27. dokumentART
films & future
In this year’s Eastern Block, dokumentART looks to Russia, Georgia, Bulgaria and Poland. Using candid, mesmerising and dense images, “Natasha” and “Polish Women On Strike” are empowering films about self-aware, self-confident and self-assertive women, and gender minorities who stand up against prejudice and oppression. Plagued by a devastating economic downturn and worsening under-population, the post communist small Bulgarian town in “Altimir” is a representative symbol of disappearing villages haunted by the promises of both communism and capitalism. And “The Bird” is a comingof- age short about dealing with unattainable loss from a child’s point of view. In the second Eastern Block funded by Polnisches Institut Berlin, we see a sensitive coming-of-age drama in “Communion”, whereby a 14-year-old girl in provincial Poland not only manages the household but also helps her younger autistic brother to prepare for his Holy Communion.