ADAMI SHOWCASE at the DOK LEIPZIG Festival for Documentary and Animation Film

This year, ADAMI SHOWCASE was part of the Special Screenings at the 62nd International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animation Film. In cooperation with DOK Leipzig, three ADAMI Media Prize winning authors and film directors from Eastern Europe presented their films focused on Frozen Conflicts in their countries. The showcase allowed filmmakers from Georgia and Ukraine to present their work to a broader international audience, and gave festival guests the opportunity to have a close insight into these issues.

The ADAMI Showcase at the Polish Institute was introduced by Leena Pasanen (Director of DOK Leipzig) and Stefan Tolz (Director of ADAMI), followed by a few words by the Cultural Attachés from the Georgian and Ukrainian Embassies in Berlin, Olga Mishkina and Sopo Sakvarelidze-Bulgarini.

After the screening, the filmmakers Tako Robakidze, Anna Tsygyma and Angelina Kariakina discussed their films. Special guest Oleksandr Kolchenko, one of the protagonists and former political prisoner in Russia, joined the discussion.

The first short documentary The Tower by Salome Jashi (ADAMI Media Prize, News and Short Non-Fiction category 2018) explores in 4 minutes the drama of people who have been evicted from their homeland after the Russo-Georgian war in 2008. 

Young Georgian photographer Tako Robakidze (ADAMI Online Prize for Web Video 2016) presented her non-fiction Creeping Borders. She has documented the daily shifting reality for locals living near Georgia’s occupied breakaway province of Tskhinvali (South Ossetia), and what it means to go to sleep in one’s own country and wake up in occupied territory.

 The Ukrainian film From Crimea to Siberia: How Russia is Tormenting Political Prisoners Sentsov and Kolchenko (ADAMI Special Mention prize 2018) was presented by the authors Anna Tsygyma and Angelina Kariakina. The film produced by Hromadkse TV documents the difficult journey of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and activist Oleksandr Kolchenko, who were detained in Crimea during the 2014 annexation.

In addition to the ADAMI Showcase, ADAMI was presented at a Cocktail Get Together in the Museum der bildenden Künste, where accredited festival guests had the opportunity to meet informally and exchange ideas.