Line-up of PriDocs – Documentary Films Competition program

PriFest wants to thank Cheryl Johnson for the contribution in selection of PriDocs program. Cheryl is our long-term collaborator and true friend of the festival.

PriDocs line-up:

1. DOM SALVADOR AND ABOLITION by Lilka Hara, Artur Ratton

USA, 78 min.

International Premiere.

An immersive journey, Dom Salvador and Abolition is the untold story of Dom Salvador, an Afro-Brazilian musician who found a home in New York.

Departing at the height of Brazil’s military dictatorship in 73’, Salvador left behind an enormous shadow.

2. THE END OF KINGS by Rémi Brachet

France, 40 min,

Regional Premiere.

Depiction of Clichy-sous-Bois in 2019 - the city where the french suburban riots burst in 2005

- "The end of kings" highlights the evolutions of the gender relations in the outlying parisian suburbs.

3. MURANOW by Chen Shelach

Israel, 70 min.

Regional Premiere.

The Muranow neighborhood in Warsaw was a flourishing and important Jewish center.

During World War II the neighborhood was turned into the ”Warsaw Ghetto”.

When the war ended the neighborhood was rebuilt with the rubble of its own destruction.

Today thousands of Polish live in the green and spacious Muranow, yet its dark past keeps haunting it.

Polish residents claim that Jewish ghosts live in the neighborhood.

They say at night they shake off the dust and ashes that cover them, and wander the streets they once lived in.

Other residents think the ghosts are a metaphor for the life, culture and memories of the Jewish people buried beneath the ground.

4. SAME/DIFFERENT/BOTH/NEITHER by Adriana Barbosa and Fernanda Pessoa

Brasil, 18 min.

Regional Premiere.

In a period of isolation, far away from each other, two friends reconnect through video-letters, inspired by the poetic gaze of women experimental filmmakers:

Marie Menken, Joyce Wieland, Gunvor Nelson and Yvonne Rainer. Fernanda is a Brazilian living in São Paulo, Adriana is a Mexican-Brazilian living in Los Angeles.

They share their inspiration while capturing the reality of these times: the pot-banging protests against Bolsonaro, a home moving, the passing of days that feel all the same, gentrification that won’t stop even during a pandemic, the Black Lives Matter protests and the yearning of meeting each other again soon.

5. STALKING CHERNOBYL by Iara Lee

USA, 57 min.

Premiere.

Exploration after apocalypse—directed by Iara Lee (a Cultures Of Resistance film)—a documentary that examines the underground culture of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

Three decades after the world's most infamous nuclear disaster, illegal hiking adventurers (known as “stalkers”), extreme sports afficionados, artists, and tour companies have begun to explore anew the mysterious, ghostly landscape, where trees and forest animals have reclaimed land abandoned by villagers.

Even as survivors continue to reckon with a dishonest government’s attempts to cover up the extent of the disaster, and as humanity faces new nuclear incidents in place like Fukushima, the Chernobyl site has turned into a bizarre tourist attraction, drawing seekers with a taste for the post-apocalyptic.

*photo credit of Stalking Chernobyl: Thierry Vanhuysse

6. ALLA ZINGARA by Glória Halász

Hungary, 63 min.

Premiere.

Alla Zingara tells the story of music’s groundbreaking and uplifting power which creates an entity through the history of the world-famous, but uniquely 100-Member Budapest Gypsy Symphony Orchestra and its extraordinary musicians.

In the film we have a chance to follow some musicians of the 100-Member Budapest Gypsy Symphony Orchestra, get to know their life in detail, and come to understand the meaning of music in their life as a heritage, which has always helped to survive the difficulties from generation to generation. While introducing the everyday life of the musicians, the documentary gives an insight into the orchestra's months-long effort to prepare for their next concert in Moscow, which was a highlighted place of their success several years ago.

PriFest13 will be held from 24-29 August.