My Unknown Soldier
Anna Kryvenko
Prague Spring, Soviet tanks: the starting points of a family history intersecting with contemporary history set between the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Russia.
D
Film Archive
My Unknown Soldier
Documentary Film
2018
79 minutes
subtitles:
English
The Prague Spring, Soviet tanks, the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops, the epoch-making year of 1968: the starting points of a family history between Czechia, Ukraine and Russia. “The occupation translates to a man with a dachshund being entitled to yell at a young girl in a tram because he can’t tell Ukrainian and Russian apart.”
A series of family album photos from which a man was removed sets Anna Kryvenko, a Ukrainian who studies film in Prague, on the trail of her great-uncle: the “unknown soldier”, to whom so many monuments are dedicated that one almost forgets that this sweeping gesture of remembrance refers to concrete faces, names, dates of birth and death, biographies cut short. After some initial hesitation the filmmaker’s family break their silence and gradually the pieces combine to form a new picture in which family and world history intersect.
Fabian Tietke
Nominated for the MDR Film Prize
A series of family album photos from which a man was removed sets Anna Kryvenko, a Ukrainian who studies film in Prague, on the trail of her great-uncle: the “unknown soldier”, to whom so many monuments are dedicated that one almost forgets that this sweeping gesture of remembrance refers to concrete faces, names, dates of birth and death, biographies cut short. After some initial hesitation the filmmaker’s family break their silence and gradually the pieces combine to form a new picture in which family and world history intersect.
Fabian Tietke
Nominated for the MDR Film Prize
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Putin’s Witnesses
Vitaly Mansky
A timely look back at footage from 2000 when Vladimir Putin came to power. The sovereign speaks. Emigrant Mansky listens. A film about an unforeseen future.
Putin’s Witnesses
Documentary Film
2018
107 minutes
subtitles:
English
“The state is like a garden,” says Putin’s old form teacher’s husband, “you have to destroy the weed so that something worthwhile grows.” “We’ll do just that,” the lifetime president-to-be answers almost shyly and leaves his teacher’s flat, which he visited to shoot an advertising clip directed by Vitaly Mansky who, as the country’s leading documentary filmmaker, was allowed to follow and record the campaign. After 18 years of concrete rule by the little man with the strong hands, the long-emigrated director looks back at the fateful year of 2000 and reviews his footage. What he discovers is breathtaking and has the emotionalising power of an almost intimate home video. The Mansky family already dread the new Mao while Yeltsin’s clan is jubilant at first and ex-Tsar Boris even sees his successor Vladimir as the guarantee of real media freedom –later he disgustedly calls the pivotal turn-back “krasnenko” (reddish). Putin himself talks about reasons of state and an autocratic life which he intends to avoid at all costs. Finally, the question whether it was right to reanimate the old Soviet hymn with quasi new lyrics becomes a bone of contention in the duel Putin vs. Mansky. The sad conclusion is that nobody was just a “witness”. Everybody played a part in the many compromises made in hopes of a “better life.”
Barbara Wurm
Barbara Wurm
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Hello, Horse!
Laila Pakalniņa
Images composed of statics and movement. A delicately orchestrated mechanism of passing and returning.
Hello, Horse!
Documentary Film
2017
24 minutes
subtitles:
_without dialogue / subtitles
Credits
Laila Pakalniņa
Laila Pakalniņa
Ivars Burtnieks
Ivars Burtnieks
Anrijs Krenbergs
Images composed of statics and movement. Something is standing firmly in the landscape (a pylon, a traffic sign, a house et cetera), something else moves, races, clatters, marches through this landscape. There is twittering and squeaking and quacking and cuckooing and slurping on the soundtrack. Colours, moods and seasons change and return. Dust is raised and settles. A delicately orchestrated mechanism of passing and returning.
Esther Buss
Esther Buss
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Blueberry Spirits
Astra Zoldnere
The Latvian forest – it’s the time of the blueberry harvest. In other places the fruit with the perfect five point star are sacred because they serve as children’s food in times of draught.
Blueberry Spirits
Documentary Film
2016
12 minutes
subtitles:
English
The Latvian forest – it’s the time of the blueberry harvest. In other places the fruit with the perfect five point star are sacred because they serve as children’s food in times of draught. For the extended family around Bruno, too, the blueberry harvest is existential. Price negotiations in Latvian and Romani are going on in the improvised camp. Among Roma, however, they tell tales of spirits in the forest that hardly anyone escapes. Family spirits are a fixed part of the history of the country.
Nadja Rademacher
Nadja Rademacher
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Rodnye (Close Relations)
Vitaly Mansky
All of a sudden mother speaks Ukrainian, the aunts have stopped talking to each other, the second cousin is drafted … Shocks and the crack that runs through a Ukrainian family in 2014/15.
Rodnye (Close Relations)
Over the past few years, Vitaly Mansky’s own voice has found its way into his films again and again. He is a laconic commentator, deliberately factual and yet not without emotions. He wishes he had never been forced to make this film. This is how “Rodnye (Close Relations)” begins, his report of the eventful year between May 2014 and May 2015. For the Ukraine – the subject of the film – it was the most important year since World War Two ended: an ongoing political earthquake that left no stone standing and – to stick to the metaphors of social seismography – opened deep rifts between the people. Mansky’s balancing act does not lead to just anybody but to his nearest relatives. His birthplace in Lviv is the starting point of a journey that has much to offer. Surprise: his mother speaks Ukrainian; his great uncle is still alive – in Donbass! But also disappointment: the aunts – one of them living in western Ukraine, the other on the Crimea – have stopped talking to each other. And shock: his cousin’s son was drafted, which in late 2014 carries a deeper meaning.
Mansky himself has now moved out of his home near the Kremlin and lives in emigration, like so many others. There’s no place for nostalgia in his still disintegrating “home country”, his film teaches us – an attempt to approach the issue by a man who’s deliberately growing more and more estranged.
Barbara Wurm
Nominated for MDR Film Prize
Mansky himself has now moved out of his home near the Kremlin and lives in emigration, like so many others. There’s no place for nostalgia in his still disintegrating “home country”, his film teaches us – an attempt to approach the issue by a man who’s deliberately growing more and more estranged.
Barbara Wurm
Nominated for MDR Film Prize
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Wall
Anatoly Piatkin
The city of Riga was presented with a piece of the Berlin Wall at the time of the Baltic Liberation Movement. Silent images explore the meaning of concrete.
Wall
Documentary Film
1991
9 minutes
subtitles:
_without dialogue / subtitles
Credits
Alexander Hahn, Riga Documentary Film Studio
Anatoly Piatkin
Martin Braun
Moisey Bitke
Anatoly Piatkin
The city of Riga was presented with a piece of the Berlin Wall at the time of the Baltic Liberation Movement. Silent images explore the meaning of concrete.
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Isle of Seals
Edmunds Jansons
In the middle of a grey sea there is a grey island with grey hunters. Life is simple and harsh. Seals and hunters live together in a cruel balance. One day, a photographer arrives to document this life.
Isle of Seals
Animated Film
2014
6 minutes
subtitles:
_without dialogue / subtitles
In the middle of a grey sea there is a grey island with grey hunters. Life is simple and harsh. Seals and hunters live together in a cruel balance. One day, a photographer arrives to document this life. For him it turns out to be fatally complicated.
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Signe Bauman is known for her open attitude towards taboos. Her films are explicit with a funny and ironic touch. So far she has told her stories only in the short format. “Rocks in My Pockets” is her first feature-length film and probably her most personal work, for the filmmaker takes a trip into her family’s past. She herself describes her latest work as “a funny film about depression”, but it’s probably more of a story about strong, independent women, domineering men, restrictive systems and mental illnesses that none of those involved take seriously. Her grandmother died mysteriously and the family remained silent about it. Signe assumes that she killed herself for she, too, suffers from depression and three of her cousins are mentally ill.
The filmmaker animates external influences and internal states of mind for her film, tries to make her own emotions and those of her fellow sufferers comprehensible to others and explains the connections between her personal and artistic emancipation and the process of coming to terms with the family secrets.
Annegret Richter
The filmmaker animates external influences and internal states of mind for her film, tries to make her own emotions and those of her fellow sufferers comprehensible to others and explains the connections between her personal and artistic emancipation and the process of coming to terms with the family secrets.
Annegret Richter
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Choir Tour
Edmunds Jansons
Even in a world-famous boys’ choir, boys are still curious and adventurous ...
Choir Tour
Animated Film
2012
5 minutes
subtitles:
English
Even in a world-famous boys’ choir, boys are still curious and adventurous. When their supervisor gets stuck in an elevator, they discover the city on their own and have a lot of fun.
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
International Father’s Day
Edmunds Jansons
For people Father's Day is a celebration, but for one small bird it is an ordinary ...
International Father’s Day
Animated Film
2012
5 minutes
subtitles:
_without dialogue / subtitles
For people Father's Day is a celebration, but for one small bird it is an ordinary working day with the same old concerns – to get food for his family.
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Documentarian
Ivars Zviedris, Inese Kļava
A filmmaker wants to document Inta’s “simple life”, for which she berates, curses and beats him with all her strength. A ribald response to current film and media practice.
Documentarian
Documentary Film
2012
82 minutes
subtitles:
English
Dziga Vertov himself regarded “life caught in the act”, “life as it is” as the ultimate goal of the documentary. He and his kinoki used every means, even hidden cameras, and no one got mad because the cinematograph was a sensation people wanted to be part of. Almost 100 years later, the two young directors Ivars Zviedris and Inese Kļava take their camera to the moorlands of Kemeri near Riga to explore the life of a hillbilly named Inta. This rustic eccentric with the impressive voice may not own a TV set, but she knows the rules of mass media (including the nuances separating docu-soap and reality show) only too well, especially concerning her worth and rights with regard to the “paparazzi”. She takes command from the start, showering directors, cameramen and producers with curses whose violence makes ordinary mortals blush. Inta says things like “You’re shitting into my soul, you fucking bastard, with your damned camera!” and is not averse to taking up a metal stick to “smash Ivar’s head” or hand him to the “pederasts”. She won’t accept money, but those who “get rich on her poverty” ought to pay nonetheless. Later she’ll cry... while the film has long since become a tragicomic relationship movie, like a meta-commentary about the “documentarian’s” existence in the age of radical moral abandonment. (aka: authenticity).
– Barbara Wurm
– Barbara Wurm
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Villa Antropoff
Animated Film
2012
13 minutes
subtitles:
_without dialogue / subtitles
Credits
Vladimir Leschiov, LUNOHOD Animation Studio
Vladimir Leschiov, Kaspar Jancis
Kaspar Jancis, Ludvig van Beethoven, Felix Mendelsohn
Ere Tott, Liga Skirmane
Kaspar Jancis, Vladimir Leschiov
Liga Skirmane, Vladimir Leschiov, Kristine Zvirbule, Marje Ale,Karina Golovin, Tarmo Vaarmets,Ulle Metsur
Kaspar Jancis, Vladimir Leschiov
Horret Kuus
A man has nothing to lose except his dream. To make the dream come true the man embarks on a dangerous journey, from Africa to Europe. But his destination is not what it seems. Satiric and surprising interpretation of a vulgar society.
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.