Transition Europe

The life story of the Festival is also the story of two decades of transition in Romania, as well as in the entire ex-Soviet bloc. Astra Film’s distinctive profile among documentary film festivals is to a certain degree the result of the emphasis it has put on the documentary cinema production of this region. The retrospective selection ”Transition Europe” singles out moments of the transition towards the EU as experienced by various people in diverse circumstances.

Common Ground / Charges Communes / Cheltuieli Comune

Anne Schiltz, Charlotte Grégoire, Belgium, 2012, 82 min

Section: Transition Europe

Synopsis:

The film retraces the life of an apartment building in Bucharest, an authentic witness of the social and economic consequences of a Romanian society in complete transition. It evokes the stories which have animated the lives of its inhabitants - almost all of them are owners. In this invitation to "come inside", the audience discovers the characters with their stories, their lifestyle, their own set, and also their  everyday life as owners: bills to pay, pipes to repair, a mafioso administrator, noisy neighbours, solidarity networks developing. The film describes life stories very realistically, as they are lived today in Bucharest. 

Program: Tuesday 15 oct./ 3:00 pm; Astra Film Cinema

After The Silence What Remains Unsaid Does Not Exist? / Apres Le Silence Ce Qui N’est Pas Dit N’existe Pas? / Dupa Tacere Ceea Ce Nu E Rostit Nu Exista?

Vanina Vignal, France / Romania, 2012, 96 min

Section: Transition Europe

Synopsis:

After the Silence... deals with how the effects of dictatorship are still extremely vivid, even after the fall of dictatorship. It is a film about the abuses of the state, about fear, how silence is passed on from one generation to the next. A film about the space which, despite all that is known, is left to ghosts that make it impossible to live fully in the present. Three generations walled in silence. The legacy of denial, as nothing has been put back in its place and nothing has been said. Killing the dictator is not enough to kill the dictatorship.

Program: Tuesday 15 oct. / 5:00 pm; Astra Film Cinema

Ivetka and the Mountain / Ivetka a Hora / Ivetka si muntele

Janecek Vit, Czech Republic, 2008, 84 min

Section: Transition Europe

Synopsis:

Between 1990 and 1995 two girls, Ivetka and Katka, from the village Litmanova in Eastern Slovakia, met with the Virgin Mary each month. They were ten and eleven when it started. Both of them could see her. Ivetka could also talk to her and transmit messages. After the revelation ended, Katka got married and now lives the life of a normal private citizen. Ivetka joined a covent and spent 9 years there. After fullfilling her initial vows she decided to leave... The place of their revelations - Zvir Mountin near Litmanova - has become a famous place of pilgrimage. Millions have visited already and many continue to come every day... The film recollects Ivetka's inner and outer experience of meeting the Virgin Mary and opens the question: how to live with a revelation?   

Program: Tuesday 15 oct. / 9:00 pm; Astra Film Cinema

The New Saint / De Nieuwe Heilige / Sf. Evgheni cel nou

Netherlands, 2010, 70 min

Section: Transition Europe

Synopsis:

Yevgeny Rodionov was an ordinary young Russian soldier until he was taken prisoner  in Chechnya, and killed because he refused to convert to Islam. Hence he was proclaimed a martyr and became an unofficial saint for many Russians. The life of Yevgeny's mother Lyubov underwent a radical change since people had sanctified her son.  Unable to let go of her grief, she keeps his iconic memory alive with the support of Orthodox priests, biker gangs and the Russian army, which uses his legend as an example for young soldiers. While the saint's mother appears on TV shows, young cadets are preparing to sacrifice themselves and follow their hero's footsteps.

Program: Wednesday 16 oct. / 3:00 pm; Astra Film Cinema

Our School / Scoala noastra

Mona Nicoara, Miruna Coca- Cozma, Switzerland / U.S.A., 2011, 94 min

Section: Transition Europe

Synopsis:

'Three Roma ("Gypsy") children from a small Transylvanian town participate in a project to desegregate the local school, struggling against indifference, tradition and bigotry with humor, optimism and sass. Shot over four years, OUR SCHOOL is a captivating, bitter-sweet and often  funny  story about hope and race.

Program: Wednesday 16 oct / 5:00 pm; Astra Film Cinema

My Class - From Russia With Relativity / My Class - Was Aus Uns Wurde / Clasa Mea de Liceu

Ekaterina Eremenko, Germany, 2007, 89 min

Section: Transition Europe

Synopsis:

In 1982, 26 young specially gifted pupils are accepted at the school for Natural Sciences in the Soviet Union. Graduating from this school guarantees a most promising future. But then Perestroika happens, the old order collapses. Today, those pupils are spread all over the world, hardly any of them are still employed with scientific research. With her film, the director Ekaterina Eremenko undertakes a very personal journey into her past in order to meet her former classmates once again and to faind out, what has become of them. Based upon the laws of physics, once taught at the school, My Class tells the story of a nation. The former pupils represent a generation that was dramatically influenced by the political changes that took place their graduation.

Program: Wednesday 16 oct. / 9:00 pm; Astra Film Cinema

Good Luck! / Bahrtalo! / Hai noroc!

Róbert Lakatos, Austria / Hungary / Germany, 2008, 83 min

Section: Transition Europe

Synopsis:

The title of the film means „Good luck!" in the Gypsy language. It is also a common form of greeting between Gábor gypsies. In the beginning of the movie, Lali (a Transylvanian Gábor Gypsy) and Lóri (a Transylvanian Hungarian) have financial difficulties, so they decide to go to Austria for trading. This neo-realist comedy is actually a documentary feature road movie which tells the story of its two protagonists, who even find themselves in Egypt at some point.

Program: Thursday17 oct. / 3:00 pm; Astra Film Cinema

Alyosha / Aljosa / Aliosa

Meelis Muhu, Estonia, 2008, 67 min

Section: Transition Europe

Synopsis:

Monuments serve the purpose to estabilish memory and create identity. Most monuments erected during the Soviet regime were taken away after Estonia regained its independence in 1991. The Bronze Soldier "Alyosha", located in the centre of Tallinn, remaind in its place. For Estonian nationalists this monument was the symbol for Soviet occupation and marked the beginning of Stalinist repressions. However, for many Russians the monument was one of the few remaining symbols that connected them to Russia and Russian identity. Documentary Alyosha brings us the people who gathered to the Bronze Soldier and whose bahaviour created a new line in our cultural memory. What mattered were the rituals around the monument, not the monument itself. Differences of opinion about history resulted in tragic conflicts and relocating the monument. 

Program: Thursday 17 oct. / 5:00 pm; Astra Film Cinema

Love Stories from Moscow 1993-2009 / Liebesgeschichten aus Moskau 1993-2009 / Povesti de dragoste, Moscova 1993-2009

Christoph Boekel, Germany, 2010, 115 min

Section: Transition Europe

Synopsis:

In 2008, German filmmaker  Christoph Boekel returns to Moscow to complete a film project he had started in 1993. His film follows seven characters close to him, they are family or friends. The filmmaker sketches small family protraits, telling about love stories, crossed ways, meetings and separations. The overall image is that of a fresco of Moscow intellectual circles in the context of the tremendous social, political, and economical change of the recent years. The parallel montage collates two worlds, the old and the new, populated by the same people, members of three generations. There is a personal approach, sentimental and contemplative, and the construction puts together matters, moods and testimonies of people bound to the author in a special relationship. The city appears gradually, in intermezzos showing places where time has erased the details, to leave an almost completely changed space, within which old structures have vanished and a new city  has popped out.

Program: Thursday 17 oct./  9:00 pm; Astra Film Cinema

Helping Mihaela / Ajutor pentru Mihaela

Hanna Maylett, Finland, 2011, 96 min

Section: Transition Europe

Synopsis:

A beggar in a praying position raises a lot of extreme emotions: guilt, rage, sympathy, frustration. The majority of people just walk by, but there is always someone who wants to help. In the film, director Hanna Maylett follows the confrontation between Romani beggars and well-meaning Finnish helpers and has to question her ideas about helping over and over again. Helping Mihaela is a film about the challenges of giving a hand and the meeting of two different worlds.

Program: Friday 18 oct. / 3:00 pm; Astra Film Cinema

Carmen Meets Borat / Carmen face cunostinta cu Borat

Mercedes Stalenhoef, Netherlands, 2008, 85 min

Section: Transition Europe

Synopsis:

A film about a girl form Glod, the village where “Borat” was shot. The lead character, Carmen Ionela Ciorobea was selected by Mercedes Stalenhoef, the Dutch filmmaker, to be the subject of the film one year before Sacha Baron Cohen came and filmed there as if it was Kazakhstan. In the poor village, girls marry at 14 or 15, and Carmen was considered, at only 17, a spinster. Her family is doing better than the rest, owns a small shop and the boy courting her turns out to be more interested in her money. Carmen watches the telenovelas, speaks some Spanish and dreams of going to Spain. The filmmaker intended to follow up with her for another two or three years, but this storyline goes second when, after one year, Carmen’s father and grandfather star in “Borat”! The entire village stirs up after watching the movie, and foreign lawyers come with the possibility for the family to get huge amounts of money as damages. 

Program: Friday 18 oct. / 5:00 pm; Astra Film Cinema

Homo@Lv

Kaspars Goba, Latvia, 2010, 70 min

Section: Transition Europe

Synopsis:

In the summer of 2005, an unprecedented event was organized in Riga - an LGBT parade. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people marched through the streets of the Latvian capital city. The organizers were following the example of similar LGBT parades in Western cities. Little did they know that their good intent would spiral into a chain of inconceivable events lasting for several years: families would be torn apart, jobs lost, the persons involved would be showered, in turn, with human excrement and holy water. And the great emotion stirred up would dramatically divide Latvian society. The filmmaker collected his material for this film for five years, to offer a comprehensive view on the event, and featuring the stories and opinions of both the supporters and the oponents of the parade. 

Program: Friday18 oct. / 9:00 pm; Astra Film Cinema

The Power of Suspecting - Eginald Schlattner and the Securitate-Trauma / Von der Macht des Verdachtigens - Eginald Schlattner und das Securitate-Trauma / Puterea suspiciunii - Eginald Schlattner si trauma securitatii

Walter Wehmeyer, Austria, 2008, 90 min

Section: Transition Europe

Synopsis:

Eginald Schlattner, author and prison chaplain, experienced the terror of the Romanian dictatorship first hand. Already at the age of ten, as a member of the German minority, Eginald Schlattner witnessed the turn many Siebenbürger Saxons took towards Nazism. At the end of the '50s, Schlattner, then a student, was arrested by the Securitate. The henchmen torture him with sleep withdrawal and beatings. After months of intense interrogation, having become a convinced communist, he decides to disclose information about a number of authors who were critical of the regime. In his controversial novel, "Red Gloves" (Paul Zsolnay Edition Vienna), Schlattner recapitulates the two years of his imprisonment. The book minutely reveals the psycho-terror of the secret service.  In the film we encounter the author, who lives in Siebenbürgen (Transylvania), and several of his comrades-in-fate who survived the crimes of the Romanian regime as political prisoners.  The research leads us to former Securitate  officers, a former penal camp and to the department for the review of Securitate files. Almost 20 years after the Romanian Revolution of Dec. 1989 Eginald Schlattner's recollections are a challenging contribution to the painful reappraisal of history.

Program: Saturday 19 oct. / 3:00 pm; Astra Film Cinema

Rosia Montana, town on the brink / Rosia Montana, Dorf am Abgrund / Rosia Montana, un loc la marginea prapastiei

Fabian Daub, Germany / Romania, 2012, 92 min

Section: Transition Europe

Synopsis:

Rosia Montana has been thrown into a state of disarray ever since the arrival of a Romanian gold mining corporation with powerful Canadian shareholders. The corporation is planning on razing a large portion of the town and its surroundings to the ground in order to gain access to the rock there, which happens to hold the largest gold deposits in Europe. The mining process will involve the use of highly toxic cyanide to extract the gold from the rock - arguably a necessary risk to spur economic development in the area, but potentially fatal for the local environment and the beautiful landscape. More than 2000 people are poised to lose their homes. Many of them have chosen resettlement in big cities, but a small group of inhabitants are battling against the Company and defending their homes with all they have. A long-standing fight of the people in a deeply divided village where the division between the opponents and supporters of the mining project splits families down the middle.

Program: Sathurday 19 oct. / 5:00 pm; Astra Film Cinema

Mama Illegal

Ed Moschitz, Austria, 2011, 102 min

Section: Transition Europe

Synopsis:

They gave the smugglers all their money and risked their lives on their journey across borders: three women from a small town in the Republic of Moldova, living now in Austria as cleaning women. On top of their hard job they live a life in illegality without documents, far away from their children and family for years. A film about the price of the dream of a better life. 

Program: Sathurday 19 oct. / 9:00 pm; Astra Film Cinema

A Fancy House / O casa aparte

Martin Nudow & Thomas Beckmann, Germany, 2008, 70 min

Section: Transition Europe

Synopsis:

Sibiu, Romania, is getting a new EU look. Everything must be gleaming.
"Waiting for the EU." Debates, disclosures and an old vaccum cleaner. Sibiu is one of the richest cities in Romania and European Capital of Culture 2007. In the middle of all this is 70-years-old Ioan Drasovean, an old man trying to keep up with the drastic changes in his country. We follow Ioan in his everyday life: at home or sitting on a bench in the park: in serious discussions with his friend Ilie or with others, discussing Putin, Castro and mobile phone charges. And there is an old vaccum cleaner that needs to be fixed. "We are waiting for the EU." This is a film about Romanian society, its problems and hopes. And about how communism gave up because it was clever.

Program: Sunday 20 oct. / 5:00 pm; Astra Film Cinema

Village Without Women / Selo bez žena / Sat fara femei

Srdjan Sarenac, Croatia / France, 2010, 82 min

Section: Transition Europe

Synopsis:

In the tiny backcountry Serbian village of Zabrdje, the men work hard and the women - are missing. Three brothers, Dragan, Zoran and Rodoljub, and their aging neighbor Velimir are all that remain of a once thriving community. The brothers live together in one house: no running water, no indoor plumbing, one room where all three sleep. This is gruff, bare basics living, hard, demanding, no luxuries. Zoran feels a woman is needed, but all the Serbian women have moved away. In nearby Albania there are more women than men. But the brothers fought in Kosovo against the Albanians.

With this original approach and an easy going style, the film addresses serious social, cultural and anthopological issues, and offers a fresh look on the Balkan world.

Program: Sunday 20 oct. / 7:00 pm; Astra Film Cinema

Lost In Transition / Rataciti in tranzitie

Thom Vander Beken, Belgium, 2008, 60 min

Section: Transition Europe

Synopsis:

Dado arrived in Serbia as a serbian refugee from Croatia. The war that made an end to Yugoslavia also ended his carefree childhood on the countryside. His dream is to become a famous actor, but so far he never had enough energy to start his studies. Lost in Transitions tells the story of this generation in serbia that grew up during the nineties and that now tries to find a way into the future.

Program: Sunday 20 oct. / 9:00 pm; Astra Film Cinema