EAST SILVER

East Silver Caravan Award for The Elf's Tower

11. 9. 2020

Author: Veronika Zýková

The Institute of Documentary Film has decided to award The Elf's Tower (dir. Polina Kelm) at Beldocs in Progress with the East Silver Caravan Award. The winning project is "a very sensitive story destroying all tabus about mental health."

The selected project will receive support in the field of distribution strategy and upon its completion will be a part of the East Silver Caravan for one year. East Silver Caravan is curated collection of Central and East European creative documentaries, a promotional tool for supporting the festival distribution, which brings the best documentaries from the CEE territory to the international audience.

Our statement: We decided to support the project, which is a very sensitive story destroying all tabus about mental health. A story is uncovering not only the personal life of the main protagonist but it also introduces us to a specific situation and public status of the clients of the mental health institution. We appreciate the director asks difficult questions, seeks understanding and presents it in a very cinematic way. The East Silver Caravan Award goes to The Elf's Tower by Polina Kelm.

The Elf's Tower / Elfova vezha
Director / Scriptwriter Polina Kelm
Producers Gennady Kofman, Miroslaw Dembinski, Olga Beskhmelnitsyna
Production company Magika Film
Co-production company Film Studio Everest
Ukraine

Synopsis
Those who happen to get into a mental health institution strive to leave it as soon as possible. Having come here, Serhiy not only stays there – he starts his own theatre. Patients and amateur teens work together at staging the play written by one of the patients, called ‘The Elf’s Tower’. Serhiy is an elf from a metaphoric tale – he saw there not just patients, not mentally challenged people, but unique, special persons. He rip them out of the cage of prejudice. But is it easy to be an elf in real life?

back to articles
This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Find out more.