On Monday, April 18th, the documentary Into the North has a Czech premiere in cinema Světozor, Prague. Israelian director of Slovak origin, Natasha Dudinski, expounds a long-unknown story of 80 Czech Jewish teenagers that fled away from Nazis from Prague to Denmark in October 1939. Eventually, they spent there 4 years.
The theme was selected by Czech journalist Judita Matyášová, who came across the story in 2010 and published it in the book Přátelství navzdory Hitlerovi (Friendship despite Hitler). “It is a story of growing-up in a foreign country that had not been afraid to open doors to refugees. A story about losing home and relatives; about becoming accustomed with a new culture. It is a story about salvation. Those days it was not governments who helped refugees (save for minor exceptions) but mostly individuals – it resembles today’s situation. Thanks to the individuals, stories of refugees could have ended happily,” the director says. Main characters of the film tried to forget the sadness of leaving home and the concerns about the relatives by means of working at Danish farms and intensifying mutual friendship. In 1943, the group spread all over the world, and it had taken long 70 years before Judita Matyášová discovered the story.
The documentary Into the North had its world premiere at the end of November 2015 at the festival Jeden svet (One world) in Bratislava. On 19th January there was an Israelian premiere in Haifa, within the event to remember International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Produced by Mimesis Film Company, the film was supported by Institute of Documentary Film by adding it to East Silver Market, and we wish it large audience and many festival awards.