FILM FESTIVAL-CZECH/MAGIC MOUNTAIN "The Magic Mountain" brings together art and documentary

Record ID: 147924

  • Title: FILM FESTIVAL-CZECH/MAGIC MOUNTAIN "The Magic Mountain" brings together art and documentary
  • Date: 9th July 2015
  • Summary: KARLOVY VARY, CZECH REPUBLIC (JULY 8, 2015) (REUTERS) COLONNADE SPA PEOPLE WALKING BY KARLOVY VARY SPA, VENUE OF KARLOVY VARY INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL PEOPLE IN FRONT OF FESTIVAL CINEMA AT THERMAL HOTEL LIMOUSINE WITH DIRECTOR, ANCA DAMIAN, ARRIVING DAMIAN ARRIVING AT RED CARPET CAMERAMAN DAMIAN WITH FILM CREW POSING FOR PHOTOGRAPHS NEWS CONFERENCE WITH DAMIAN PHOTOGRAP
  • Embargoed: 24th July 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Czech Republic
  • Country: Czech Republic
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA96GDWBK78DS1CRBU1V7BCU90Q
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Romanian director Anca Damian's new film "The Magic Mountain", presented at Karlovy Vary film festival on Wednesday (July 8), uses animation, photography and collage to explore the adventures of Polish mountain climber and photographer Adam J. Winkler, who died in 2002.
    Winkler, born in 1937, lost two of his family at the Katyn massacre, where an estimated 22,000 Polish military officers and intellectuals were killed. Many of them were trucked in from prison camps, shot in the head from behind, and dumped in mass graves. After blaming Nazi Germany for the Katyn massacre for decades, the Soviet Union admitted in April 1990 that its forces were responsible.
    Growing up full of rage at the killings, Winkler left his homeland and was inspired to go to Afghanistan to fight with the mujahedin against the Soviets in 1979.
    Damian presents his story in "The Magic Mountain" through a blend of mediums, including live acting and still photographs taken by Winkler himself, smeared with gouache or transformed into line drawings.
    "I would say that this movie is in between the genres. It is not a documentary, it is not an animation, it is not a fiction. It is something in between," Damian told a news conference in the spa town hosting the film festival.
    "I wanted to... in my view this trilogy, at the second stage we deal with someone who wants to give his life to change the world and the Adam Jacek Winkler story fitted perfectly to the Don Quixote to the ... a kind of let's say the type of romantic character who wants to kill the dragon in the 20th century and to give his life for changing the world alone. Because also this story contains of course cynicism, adventure, poetry and a lot of contradictory elements and this let's say makes it also more approachable to Don Quixote," she added.
    The film is the second part in Damian's conceived heroism trilogy, which began with "Crulic: The Path to Beyond" detailing the story of Romanian Cladiu Crulic. Her representation of Crulic's death in a Polish prison after a hunger strike won her best film prize at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in 2012.
    Karlovy Vary film festival marks its 50th anniversary in 2015, with "The Magic Mountain" joining around 200 other films from international filmmakers.
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