Veronika Janatková

Czech Republic

Veronika Janatková

producer, director

Oma Export

In a grey apartment complex in Hamburg lives Petra Kallenbach with her son and her dog. She is a 58-years-old German pensioner, well-rounded with long blond hair, who loves going to theatres and rock concerts. She enjoys having a drink with a
friend or simply going out for a good meal once in a while. But all of this she cannot afford.
Petra got an early but dramatically low pension, like many other seniors in Germany. After paying rent and amenities, she has only about 100 euros left every month for food and other expenses. Barely enough to get by in an expensive city like Hamburg. Petra refuses to accept the current circumstances. She belongs to the new generation of seniors, who don't feel that life should be over when growing old. Her retirement shall be a new chapter in her life. She decides to leave everything
behind and to move thousands of kilometres away to Eastern Europe. In Kavarna, Bulgaria, she wants to find the “better” life she is desperately looking for. She loves the idea of sunny weather, beaches and a biggest rock festival right in front of her
doorstep.
Petra will embark on an adventure of a new culture without knowing neither people nor language. For Petra, retiring in a foreign country will keep her engaged with life. OMA EXPORT is an uplifting humorous documentary that presents old people as
heroes and proves that age is no obstacle for new challenges.

Tracks

Two diaries, one from 1919 and one from 2009. Both follow the same tracks through the "sleepy land" of Siberia.
We found a diary written by a Finnish man Jalmari Ollila, hidden in the town library in Kasko, Finland. The diary was dated from 1913 to 1920. He wrote about his childhood in Finland, his longing to explore Russia and his travels as a fur seller in Siberia.
His notes have become an inspiration for our journey; we wanted to learn more about this part of the world. We wanted to see the places Ollila describes. We wanted to meet the people he met and learn about their history. Today, the rail tracks through Russia are the same as a century ago. Along the tracks people are living in their cities in modern Russia. Jalmari came there as a stranger to a totally different society. We are going in the same tracks, writing our own diary while trying to find parallels with his description of the places to see what has changed in the course of the past century.

Panic button

What risks must one journalist take, both in his professional and private life, in order to fight for free speech and a free, independent media? This questioning is at the heart of PANIC BUTTON (WT).
Director Samara Sagynbaeva has been documenting how her husband, Ali Toktakunov, one of Kyrgyzstan’s most prominent investigative journalists, challenged the ruling nomenklatura by exposing to the public a case of corruption within the government. Both Ali and Samara took great risks with their privacy and security, and as a result received several death threats. The film discusses the value of public good, freedom and free speech at the cost of sacrificing the private life of one family.
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