FOREIGN CREATORS – Saturday, 9 April
On Saturday, 9 April 2005 a press conference was given by the creators Jacek Blawut (“Born Dead”), Margaret Loescher, (“Pulled From the Rubble”), and Petr Lom, (“Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgysztan”), regarding their films, which are being screened within the framework of the 7th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival – Images of the 21st Century.
Jacek Blawut: Born Dead
The documentary follows the life of the 24 year old Robert, who has lived in various reform institutions in Poland since he was 15. The director focuses on the metamorphosis, the mutation that children who grow up in institutions are subjected to, and especially on the ways that their emotional world is developed, how they learn to accept touch and love. “Shooting lasted for 15 months. After so much shooting time I saw Robert and I realized that he would be the leading character of my film. In the beginning he was nervous in front of the camera, but afterwards he paid no attention to it, and those were the best shots. This film is about feelings, feelings that were always in Robert who, even though he had been in jail for a great many years, was not a bad person.”
Margaret Loescher: Pulled From the Rubble
In August of 2003, Gil Loescher went to Baghdad to do humanitarian research. Gil and his co-workers were at a meeting with the head of the UN in Iraq when a truck full of explosives slammed itself into the side of the building. Gil was the only one who survived from the most destroyed part of the building. All the others who had been with him were killed. Through the movingly honest narration and the emotionally loaded observation shots, his daughter, Margaret Loescher, records how the family has been recovering in the months following the bombing. “I adopted this film in some way, in part because that is what I knew how to do, and in part because I wanted to record what was happening to my family. In the beginning I did not know if this film would be presented in front of a wider audience, I did feel however that this very personal story was at the same time a very important public issue, in the sense that we don’t often see stories about people who have survived such strikes, but only about the dead. But I believe that if we do not learn these stories, the cycle of violence will not be broken, because no one will understand the real pain”, the creator noted while she added:
“It is about a very personal approach to the life of my family after the strike. It is not a directly political film, it does however contain, indirectly, political elements. That is, I believe that a personal story is something very powerful, and that has political repercussions. In reality though, it is a film that refers to love, to family, to the attempt to support someone. That is why anger is missing from the film, because in my effort to make a very honest record, I only included everything I saw, and I did not see any anger existing in my family, but only the energy that was needed in order to support my father.” Moreover, speaking about her own participation in the family tragedy by means of her film, she characteristically said: “Sometimes it worked as therapy, some times it did not. I had the impression that there were moments when I was hiding behind the camera, because the whole situation was beyond me, so I transformed it into a professional job so that I could handle it. Thus then, sometimes it was good for me, this approach was helpful to me, some other times though I believe it only served to delay my own recovery.”
Petr Lom: Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgysztan
In Kyrgysztan it is not rare for a girl to set out for school in the morning and find herself a bride in a strange house that night. Men very often kidnap a woman if they can not pay the usually large sum her family asks for in order to give her in marriage. The kidnapping is discussed in advance by the man’s family – who will provide his car for the kidnapping, where the couple will live afterwards, etc. After the kidnapping, the new in-laws contact the girl’s family, who often accept the “proposal”. Sometimes, the couple has known each other beforehand, and the kidnapping is nothing more than the keeping of an amusing tradition before marriage. According to recent research, half of all marriages in rural areas of Kyrgysztan take place through kidnapping, and in half of those the bride is married against her will. This is a film about five different women who were kidnapped in Kyrgysztan.
“ As an academic, I traveled a great deal in the area of Central Asia. In Kyrgysztan I discovered that the matter of kidnapping is very pivotal, and it piqued my interest. The film does not contain comments, I allow the images to speak for themselves, the viewer can come to his own conclusions and think his own thoughts.” Furthermore, answering a question regarding outside intervention in such societies in order for traditions to change and for western traditions to be imposed, the director said: “I believe that human rights are universal. Freedom is a universal value and this shows in the film as well, where the women wish to live their lives as they themselves choose. It is true though, that many films about human rights have a moralistic approach, that in some sense we in the West are superior. So, I tried to discover their beliefs about the relationship between the two sexes, and that is why I believe that change can only come through them. As a matter of fact, before I started the film, having heard the stories about kidnapping, I was also opinionated, but during the shooting, the stereotypes I had in my mind were cast down.”
