PRESENTS

A Film by Eva NEYMANN 2012 – 102 min – Ukraine

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SYNOPSIS

A 8-year-old boy is travelling with his mother towards his grandfather, but their journey is stopped when the young woman dies of typhus in an unknown town, just as poor and in ruins as any other on the way. However, the boy is determined to go on. Eva Neymann’s film is a visual journey into a country covered in snow and left poor by war. This is a place of beautiful, deserted landscapes and people overcome by both need and greed.

The tranquil black-and-white images created by Lithuanian cameraman Rimmvydas Leipus masterfully evoke the atmosphere of the Second World War’s penultimate year in the . The picture was based on motifs drawn from the autobiographical story of the same name by writer and screenwriter Friedrich Gorenstein, who also penned the script for Tarkovsky’s Solaris.

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Eva NEYMANN

She was born on June 21, 1974 in Zaporozhye, Ukraine. A graduate of the German Film and Television Academy in .

Her film “At the river” (2007) was shown on the International Film Festival and became the first Ukrainian film presented on the festival after 1991, the year Ukraine got independence. On the 37th International Film Festival in Lagov (Poland) and hors concours on International Film Festival in Rotterdam it gained the 2d place. The film Gods' Ways gained First Steps Award 2007 in Germany.

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SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY

1998 - Hrizantemy v zhjoltom Chrysanthemums in a Yellow (short film) 2000 - Hronika proshchaniya The Chronicle of Farewell (short film) 2001 - Zamri, Otomri Freeze, Thaw Out (short film) 2004 - Vsyo po-staromu Just like Old Times (documentary) 2005 - Uvidet’ more See the Sea (documentary) 2006 - Puti Gospodni Gods' Ways (documentary) 2007 - U reki At the River (feature film) 2011 - Dom s bashenkoy House with a Turret (feature film)

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TECHNICAL DETAILS AND CREW

director: Eva NEYMANN director of photography : Rimvydas LEIPUS production designer: Gennady POPOV sound engineer: Alexander SHCHEPOTIN producers: Alexander TKACHENKO (1+1 PRODUCTION) costume designer: Ruslan KHVASTOV country : Ukraine duration: 102 min

Cast

Boy DMITRIY KOBETSKOY Mother KATERINA GOLUBEVA Uncle MIKHAIL VEKSLER Curly Woman VITALINA BIBLIV Small Uncle NIKOLAS ADAMIS Disabled Man VITALIY LINETSKIY Old Man in Pince-nez ALBERT FILOZOV Head Nurse IRINA KIHTEVA

Awards

EAST OF THE WEST AWARD

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BACKGROUND

The story “House with a Turret” is based on the autobiographical story of Friedrich Gorenstein.

The story was simple enough. Both father and mother of Friedrich were idealistic romantics, believing that they could help people to build a Soviet communism, first in Russia and then throughout the world. It took place before the war, and Friedrich’s father, besides the fact that he was Jewish, was also of Austrian descent, that is German. Therefore, he was arrested and shot without much thought just before the war, like thousands of other idealistic romantics. But Friedrich’s mother knew nothing of her husband’s fate, as was common at that time. She thought he was alive and decided together with the nine-year-old Friedrich to go to Moscow in order to take up her husband’s case and seek justice. But already in Moscow, having gone through many channels, she realized that her pleas for her husband were futile. With difficulty she together with Friedrich took a train and went back home to Ukraine. But the war had already begun, the railroad points were changed and the train was transferred to the east, for evacuation. There was famine; the mother and boy were going by train packed full of people. On their way, she realized that anything could happen to her. She could die, so her only thought was to save life of her little Friedrich. And all the time she had been trying to explain to him what he should do if something happened. Having realized that the child was too young to remember the numbers, whilst the train was on its way to Kiev, she repeated to him many times that he should find the street where they had always lived, and find there a house with a turret. She explained to him that their relatives lived in that house and they would help him. The mother did not survive, she died in that train. Frederick never found the house with the turret, and was designated to an orphanage.

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