Clashes and Dialogues of Cultures
And the Trees Grow in Kabylie / Et les arbres poussent en Kabylie
Djamila Sahraoui / France / 2003 / 85 min.
Due to the lack of opportunities to find work, young Berbers in the small Algerian town of Kabylie spend their days sluggishly killing time and dreaming of a better life in France . A reconstruction project in their neighbourhood, “The City of Martyrs,” allows many of them to become active, as they begin planting trees and painting facades. Mourad Zidi is one of the locals and is thus able to record with his digital camera the everyday flow of life, including the unfiltered opinions of people about the political and social situation in their country. At the end of the film, built-up frustrations and dissatisfaction with the government explodes into the rage and fury of anti-government street demonstrations in which 120 people died in April 2001. The film captures the desperate mood prevailing in the cities, whose outskirts are full of poor unemployed people infuriated by the repressive rule of their corrupt governments and their inability to lead a decent life or at least to escape to dreamed-of Europe .
Contact: Arte France , email: m-zack@artefrance.fr , www.artepro.com
The Wild East - Portrait of an Urban Nomad / The Wild East - Portraet af en Storbynomade
Michael Haslund-Christensen / Denmark / 2002 / 54 min.
In winter the temperature in Ulan Bator drops to minus 40 degrees. Despite the cold, two young friends, Jenja and Sasha, set up a place to play billiards outside in the streets of the Mongolian capital. The Danish director decided to challenge the stereotypical view of Mongolia as a country of nomads and wild horses and shows how the society there is dealing with the transition from communism to global capitalism. Jenja and Sasha help tourists overcome the difficulties of the local bureaucracy during the summer, and in winter they make money selling mobile phones or working in a butcher’s shop. Through the combination of jazz music, which would normally seem out of place, and humorous portraits of the main characters, the film is able to faithfully capture the atmosphere of the frozen town in a non-traditional documentary.
Contact : Danish Film Institute, email: annettel@dfi.dk
Beyond Words
Jahanshah Ardalan / USA , Iran / 2003 / 39 min.
Only under exceptional circumstances does a filmmaker gain permission to film the ritual of a Sufi dervish. Jahanshah Ardalan, who was living in the United States , was given this rare privilege because he is a descendent of one of the oldest families in Iran . His camera is a witness to the ceremonies, in which Sufi dervishes of Kurdish origin pray not only with their minds, but with their whole bodies. The hypnotic sound of the drums together with the synchronized movements and song bring the dervishes into a trance, from which they continue in different forms of self-purification. “It is a form of cleansing one’s soul, a battle with the ego,” is the way the leader of the dervish order explains the behaviour of his fellow believers. Ardalan’s document is not just a unique film about a specific religious ceremony – it is also the symbolic journey of a modern man searching in today’s world for that missing mystical dimension, back to experiences which are outside the reach of reason and the spoken word.
Contact: Digital Verite, email: jardalan@yahoo.com , www.beyondwordsfilm.com
Rosalie's Journey
Warwick Thornton / Australia / 2003 / 26 min.
Rosalie Kunoth-Monks was born in the mystical lands of central Australia among the red coloured rocks, typically called Arapunya (Utopia). Through a government program she was as a child forcibly taken away from her worry-free life in her native “aboriginal” circle to a boarding school in Alice Springs . It was here that during the 1950s a famous filmmaker of the day, Charles Chauvel, observed her and placed her in the main role of one of the most highly regarded and most controversial Australian films, “Jedda.” A half century after her only film role, Rosalie remembers her life, full of dangerous upheavals and attempts to maintain her own cultural identity. Archival colour footage of indigenous girls in boarding schools is accompanied by discreet piano music and Rosalie’s commentary in her indigenous language of Arrente. This poetic film about the fate of an indigenous woman violently uprooted from her own family, who never forgot her roots and who at the end of her life returned to where she truly belonged, is a fitting indictment of the arrogance of the “civilizing efforts” of the white race.
Contact : Caama Productions, email: b.miller@caama.com.au , www.caama.com.au
The Passion of María Elena / La Pasión de María Elena
Mercedes Moncada Rodriguez / Mexico / 2003 / 76 min.
The life of María Elena - a young villager from the Raramuri tribe - takes an unexpected turn at the moment that a truck kills her three-year-old son. María becomes a tragic hero when in her efforts to seek a just punishment against the guilty party she is confronted with almost all of the opposite poles of contemporary Mexican society. Dreamy scenes, using the formal procedures of magical realism and powerful music, describe the bitter fate of the young mother, who clashes in court with the dominant role of the “white mestikos”. People in her home village also do not understand her struggle. Confronted by the patriarchal model of order and the absurd prejudices pervading the villagers, she would rather escape to the anonymity of the big city. But in the merciless bowels of the city, a poor woman from a backward village does not have much chance of finding justice. The film is an extraordinary view into the mentality of contemporary Mexican Indians, with their lives still ruled by ancient traditions and rituals, and for whom the rights of a woman based on her own differences are something unthinkable.
Contact : Mexican Film Institute, difuinte@imcine.gob.mx, www.imcine.gob.mx
American Gypsy
Jasmine Dellal / USA /1999 /79 min.
There are one million Gypsies, or Rom, in America , who most people know nothing about. Never before has a camera been allowed in to explore their world. Shot over the course of five years, this feature documentary tells the lyrical tale of one Romani family in the United States who have broken the wall of secrecy surrounding their people. The doc follows the story of Jimmy Marks, a flamboyant community leader who becomes passionately obsessed with fighting a civil rights battle to defend his family, his history and his honour. His journey carries us into the Romani culture with scenes of Gypsies from around the world celebrating New Year in Las Vegas ; the arranged marriage of teenagers; and car salesmen in Stetson hats driving Cadillacs. The film is a glimpse of an immigrant world that is either on the verge of extinction or at a critical turning point for survival. It is a world that most of us have never had the chance to visit because this is the first time it is being presented on screen.
Contact : Little Dust Production, email: info@americangypsy.com , www.americangypsy.com
Master and Eudokia
Olga Kornienko / Russia / 2003 / 52 min.
Once upon a time, in a far Siberian denseness, there was a Master. An ancient shamanistic family bequeathed him divine power. On the other edge of the Earth, there was an old widow Eudokia. She learned by hearsay about the homeless man, promised in marriage, and brought him to the settlement. The rest of their lives they decide to spend together.
Contact: Olga Kornienko, email: webster@zmail.ru
