Views Through the Iron Curtain or the Smuggler's Confessional

Script, Direction, Camera, and Editing: Anja Medved
Music: Antonio Della Marina and Alessandro Fogar, Michele Spanghero and Luigi Mastrandrea
Sound: Rosario Guerrini
Family Films: Viljem de Brea, Marko Mladovan, Balaben Family
Archival Footage: Slovenski Filmski Arhiv, Kinoatelje - Cine Club Gorizia, Osnovna Šola Solkan
Production: Kinoatelje & Zavod Kinoatelje, 2010
Language: Slovenian and Italian
Format: miniDV video, 22 min

Synopsis:

A customs house on the border between two cities, countries, and social systems, between the Roman and Slavic worlds, 65 years after the end of the war. On December 20, 2007, with Slovenia joining the Schengen Area, Nova Gorica finds itself without border checkpoints for the first time in its brief history. That same evening, this traumatic space transforms into a space of encounters. A camera, microphone, computer, and curtain are set up, allowing for unhindered recollection. People from both sides come, bringing stories and images, sharing them in a common album of memories. Trusted memories, fragments of family and archival films shot in this region, narrate how two different realities can coexist in the same place at the same time.

Statement:

"The invention of the film medium was driven by the desire to record the past instead of our memory. But memory doesn't only speak of the past; it also speaks of the present, of why we remember certain events and not others. Memory is therefore directly connected to the plans, visions, and fears we have about the future. The future always emerges here and now, from precisely defined memories and precisely defined forgettings."

Anja Medved

Awards:

• European Home Movies Network Award, Vicenza, 2010
• Big Fish Award, Tolmin Independent Film Festival, 2010