20 Years of Democracy
1989 will be remembered in festivals and on tv. And documentaries will be a strong visual element to show the changes that took place when the Berlin Wall went down, followed by the decline of the USSR. The following text about a fine, generous offer to watch great films for free on the net is taken from the newsletter of DOK Leipzig:
The 20th anniversary of the peaceful revolution and the ensuing social changes will play a central role, even before becoming the focus of a special programme at the 52nd International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film. All year round, the festival is pursuing its mission to promote documentary film and to initiate a broad discourse about socially relevant topics. It is in this sense that the online platform „20 Years of Democracy in Film”, launched in co-operation with the festivals One World Prague, One World Bratislava, Verzio Budapest and Watch Docs Warsaw, is going to present documentary and animated films by East and Central European filmmakers.
22 contributions from 1990 through to 2007 that deal with vital issues of the social and political transformation processes that have taken place over the past two decades are available as free streamings. Among them are outstanding, multiple award winning works by filmmakers as renowned as Jan Svankmajer, Maciej Janusz Drygas, Pavel Koutecky, Marko Skop (photo from his film ”Other Worlds”) and Tamas Almasi. Germany is represented by films by Gerd Kroske, Thomas Heise, Marc Bauder/ Dörte Franke and Wolfgang Ettlich.
