Inauguration ceremony, Thursday 17 March, 18.00, the Polish Institute's
cinema theatre, Villagatan 2 in Stockholm
The Festival will be inaugurated by party leader and member of parliament,
Fredrik Reinfeldt of the Moderate Party and by chairperson of the
festival's organising committee Leo Kantor, chairman of the Central
Federation of Immigrants (ICF) & International Culture Forum in Sweden.
Elzbieta Ficowska, chairperson of the Federation of Holocaust Children
in Poland, will take part in the opening.
The poem by Jerzy Ficowski, "Both your mothers" from
the collection of poetry Reading in the ashes (Bonniers 1987) will be
read by
Sara Sommerfeld, actress,
educated at the College of Acting in Gothenburg. The Scandinavian Film
Prize for best female actor at the Scandinavian Film Festival in Haugesund,
2001. Nominated for the Golden Beetle (Guldbagge) for best female film
role, 2001.
|
|
Also participating in the inauguration will be Michal Nekanda-Trepka,
film director, active with Telewizja Polska S.A., winner of several
international documentary film awards about the Holocaust and C.Cay
Wesnigk, Vice Chairman of the German independent producer's association
who is the producer of the film, "Hitler´s Hit Parade".
Films that will open the festival:
Teaspoon for life (22 min.) Poland 2004
Beslan (9 min.) North Ossetia
Amateur Photographer (27 min.) Russia 2004
Jerzy
Ficowski
"Both your mothers"
For Bieta
Under a futile Torah
under an imprisoned star
your mother gave birth to you
you have proof of her
beyond doubt and death
the scar of your navel
the sign of parting for ever
which had no time to hurt you
this you know
Later you slept in a bundle
carried out of the ghetto
someone said in a chest
knocked together somewhere in
Nowolipie Street
with a hole to let in air
but not fear
hidden in a cartload of bricks
You slipped out in this little coffin
redeemed by stealth
from that world to this world
all the way to the Aryan side
and fire took over
the corner you left vacant
So you did not cry
crying could have meant death
luminal hummed you
its lullaby
and you were not
so that you could be
|
But the mother
who was saved in you
could now step into crowded death
happily incomplete
could instead of memory give you
for a parting gift
her own likeness
and a date and a name
so much
And at once a chance
someone hastily
bustled about your sleep
and then stayed for a long always
and washed you of orphanhood
and swaddled you in love
and became the answer
to your first word
That was how
both your mothers taught you
not to be surprised at all
when you say
I am
Jerzy Ficowski - Born in Warsaw
1924, a Polish poet and author.
Translation by Keith Bosley and
Krystyna Wandycz.
|
Beslan - how we suddenly became older
"All is pulled down swept in a mist, nightmarish,
terrifying pain,
our hope goes to heaven, mixed with prayers, in unison with silence…"
We were only fifteen kilometres from there
on that morning. A normal day, the first day of school, bunches of flowers,
the first exercise book. Happy and expectantly small-talking with the
first class pupils, long stories of the holidays and friends. -"we'll
meet up in a quarter of an hour over there by the big wall" - Vika's
voice said into the handset, barely audible. Something was wrong in Beslan,
we heard…
I could feel every beat of my heart
in my temple. My head spinning. I don't understand anything, only Vika's
well known expression gets my legs to move forward in the corridor at
the regional hospital.
Here everything is different from normal. Terrified parents look for their
children, panic-stricken children look for their parents, screams and
crying, everything is mixed together in one single drawn-out terrible
moment. Words force themselves towards our lips, words that neither Diana
nor I dare to utter.
Then we catch sight of a little girl with sky
blue eyes. She is lying on the bed and her eyes search for the person
closest to her - MUMMY! But no, in vain, it turns out later. And the worst
thing is that she is not alone in that.
One person loses belief in himself, another hope and love, a third loses
the most precious thing in life, her own child. Diana and I can hardly
bear the looks of those for whom the cruellest fact becomes obvious.
And while we are here, among the pain and tears, we understand that the
hardest thing still awaits us, to be able to be able to convey all of
this to you.
From this instant, we dedicated every moment
to finding the right pictures, the right sequences. Never before had time
been so precious. One screenplay after another was replaced and the themes
seemed to never come to an end.
Should one really get involved in filming around
such a black theme? We couldn't do anything else. Before our eyes, stood
the broken walls of the school, we saw bloody prints from the hands of
children and still these sky blue girl eyes searching for Mummy…
We stood in the destroyed gym hall and did not
even notice how our tears were mixed with rain, a rain that had been crying
over everything for several days, together with the people of Ossetia
in Russia, in the whole world. Every child's shoe found, every unstarted
first exercise book, every smile from a photograph of a deceased, EVERYTHING
just screamed to us that we should, that we must do something for these
eyes previously so full of the joy of living. On that morning any one
of us could have been there, in their place. We all went to our school
just like this, waited for the first bell of the term just like this,
and we thought that monsters and dragons only existed in fairy tales.
But the fairy tales were changed to deliberate, ugly reality. Had the
stories changed, or had we become more adult?
Much
has been said and written about Beslan, and no one should criticise another
for insincere feelings. No! But we are after all the first young people
to film a documentary of it with our own eyes, - with the eyes of children
who suddenly became older.
(Translation from Russian: Elisabeth Poignant )
Viktoria Gurova (Vika):
I was born on 20/1/1987 in Vladikavkáz. I was with "Studio
Erassik" (a leisure time film studio for children and young people,
arranged by staff at the region's local TV station) for four years. I
have done a journalism course for young people and received a diploma.
At the moment, I am studying the basic course as part of the journalism
course at the state Chetagurov University in North Ossetia.
My parents: Svetlana Gurova, a military medical officer, and Igor Gurov,
died in 2003 during the Chechen War, posthumously awarded the order of
valour.
Diana Tsygankova:
I was born on 11/8/1988, also in Vladikavkáz. I took part in "Erassik"
courses for seven years and am now myself part of the management team
of this activity. I am an upper secondary school pupil in Vladikavkáz.
My parents: Tamara Tsygánkova, a homemaker, and Sergej Tsygánkov,
a craftsman.
Zalína Bogasova:
I was born on 24 December 1987 in Beslan and am a pupil at the comprehensive
and upper secondary school no.1 in Beslan. I was with the "Erassik"
group for two and half years. During the hostage drama at the school in
Beslan, I survived but I lost both my mother and little sister.
My parents: Boris Bogásov, a technical engineer, and Serafima Chadikova,
died during the hostage drama at school no.1 in Beslan in September 2004.
|
Info
