WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 8:00 PM
REMINISCENCES OF A JOURNEY TO LITHUANIA, 82 min., dir., camera, narration: Jonas Mekas, USA 1971. ”The first part is made up of footage I shot with my first Bolex during my first years in America, mostly 1949-1953. It shows me and my brother Adolfas, immigrants in Brooklyn, picnicking, dancing, singing – the streets of Williamsburg. The second part was shot in August 1971 in Lithuania, mostly in Semeniskiai, the village I was born in – the old house, my mother (born 1887), all the brothers, goofing, celebrating our homecoming. You see Lithuania only through the memories of a Displaced Person home for the first time in 25 years. The third part begins in a suburb of Hamburg, where we spent a year in a forced labor camp during the war, and it continues in Vienna, where we visit some of my best friends – Peter Kubelka, Herman Nitsch, Ken Jacobs.” – Jonas Mekas
MUSICIANS’ RAFT BETWEEN NEW YORK AND SEJNY /Tratwa muzykantow pomiedzy Nowym Jorkiem a Sejnami/, 25 min., dir. Malgorzata Sporek-Czyzewska and Wojciech Szroeder, The Borderland Center film studio, Sejny 2002. Jewish musicians from Brooklyn, including Michael Alpert and Dave Krakauer, travel to Sejny to lead workshops for young people on klezmer music and Jewish traditions.
Total: 107 min. + Q&A
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 8:00 PM
I HAD A DREAM ABOUT HANA /Snila mi sie Hana/, 30 min., dir. Mikolaj Wawrzeniuk, Jerzy Leszczynski, TVP Bialystok 1999. A film director invited by the Borderland Foundation examines the Belarussian-Polish-Jewish borderland and a multicultural town in the Podlasie region.
LIFE STORIES, LISTENED TO /Losy posluchane/, 24 min., dir. Malgorzata Sporek-Czyzewska, Wojciech Szroeder, youth from the Sejny Theater, The Borderland Center film studio, Sejny 2000. Film shot during a trip by young people from the Sejny Theater to Polish villages in the Lida region in Belarus, where they interviewed people about their identity and history.
THE PATH OF POLISH MUSLIMS /Prowadz nas prosta droga/, 35 min., dir. Waldemar Janda, TVP3 Krakow 2005. A documentary about Polish believers in Islam, mostly Tatars from the Podlasie region and Gdansk, that poses the question whether their ability to co-exist with the Polish and Christian majority, sustained for 600 years, is a value that could become more widely accepted, or whether a stronger Arab current will come to dominate. With the participation of Halina Szahidewicz, chairperson of the Muslim Community in Bialystok; Tomasz Miskiewicz, Mufti of the Republic of Poland; Prof. Selim Chazbijewicz, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, BUNCZUK group, and others.
Total: 89 min. + Q&A
THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 8:00 PM
SEJNY BRIDGE BUILDERS /Sejnenscy budowniczowie mostow/, 33 min., dir. Waldemar Janda, TVP 3 Krakow 2006. A film about the Borderland Center’s activities that attempts to answer the question whether a patriotic education can accommodate education for multiculturalism. In a borderland region where, as painter Andrzej Strumillo puts it, the measure of one’s patriotism is one’s enmity towards one’s neighbor, various social projects have revealed the need of both mainstream Poles and minority communities for honest dialogue. Thanks to projects like Sejny Chronicles performance, people have started to acknowledge their multicultural roots again.
WE GO AND WE GO WITHOUT KNOWING THE WAY /Ideme, ideme, drazki ne znajeme.../, 27 min. 45 sec., dir. Krzysztof Krzyzanowski, Waldemar Janda, TVP Krakow 1994. Dispersed after the war to the four corners of the earth, Lemkos were not to exist anymore, their former houses and temples in the Beskid Niski mountains of southeast Poland abandoned, their fields overgrown. For over a dozen years, every July the Lemkos gather again in a forest clearing in Zdynia near Gorlice to sing, talk, pray together in their mother tongue, and be themselves.
ANDY OR ANDREJ /Andy czy Andrej/, 20 min., dir. and screenplay: Krzysztof Krzyżanowski, vocals: Julia Doszna; commentary: Olena Duc-Fajfer; TVP Krakow 2001. The film is a search for the family roots of Andy Warhol. In 1913 Andrej Warchola, a Lemko-Rusyn, emigrated from Eastern Slovakia to seek his fortune in the U.S. His son became the most famous pop-artist in the world. The search for Andy Warhol’s roots also reveals how his career and worldwide fame influenced today’s Lemko-Rusyns in the Polish-Slovak borderland.
Total: 80 min. + Q&A
