lives happily in her illusory world. It also investigates the powerful influence television and its fabricated stars can have on a person’s life.

Yuri Vella's World

Director: Liivo Niglas(see interview )
Country: Estonia
Year: 2003
Length:58

Liivo Niglas has performed extensive research work with the Nenets in Siberia. This film is about a writer and social activist, Yuri Vella, who has left his home village ten years ago to live the life of a nomad reindeer herder in the west Siberian taiga. Indigenous people in Siberia live under the threat of alcoholism and unemployment. Yuri Vella strives to build his own world, where these afflictions do not exist. He even sets up an elementary school in his winter camp, where his grandchildren are given a proper education, and learn the skills of a good reindeer herder. Unfortunately, Yuri Vella’s world is but an oasis of traditional lifestyle in the middle of Russia’s largest oil fields. The film is built around Yuri Vella, a powerful character who finds the resources to accomplish his dream.

We Are Living On the Edge

Director: Victor Asliuk
Country: Belarus
Year: 2002
Length: 18

Long shots of a village by the river, a man milks his cow in the sunset, a drunkard stumbles through the junk scattered in a back yard. This extremely well-accomplished short documentary sketches in impressive sequences every day life in an isolated Belorussian village. The film culminates with the dramatic scene showing a herd of cows being driven, by the villagers, across the river.