Posted by Larry Gleeson
One of many extremely well timed documentaries screening at Slamdance (February 20-26) this month is Agnieszka Zwiefka’s Silent Timber. The movie, which is able to make its U.S. Premiere, shines a lightweight on the worldwide refugee disaster. The movie follows a Kurdish teen and her household as they discover their lives on the cusp of being forfeited on account of a unclean political energy play between Belarus and Poland. Attributable to their circumstance, she has no selection however to imagine the position of an grownup nicely past her years if they’re to outlive of their new residence.
Zwiefka stated, “We’re thrilled to be making our movie pageant debut in america at Slamdance, which is famous for often that includes movies that inform the story behind the story, difficult audiences on the views they’d previous to accessing movies filling out the main points within the image, like ours.” She added, “This movie started as a refusal to stay silent. As many others, I’ve watched the refugee disaster unfold in Europe till it landed at my doorstep. Hopefully, we’re offering an intimate take a look at the tales of so many on the market by specializing in one household’s journey, and one lady’s efforts to rise above all of it and maintain hope alive the place most others would hand over.”
Producer Zofia Kuwajawska stated, “For me this movie has at all times been a struggle for human dignity. Our principal drive, from the very starting, was to offer a face to the anonymous statistic, and present the humanity and spirit that we noticed in Runa and ] her household, that represented numerous others.”
Silent Timber screened beforehand at prestigious worldwide documentary movie festivals CPH: DOX and Sizzling Docs, successfully establishing the movie’s journey to achieve viewers saround the world through the highest movie festivals through its first three outings (together with Slamdance). The movie introduces us to Runa, a 16-year-old Kurdish refugee and her household who’ve been stranded in an icy forest within the Belarusian-Polish border, denied entry into both nation. Runa is compelled into tasks past her years, caring for her youthful brothers and being a assist for her father after her pregnant mom dies as a result of harsh circumstances. Finally positioned inside a Polish refugee camp, the household grapples with the trauma of their loss whereas struggling to adapt to a brand new life in a brand new nation.
Whereas her father desperately tries to seek out work to feed and care for his household whereas hampered by language obstacles and different seemingly insurmountable hurdles, Runa finds consolation in drawing, which the movie morph into animated sequences that seize her goals and nightmares. Silent Timber is a outstanding coming-of-age story and harrowing journey of 1 household amongst numerous others preventing to outlive and maintain the hope of a greater future regardless of the each day horrors of the worldwide refugee disaster.
One of many issues that provides to the fashion and artwork of the movie is its use of animation. Animating Runa’s drawings offers Silent Timber with stark imagery, providing a glimpse into the abyss she and her household faces every day, in addition to discovering a hopeful gentle in that darkness, and giving the telling of her story one other depth through the illustration of her ideas and fears. Zwiefka stated, “Runa’s animated sketchbook serves as the proper car to painting the unfilmable features of her world, akin to the fashion of Marjane Satrape’s Persepolis.”
Agnieszka Zwiefka will attend the screening and take part in a post-screening Q&A and supply extra on-the-ground element in regards to the European refugee and the expertise of working to seize the story of Runa and her household with coronary heart and sensitivity. At a time, when this nation’s authorities is seemingly seeking to flip a blind eye towards the worldwide refugee disaster, Slamdance’s screening of the movie and dialogue afterward tackle a wholly better degree of import.
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