GÁJ
Česká republika, 2009, 37 min
Pavel Borecký
30.01.2010 17:00
Documentary mosaic about Czech fellow-countrymen living in a small Serbien village. 90 years ago, family Frič desired a change. They left the rough life at mountainous Banat - the Southern promontory of Rumenien Karpats - and moved to more fertile lowlands stretching along impressive Danube. Soon the others followed.
Nowadays, melody after melody is wafting from Írovič's orchard. Their son is practicing playing the harmonica. Next competition is coming soon. What does his talent mean for the Czech minority?
Gaya Czechs are the last compact social group which settled down at Serbien Banat. Eventhough they do not need to drag themselves way up the hills to reach their fields, they remind to be a minority in comparison with pure Czech Gernik.
How has this change in the course of decades influenced upcoming generations?
Language of dialogues: Czech
Desmond Love is a mature man and feels and behaves so. He likes to smoke his pipe and looks after his ducks. Men usually like talking about cars and Dessy´s favourite subject are his two shopping-trolleys. He parks them in front of his house nad likes to enhance them with various details. Desmond is one of the residents at Camphill Clanabogan, that means a person with mental handicap. In the scope of a therapy, he learns how to write on a computer. He writes his own story. This documentary amended with short cartoons let us glimp into Dessys´s memories – word after word, exactly as he remembered them. At the same time, we have got a chance to see Dessys´s home and everyday-life of Camphill community with its permanent inhabitants: mentally disabled people, young volunteers and people, who control and administrate the home.
The Klamath River of Oregon and California is one of the most important salmon runs in the United States. While diminished over the past 100 years, it still supports an abudance of life and diverse economies struggling over its future course. This is a film about the Indian tribes of the river ecosystem – what the Klamath means to them and how they draw on traditional and modern resources to restore its strenght, beauty and balance. The film focuses on the Klamath River and the Indian tribes of the lower basin – the Yurok, Hoopa and Karuk. Yet this story has implications for any number of river ecosystems and indigenous peoples around the world. Through the Indian tribes of the Lower Klamath, the film reminds us how the health of a people and the health of its lands are integrally linked.