Astra Film

Mudava Comes to Town

Director: Darren Lewey, Liviu Tipuriţă
Country: UK, Romania
Year: 1998
Length: 32

Portrait of Altine' in the Dry Season

Director: Marco Mensa & Elisa Mereghetti
Country: Italy
Year: 1999
Length: 25

Thomson of Arnhemland

Director: John Moore
Country: Australia
Year: 2000
Length: 55

In 1933, a state of panic erupted in Darwin after five Japanese fishermen and three white men were killed by Aboriginal clansmen on the east coast of Arnhem Land. Donald Thomson, a young anthropologist working in the field, was appaled by calls for a punitive expedition. Thomson suspected the Aboriginal men were resisting invasions of their land and had acted in self defence. At the sane time he was aware that the official policy of “protection” of Aborigens had failed. He volunteered to go to Arnhem Land to try to prevent the race war that people feared. He also proposed to make a scientific study of indigenous culture which he hoped would provide the basis for new policies that would finally bring justice to Aboriginal people. Thomson became more and more isolated from the anthropological establishment, but he continued his fight for Aboriginal rights until he died in 1970. Today, his extraordinary photographs, field notes and artefacts are housed at Museum Victoria and are considered one of the most significant ethnographic collections in the world.

Regret to Inform

Director: Barbara Sonnenborn
Country: USA
Year: 1999
Length: 72

In 1968, on her 24th birthday, Barbara Sonnenborn received a telegram announcing her husband’s death in the Vietnam war. Twenty years later, in the company of a South Vietnamese war widow, she embarked on a journey to the place where her husband had been killed. In Regret to Inform, widows from both sides speak out, putting a human face on the all-too-often overlooked casualties of armed conflict: the survivors. Intercut with beautiful scenes of the serene Vietnamese countryside and shocking archival footage from the war years, the women’s voices form an eloquent international chorus calling for peace. The widows transform their private sorrows into a collective acknowledgment that the price of war can be measured in many ways, but it is always too great.

Nuba, Pure People

Director: Tomo Kri?nar & Maja Weiss
Country: Slovenia
Year: 2000
Length: 62

During his first visit to the Nubia mountains in1980, Tomo Kri?nar met a community of healthy people, leading a fulfilled life. He called them the “pure people”. After nineteen years and two million casualties in the Sudan civil war, Tomo smuggled his way through the besieged areas on a bicycle and crossed the border between the zone under control and the uncontrolled territory, capturing on video the scenes of one of the most brutal genocides ever, yet ignored by politicians world-wide.

Wotenik

Director: Axel Kalhorn
Country: Germany
Year: 2000
Length: 60

Meklenburg-Pomerania, in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Seven Stories From Beyond. Ghosts

Director: Florin Iepan
Country: Romania
Year: 1999
Length: 46

For those who know Transylvania and its history it is easy to understand why Bram Stoker chose it as a setting for his story of Dracula. By the middle of the seventeenth century, the Austro-Hungarian Empire sent special envoys to investigate the ever increasing number of cases when locals had dug out dead bodies from the graves and thrust stakes in their hearts. Eventually, the bodies were burned. The strange thing about them was that they were perfectly conserved, even if they had been burried for a long timel. After hundreds of years, the practice is still alive. People do it to destroy kill the “Strigoi”, the vampires. The author documented many cases of such revenants haunting the living, killing their animals and sucking out their strenght. People fight back with means they have inherited from a distant past, before the age of Christendom. This documentary is the search of answers to the eternal questions of life and death, reality and fantasy.

Local Colour

Director: Janos Domokos
Country: Hungary
Year: 1998
Length: 54

A comprehensive picture of an autumn morning in Budapest, constructed with an extraordinary visual and anthropological perceptiveness. Following the listeners of TILOS - an alternative radio station -  during a Friday morning broadcast, the film introduces people of various backgrounds from different parts of the city and outlines the metropolitan experience in Eastern Europe.

The Wheelchair

Director: Martin Zahariev, Peter Kitanov
Country: Bulgaria
Year: 1998
Length: 15

A film about a man who lost his ability to walk at an early age but did not lose his faith in life, in kindness and in his own skills. At one point in his life, he threw away his wheelchair and replaced it with a skateboard he had adapted to suit his condition, because he wanted to be free and to depend on no one. The film looks beyond Banko’s personal drama into the general situation existing in Eastern European countries, where people with special needs must rely on their own inventiveness in order to survive.

Next Year in Lerin

http://www.jilldanielsfilms.com

Director: Jill Daniels
Country: UK
Year: 2000
Length: 45

In 1948, during the Greek civil war, the Democratic Army was losing ground. They made their escape over the border and  took children with them for more safety. 28,000 Greek and Slavic Macedonian children  were taken away from their mothers and smuggled out of Greece. Eventually, the children were dispersed to orphanages throughout communist countries in Eastern Europe. Only those of Greek origin were allowed to return. The film centres on a reunion in Skopje to mark the 50th anniversary of the Exodus where the “children” talk about their feelings of identity and longings to see the villages where they were born. Intercut is archive of the children’s journey, family photographs and the villages themselves where the houses lie forlorn and empty.

Remembering Gibarac

Director: ?elimir Belić
Country: Croatia
Year: 2000
Length: 35

The film is an account of the ethnic conflicts and forced migrations in contemporary Yugoslavia. It tells the story of the Croats from Gibarac, a village in Western Vojvodina in Serbia, Yugoslavia. During the 90’s, an increasing pressure forced them to leave their homes and move to Croatia. The Gibaracs bartered their houses with Serbs from Croatia, who moved in their place. The process was gradual at first, dislocating one family at a time. Later on, it became a real exodus. Today, Gibarac people are scattered throughout around sixty cities all over Croatia, trying hard to adapt to their new life. However, nothing is like it used to be back home. The film investigates in what way and to what extent they have managed to preserve their Gibarac identity.

Marriage

Director: Bibo Liang
Country: China
Year: 1999
Length: 60

For the rural communities living in the mountain area of southwest China, marriage is not a matter of a boy and a girl who are in love with each other and want to officially confirm their relationship. The protocol consists of six stages that must be completed according to the rules: the proposal, the negotiations, the engagement, the cognizance of the birth dates of the betrothed couple to ratify the marital relationship, a visit to the fortune-teller for the most favourable wedding date and finally the wedding ceremony. The film follows a marriage broker during the complicated negotiations for two marriages, somewhere in the southwest of China. In addition, the film depicts daily life in the villages, whith both men and women having their share of hard manual labour. 

Lisdoonvarna, Lourdes of Love

Director: Hans Heijnen
Country: The Netherlands
Year: 1998
Length: 75

County Clare is a remote region on the sparsely populated West Coast of Ireland. It is not easy to find a woman in this deserted land. That is why the Lisdoonvarna matchmaking festival is organised everz year, a tradition that goes back two centuries. Pub-owner, horse-trader and matchmaker Willy Dale enjoys helping bachelors find a suitable partner. Quarryman Mihal Nagle lives alone with two dogs and two donkeys. He has a drinking problem and likes to gamble. He is convinced that a woman could change his life. Farmer Paddy Coughlan is an introvert and religious man who has been taking care of his parents for a long time. At 67 he is so used to living alone that the thought of having a wife has become rather a fantasy. He has been to Lisdoonvarna festival many times without success. Handyman Jamesie Keeting, a man completely dominated by his mother, hopes to meet the love of his life one day. All three men are determined to find the right woman at the Lisdoonvarna Festival.

Silence Darkness

Director: Pawel Kedzierski
Country: Poland
Year: 1999
Length: 19

In Poland there are sculptor workshops organised for blind and deaf persons. The film is a psychological study of these people, who live in complete silence and darkness. It shows the infinite importance of art in human life and the complete happiness given by the act of creation.

The Long Tears. A Ndebele Story

Director: David Forbes
Country: South Africa
Year: 1998
Length: 52

The film documents over a period of five years Ndebele art, culture and traditions, as seen through the eyes of one family. It also tells the untold story of the Ndebele defeat in war against the Boer farmers over a hundred years ago, their subsequent enslavery and mistreatment at the hands of Boer farmers, and explores the decline of Ndebele wall art and dress traditions in the changing tapestry of the New South Africa. This is a unique look at an African culture, seen from a modern perspective and through an intimate relationship with one family. It is also the first time a South African culture has been explored in any real depth in this medium. It is a South African story, told in their own words by the people themselves. 

May I Have This Dance?

Director: Kathryn Ramey
Country: USA
Year: 1999/2000
Length: 18

The film is a study of cross cultural dance exchange between Sharon Kornelly and Yin Ying Huang. They exchange dances significant to their cultural backgrounds and to their own personal childhood experiences. As each dance is representative of collective as well as of individual experiences, the process of teaching and learning highlights issues of cultural translation. The project aims to translate art and visualized histories to one another in an attempt to understand more about the larger cultural systems in which we live. Because dance is a visual as well as a physical experience, an image based medium of transmission has been selected. Communication through moving images involves interpretation using both cultural and aesthetic codes at all levels of production and reception. This project is an experiment, a negotiation, and a collaboration across geographic and time boundaries and between disciplines and individuals.

For Ever Little

Director: Barbara den Uyl
Country: The Netherlands
Year: 1999
Length: 62

Persons of an unusually small size have always been fascinating, either as fictional characters in fairytales and sagas or in their flesh and bones, shown off in fairs or circuses as curiosities, as people were ready to pay a lot to see them. These days many little people rebel against this special status. They try to make their lives as normal as possible.
The film follows a small opera singer and some of her friends at their work, at home and on a journey to a beautiful small island, where they have a great dinner followed by a swinging party. Gradually, each character reveals his or her personality. They talk about their problems, love affairs, difficulties in finding work and whether or not to risk having children, knowing that they could be little like themselves. The film does not try to trace the history of their lives. It aims to confront the viewer with the meaning of “being small” and uses music, humour and beauty to make people look at “imperfection” with a different eye.

Cachilo, Poet of the Walls

http://www.rosariarte.com.ar/cachilo/piazza.htm

Director: Mario Piazza(see interview )
Country: Argentina
Year: 1999
Length: 60

For about twelve years, the artist Cachilo lived on the streets of Rosario city, in Argentina. During this time, he inscribed his unique poetry on the city walls. For many Rosarineans, Cachilo became an emblem of dignity and freedom. The documentary follows the traces left by Cachilo on the walls of Rosario and in the minds of the Rosarineans.

Royal de Luxe, Back From Africa

Director: Dominique Deluze
Country: France
Year: 1999
Length: 55

For the past fifteen years, the street-theatre company Royal de Luxe has travelled across the world, seeking to meet the most diverse forms of culture. Having decided to settle in the remotest territories of northern Cameroon for six months, they chose to interact with a country where theatre, whether indigenous or imported, did not exist. The region was so isolated, that the very attempt of photographing the local people was an intrepid endeavour. This theatrical laboratory gave birth to the half-caste son of the “big” giant, a huge puppet six and a half meters tall. Walking about in the African bush, the huge puppet generated the same elation and verve among the African villagers as he produced among European spectators on his return from Africa. The film is an account of the Royal’s latest human and artistic adventure.

Not by Bread Alone

Director: Leen van der Berg
Country: The Netherlands
Year: 1999
Length: 42

The Christian church is not only the place where worshippers congregate to serve the Lord. Of old, it has also played a role in charity and the relief of the financially weak. The Nassau Church in Staatsliedenbuurt in Amsterdam takes this task very seriously. In recent years, a reception centre was set up here where addicts, homeless people and illegal immigrants can have a simple meal and take a rest. Not all believers appreciate this initiative. Some churchgoers do not like seeing shabby clad and smoking visitors during Sunday mass. This film concentrates on four people, including the young reverend Jannet van der Spek and one of the regular visitors, the heroin addict Doede. In interviews, they tell about the place that the Nassau Church occupies in their lives.

BBB

Director: Sasa Podgorelec
Country: Croatia
Year: 1998
Length: 45

The film features the Bad Blue Boys, football fans of Croatia’s most successful soccer team. Dynamo Zagreb, as it was called before 1992, was more than a football club, as people looked upon it as the symbol for popular opposition against the political regime. Football rivalry amplified into nationalist intolerance and the stadiums became the stage of political confrontation. For five years the BBBs actually fought for the independence of their country and some of them died in combat. The film enjoyed great success with the Croatian public, being the only documentary screened in cinemas for more than two weeks.

Standards

Director: Dan Boord & Luis Valdovino
Country: USA
Year: 2000
Length: 26

A travelogue of portions of the USA, Europe and Latin America mixes the concept of “standards” with facts and fiction to explore the state of our culture at the end of the millennium. This is the century which brought us the parking meter, television dinners and enough plutonium to annihilate every living creature on earth. So how does it feel to be a part of all this?

Building Seasons in Tiebele. A Royal Compound in Change

Director: Beate Engelbrecht
Country: Germany
Year: 1999
Length: 98

The royal compound in Tiebele in Burkina Faso offers an impressive sight. The buildings, which are inhabited by several families, were originally constructed as defense installations. The edifices are technically perfect and their aesthetic value places them among the great architectural achievements of the world. During the dry season, people restore the old edifices and they also raise new houses, granaries and stairways, using different techniques. The film shows the building techniques in the royal compound of Tiebele, commented by the constructors themselves. Their social life is reflected in their building activity. There is also discussion about the future of the royal compound viewed from the perspective of the political and economic change process.

A Month in the Life of Ephtim D.

Director: Asen Balikci, Antonii Dontchev
Country: Bulgaria
Year: 1999
Length: 56

Ephtim D., 73 years old, a retired postman, lives in Sofia with his wife in a three-room suburban apartment. As a socialist, he feels confused by the “crazy” democracy and the uncertainties of the transition period. The couple’s combined pensions amount to 66$. Ephtim experiences constant difficulties in balancing the family budget. Free medical care and lunches at a subsidized canteen are essential to his survival strategy. This portrait of a Bulgarian pensioner is presented in the context of a global hopelessness and a clearly felt nostalgia for the communist past.

Seguir Siendo

Director: Ana Zanotti
Country: Argentina
Year: 1999
Length: 29

Back Home to the Reich with Bubi

Director: Stanislaw Mucha
Country: Germany
Year: 2000
Length: 79

An offspring of a very old German aristocratic family and a young Polish film director are both looking for traces of an SS general. During World War II, Ludolf von Alvensleben called Bubi was responsible for the killing of thousands of Poles and Russians, ordering executions or putting people to death himself. Today, the large family, still very proud of their noble origins, are trying to forget and conceal the Nazi blemishes in their family history.

Modern Slavery

Director: Kőszegi Edit
Country: Hungary
Year: 1998
Length: 75

A simple conflict of some Roma families and Hungarian homeless people arrives to be sorted out by the apparatus of justice as a case of ethnic discriminatory action. The way in which the press covered the incident played an important part in this misinterpretation. As a result, the court sentenced the Roma to years of prison, basing its decision exclusively on the exaggerated allegations of the homeless.

Black and White in Colour

Director: Mira Erdevicki
Country: Czech Republic
Year: 1999
Length: 58

A vivid documentary portrait of Vera Bílá, a Gypsy singer acclaimed in the international music world. The film explores Romany culture and what it means to be part of a marginalised minority group. Without sentimentalizing, it questions the prospects for mutual understanding. The character emerging from the film is a woman deeply attached to her family and her origins. Her music provides an opportunity for relieving her anxieties about securing sufficient food and money, but it also sweeps her into a competitive business which has little regard for her mood or feelings. The film reveals the exceptional energy Vera brings to her music and her relationships with her family and other members of the band. Shot as a journey with encounters and stories, the film shows a woman with an impressive and challenging personality.

American Gypsy: A Stranger in Everybody's Land

http://www.americangypsy.com/

Director: Jasmine Dellal
Country: USA
Year: 1999
Length: 80

There are one million Gypsies in America, who most people know nothing about. They continue to live according to traditions that remain mysterious to outsiders. This is at least in part because a central aspect of Gypsy culture is the limiting of contact with non-Gypsies. The film tells the story of one Romani family in the American Northwest that has defied the wall of silence surrounding their people. Jimmy Marks, a flamboyant community leader, and his family struggle to regain reputation and property after a racially motivated police raid in their Spokane, Washington home. “American Gypsy” unravels the history and culture of the Roma and the prejudices about their way of life that have arisen over the centuries.

Days in Those Mountains. Episode II: "Winter Slack"

Director: Wang Haibing
Country: China
Year: 2000
Length: 40

Over the centuries, rural life in the Daba Mountains of the Province Sichuan in China underwent little change. People sow and crop year after year and their survival is at the will of nature . Nevertheless, they struggle for a better life and are open to modernity.

Ubuhle Bembali

Director: Emanuelle Bidou
Country: France
Year: 1999
Length: 52

Ubuhle Bembali means “beauty of the flowers” and it is the name of a music band in South Africa. The members of the band are Zulu migrant workers, who put their life experience into music and dance. The performances are reflections of their social trauma. The film explores the connection between reality and dramatized facts.

Crazy

http://www.heddy-honigmann.nl/hhonigmann/

Director: Heddy Honigmann
Country: The Netherlands
Year: 1999
Length: 97

“Crazy” is a film about violence in which violence itself  is not explicitly shown. The film focusses on the experiences of a number of Dutch UN soldiers in various hotbeds across the world, but the horrors in Korea, Cambodia, Lebanon and Bosnia are brought to life mainly by their personal accounts. Heddy Honigmann spoke with the “blue helmets” in their domestic surroundings. The material showing the regions involved consists of photographs and home movies that were shot by the soldiers themselves. The vehicle of their recollections is the music they played at the time, which they will forever associate with their war memories. “Crazy” demonstrates that Holland also has its “Vietnam’s veterans”, men who took their war experiences back home and need a long time to cope with them. The film makes us realise the madness of war, raises questions about the usefulness of so-called peace missions, and shows the power of music as a means to survive in extremely difficult situations.

Price of Knowledge

Director: Ugyen Wangdy
Country: Bhutan
Year: 1999
Length: 35

Day by day, the 11-year-old Sherab Dorji must walk for three hours to school. In the early morning he meets the other children of his village at a stupa, a Budhist shrine. From there, they walk to school together singing, because it kills the time. The road leads across a mountain and through the woods. Along the way, Sherab picks berries and mushrooms for his family. When he walks the last part by himself at night, he prays aloud to fight his fear. They have to walk so much, his father says, that their socks are torn within a week. Sherab’s family is very poor. They live on farming. At nights, they must stay out with brandishing torches to protect the farmland against wild boars. Price of Knowledge depicts life in rural Bhutan.

Quest for the Lost Tribes

http://www.simchaj.ca/  

Director: Simcha Jacobovici(see interview )
Country: Canada
Year: 1998
Length: 97

Over 2700 years have passed since the Assyrians conquered the kingdom of Israel taking into captivity ten of the twelve Israelite tribes. Only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin who inhabited the southern portion of the kingdom remained and most Jews today claim descent from these Tribes. The captive tribes were scattered throughout the Assyrian domain and their descendants became the stuff of legend. The apostles Paul and James mention them and there is even a tradition that Jesus ventured to India in search of them. In medieval Europe, it was widely speculated that Mongolian invaders were the Ten Tribes come back for blood. And even in modern times, the Mormons in the United States believe that native Americans are descendants of the Tribes. Stories and theories about the Lost Tribes continue to proliferate and not all of them are easily dismissed. The filmmaker separates ancient myth from contemporary fact.