The online edition of Visions du Réel (April 17 - May 2, 2020) includes Wolves at the Borders by Martin Páv (Ex Oriente Film 2018) in the Grand Angle programme section and Pripyat Piano by Eliška Cílková (East Silver Caravan, Silver Eye Award 2019) in the International Medium Length & Short Film Competition. Roma (working title) by Olha Zhurba (Ex Oriente Film 2019, East Doc Platform Award 2020) will be presented in the Rough Cut Lab 2020.
Wolves at the Borders (dir. Martin Páv, prod. Zuzana Kučerová) tell the story of wolves returning to the Broumov region in the Czech Republic, where they were eliminated two centuries ago. It, like elsewhere in Europe, triggers passionate debate between livestock farmers and environmentalists. The film was developed within Ex Oriente Film 2018 and it got Special Mention of the East Doc Platform Award 2019.
26 April 1986: Chernobyl's reactor number 4 explodes and provokes the biggest nuclear disaster in history. Pripyat, where the plant is located, becomes a ghost city. Guided by former inhabitants, Eliška Cílková takes us in her quest of the town's memory. Gracefully shot, the film reminds us the power of music where less expected. Pripyat Piano (dir. Eliška Cílková, prod. Jindřich Andrš) is part of IDF's East Silver Caravan and got Silver Eye Award 2019 for the bets short film.
Roma (working title), directed by Olha Zhurba and produced by Darya Bassel and Viktoria Khomenko, got four awards at this year's East Doc Platform, including the main East Doc Platform Award. It is a coming of age portrait of Roma from being a 13-year old hero of the Maidan revolution, through an orphanage to an uncertain adulthood in his small Ukrainian home town.
Czech and co-production films have a strong presence at Visions du Réel: Traces of a Landscape by Petr Záruba will have a World Premiere in the International Medium Length & Short Film Competition. Sergei Loznitsa's State Funeral will be be presented at the Grand Angle section. A short anidoc S P A C E S by Nora Štrbová will have a World Premiere in the Opening Scenes section. Find out more here.
