Director: Srđan Keča Country: Serbia Year: 2006 Length: 46
South-Western Serbia, an isolated area, whose inhabitants are the former "guardians" of the country, defenders of the Serbian orthodoxy. Since abandoned by Belgrade, they are becoming angry – more and more – with everyone. With Albanians who, in their opinion, are responsible for the war, and with Serbs who thoroughly forgot them… A small zone outside the history and, nowadays, even outside the world.
Calcutta Calling
Director: André Hörmann Country: Germany Year: 2006 Length: 17
Business Process Outsourcing is the fastest growing industry in the world. In India, over 350,000 people are currently working in call centers. Vikeeh Uppal, or “Ethan Reed,” is one of them. He works in a busy calling center selling cell phones and fire extinguishers to customers in America and Great Britain, although he has never been out of Calcutta, Vikhee, alias Ethan, works hard to be a top seller. He gets tutoring in English language, learns pronunciation from commercials and movies, and watches English soccer games to get a better understanding of the people he calls every day. In the meantime, he is determined to keep to Indian values and customs, although he is intensly exposed to Western culture and consumerism.
East of Eden
Director: Rajko Petrovic Country: Serbia Year: 2006 Length: 40
Economic transition is generally a difficult process for most citizens of ex-socialist countries on their way to liberal capitalism: followed by job cuts, painful dealings with the realities of market economy and getting used to a new lifestyle. The employees of the Čelarevo Brewery are a non-typical example of people who have gotten rich in the transition process, having sold their stock to the international company Carlsberg for a total of 53 million euros. Overnight, their lives changed dramatically.
Electro
Director: Matei Alexandru Mocanu Country: Romania Year: 2006 Length: 52
The very first applied documentary that studies the Romanian Electro phenomenon thrills the audience with the author's excitement on his profound documentation that captured on film numerous interviews with the main characters of the Romanian Electro stage (it also includes fans or foreign artists visiting), concert excerpts, live or recorded acts. The style is direct, modern and yet dapper, in perfect accord with the subject. Behind the wrapping, itself Electro - unprecedented in Romania – hides a precise and ample X-Ray of the indigenous Electro phenomenon.
A Ferry Tale
Director: Kwan Man-Hin Country: China Year: 2006 Length: 17
A ferry travel through the Victoria harbor, witness different changes of the city, also witness the last moment of the clock tower.
Independence
Director: Rastko Petrović Country: Romania Year: 2006 Length: 25
Independence is a former one-person apartments building in Sibiu, transformed into a block of flats. The very narrow apartments make life not very comfortable here. Răzvan is a child living in the Independence building, whose mother left to Western Europe for work. A sensitive portrait of a child who tries to live a normal life, but who sometimes is overwhelmed by the feeling of missing his mother.
Milky Way
Director: Ivana Mladenovic Country: Romania Year: 2006 Length: 10
Unlike other authentic mioritical shepherd films, walking their flocks through heavenly landscapes, the two main characters of this film are so called „Bucharest shepherds”. They take out at grass their cows in a saddening display, filled with plastic bags and all sort of garbage, near by the Capital City. Even so, Mihai and Titinel still do business with the same customers, the ones that remained retentionists and consistently refuse on buying the pasteurized milk found at the local shop. Nicely framed, very aesthetically clean, this film captures the destiny of the people of Romania, freshly joined to U.E..
This film portrays a real and tragic character that Romania knows very little about. Persecuted by the Communist regime for his belief, the early death of Dr.Benedek gave him the aura of a saint due to some paranormal manifestations that occured near his grave. The film does not try to convince us of the truthfulness of these phenomena, neither attempts it to prove that the water from the spring that flows near his tomb is miraculous. It rather makes the portrait of a martyr putting together testimonies of those who knew him. Last but not least, the film explores the human need for faith and for models.
On the outskirts of Bucharest, two 14-year-olds live by themselves in an apartment, without their families. How is it that they got here? What about their past? Alex and Petronel struggle to cope with daily life as adults. At any rate, they’ve never been allowed a real childhood. The film follows the two main characters in their thoughts and in their memories of their past lives spent with their families and on the streets. The film accompanies them as they reveal their dreams and set out for two different destinations. Alex struggles to make his dream come true, while Petronel takes a trip back in time, in search of love from his family. But at home all he finds is disappointment.
Only one Armenian has remained in a formerly Armenian village in Southern Turkey. All the others have left the village, either to move into town or to migrate to other countires. The old man tells stories of the past and of his present loneliness and sadness.
The Unkosher Truth
Director: Chana Zalis Country: Israel Year: 2006 Length: 35
A father and his daughter meet and talk. The daughter was grown up in a liberal way, and the father realizes that the ‘liberal way’ was eventually far too liberal… or maybe it’s him who became far too conservative in the meantime… A conflict between generations and a conflict between ways of life. The film is dealing with a series of conflicts between a father who loves his daughter and a daughter who needs her father’s warmth.
ASTRA FILM manages an extensive documentary film collection with public screening facilities. The ASTRA FILM archive started in 1990, and it has collected since thousands of documentaries produced in over 70 countries.
Due to our focus on the Eastern European and Romanian production, the ASTRA FILM archive holds a unique collection of documentaries documenting the issues of post-communism and transition in the region.
Fundatia Soros Romania lanseaza concursul de film de scurtmetraj Open Society Shorts. Deadline: 3 mai 2010
ASTRA FILM promovează documentarul românesc la UCLA Film and Television Archive din Los Angeles
