Common Borders

dokumentART 2012: 16.11.2012, Friday, 09:00
Uniwersytet Szczeciński, Krakowska 71-79 (where is that?)
Blok tematyczny: Common Borders

The European Film Festival for Documentaries dokumentART is a transfrontier festival. It is organised by Germans and Poles together, in Polish-German borderlands. Issues of identity (national, cultural, and social) and those of boundaries (existing on maps, and in human awareness, which are crossed, cultivated, questioned, created, demolished, and redefined) are on one hand daily bread for the people living in the borderlands, but also a never-ending challenge on the other. The question we want to pose as a part of the Common Borders film presentation and discussion panel at this year's dokumentART festival is: what are boundaries, both territorial and mental ones, for people living in Middle Europe at the beginning of the 21st century? The starting point of the discussion will be the screening of the documentary film “Across the Border.” It was made in 2004, when the European Union accepted new countries, including 5 from Central Europe: the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Hungary. Renown documentalists from this region of Europe – Paweł Łoziński, Jan Gogola, Peter Kerekes, Róbert Lakatos, Biljana Čakič-Veselič – presented their view on boundaries, both territorial and mental, in five film episodes.

Films

  • Across The Border131'
    Jan Gogola, Peter Kerekes, Robert Lakatos, Paweł Łozinski, Biljana Čakič-Veselič, GER 2004, 131'

    A polyphonic film portrayal of the idea of borders at the beginning of the 21st century, created by five directors from central Europe: Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Slovenia. Individual episodes of the cinematic journey from the north to the south present a subjective view on matters relating to identity, not only national, but identity in Europe, and the concept of borders. The Polish episode concerns neighbours from two sides of the river: Poles and Germans who have suffered equally from the experience of resettlement. In the town of České Velenice, Jan Gogola, the director, plays an ironic game with the inhabitants. In the Slovakian “Helpers,” a puppet threatens children with bad people who want to destroy “our blooming garden.” The Hungarian episode shows small-business travellers, lost in a multilingual world. The Slovenian one portrays the paradoxes of territorial borders.

     

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Associated artists

  • Piotr Semka

    Publicist and journalist, graduated from history at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. In the '80s he took part in the actions of the high-school underground, later he was part of the Solidarity structures (1987-1989). From 1985 he published in “Solidarność” of the Gdańsk Region. During his academic studies he was an activist of the Independent Students' Union. In 1989 he partook in the electoral campaign of the Confederation of Independent Poland (KPN). Since 1991 he has been co-operating with Polish Television (his work there includes publishing and hosting “Puls Dnia” and co-authoring the program “Warto rozmawiać”). Currently he writes for the weekly “Uważam Rze” and “Rzeczpospolita.”

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  • Dr Marek Chamot prof. WSG

    Historyk kultury, absolwent Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu. W latach 1988–2005 wykładowca na historii i socjologii UMK w Toruniu. Od 2005 r. wykładowca Wyższej Szkoły Gospodarki w Bydgoszczy. Dyrektor Instytutu Kulturoznawstwa i Centrum Kultury Medialnej WSG. Specjalizuje się w historii kultury, historii myśli społecznej oraz w badaniach prasoznawczych nad stereotypami etnicznymi i tożsamością narodową, a także w stosunkach polsko-niemieckich. Współpracuje z Hochschule Heilbronn-Künzelsau w Niemczech.

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  • Artur Staszczyk

    Graduated from the Institute of Political Science at the University of Szczecin and earned his PhD in political sciences at the AMU Faculty of Political Sciences and Journalism in Poznań. Since 1997 has been working as junior member of the research staff, and since 2006 as assistant professor at the University of Szczecin Department of International Relations by the Institute of Political Sciences and Europe Studies. He deals with topics related to the policies of the European Union, including the neighbourhood policy and the issue of cross-border cooperation.

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how to get there

16.11.2012