Events :: Eastern Bloc :: Szczecin Film Festival 2020

Eastern Bloc

dokumentART 2012: 20.11.2012, Tuesday, 11:00
Teatr Kana, pl. Świętego Piotra i Pawła 4/5 (where is that?)
Blok tematyczny: East Silver

Eastern Bloc presents films about the past, present and future of Middle and Eastern Europe. It studies the historical, cultural, socio-political identity of the region, and how it translates to customs and everyday life. This year we will show two films made in Poland, which deal with more and less recent history, both known poorly. “Born for the Reich” is a moving documentary about the experiences and memories of people, Poles and Germans, who fell victim to the sick ideas of the Nazi Lebensborn organisation. “Reaching the Stars” tells about the Polish meteorological rocket research program of the '60s and '70s of the past century. The documentary film is an insightful tool for analysis. Its artistic form can be subordinate to the formulated message, it can parallel that message, co-creating the communicative meanings. The films presented in this year's Eastern Bloc give excellent grounds to talk about the methods and ideas of a documentary film director.

Films

Reaching the Stars / Sięgnąć gwiazd, 25'
POL 2011, 25'

A documentary about the Polish meteorological rocket research programme of the 1960s and 1970s, composed of archive material from the National Institute of Hydrology and Meteorology, which were found after an arduous search. Films made with amateur cameras in laboratories and at launch sites (including the Rożnowskie Lake, in the Błędów Desert and at the former German bases near Łeba and Ustka) have been complemented with an original score (prompting nostalgic-nervous associations with the educational films of era of the People's Republic of Poland) and a commentary relating to the poetics of 1960s cinema.

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Born for the Reich / Urodzeni dla Rzeszy, 56'
POL 2011, 56'

Between 1938–1945 a sanatorium in Połczyn-Zdrój (or Bad Polzin, as it was called during its German period) was one of the many centres of the Lebensborn (Spring of Life) organisation, which existed in the Third Reich and the occupied countries. It was founded by Heinrich Himmler in 1936. It functioned within the structures of the SS. Its aim was to give birth to and raise precious Aryan children through: caring for unmarried Aryan mothers, impregnating Aryan women – German and of occupied countries – by the police or SS officers, taking the children who met Aryan requirements away from their parents living on the occupied territories. Today people who, in their childhood, experienced the sick ideas of Heinrich Himmler meet in Połczyn-Zdrój.

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Authors:
- Kinga Wołoszyn-Świerk