AFF MEMORABILIA

During its existence of 27 years, Astra Film has collected a number of documentaries from all over the world approaching 30,000 titles. We include in the Astra Film Online programme a selection of excellent documentaries seen at the festival over a period of 15 years. Some of them have won Astra Film awards, others have remained in the memory of the audiences due to their subjects or ingenuity, and all without exception have touched a chord with their viewers, which still reverberates after all these years.

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  • Eggs for Later

    Marieke Schellart • Netherlands • 2011 • 50′

    In this intimate documentary director Marieke Schellart reveals how she struggles with the biological clock. She would like to have children, but the right guy has not arrived yet. To give herself a bit more time she wants to extend fertility by freezing her eggs. However in the Netherlands this is not allowed. She talks frankly with her friends and parents about her plans and doubts, meeting support and resistance along the way. For Marieke a long journey has started which even takes her abroad, trying to find a solution to a problem that concerns many women today.

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  • Every Good Marriage Begins with Tears

    Simon Chambers • UK • 2006 • 62′

    Migration is usually analysed from the point of view of immediate material problems. The issue of the immigrants’ children is the object of recent discussions. What culture do children of the 1950-1970 immigrants belong to? Do they fit into the Western European culture, or are they still part of the culture of their parents? The film makes a statement about what we call “culture clash” in the contemporary world.

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  • Forever Yours

    Monica Csango • Norway • 2005 • 52′

    Our grandparents’ lives are coloured in sepia. They fascinate us because they are related to events we have read about in history books or seen in old newsreels. Forever Yours bears the charming perfume of the good old times before WW2, but it is much more than that. The author of the film discovers a photograph taken in Mumbai, which could be a proof that her grandfather, whom her grandmother never ceased to love and to mourn, could still be alive. The charismatic figure of the grandmother together with romantic pre-WW2 footage complete this emotional and disturbing journey in seek of the truth.

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  • Gangster of Love

    Nebojsa Slijepcevic • Croatia, Romania, Germany • 2013 • 80′

    Matchmaker Nediljko Babic, a.k.a the “Ganster”, tries to help a single mother from Bulgaria to find a husband in Croatia. Throughout the searches, the woman meets several possible matches, but without any results. Croatian men are rigid and conservatory, and they cannot imagine marrying a foreigner who also has a child on top of everything. Nediljko Babic is a captivating character in the role of a marriage broker, and the film deals very earnestly with the issue of rudimentary mentalities and social aspects of the rural areas in spite of the humorous and casual approach.

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  • Glorious Exit

    Kevin Merz • Switzerland • 2008 • 75′

    Jarreth Merz is an actor of Swiss and Nigerian origins who lives in Los Angeles. He is confronted with his African roots when he is informed that his father has died. Nigerian tradition requires that he as the first born must take the responsibility for the father’s family and his funeral. Jarreth begins a journey of discovery of a country and a culture that are part of him but to whom he doesn’t belong. From Los Angeles to Nigeria, Jarreth embarks on this important chapter in his life.

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  • Immortal

    Ksenia Okhapkina • Estonia • 2019 • 61′

    A documentary essay that examines the strict structures that dictate the behaviour of people in a small industrial Russian town. With an eye for visual composition, Ksenia Okhapkina’s film constructs a discourse on state propaganda through the subtle observations of innocuous, everyday situations, for example scenes of young girls learning about discipline at a ballet school or young boys training for the army shown in juxtaposition with snowy landscapes and the rigorous coordination of operations at the local factory. By being omnipresent and at the same time inconspicuous in people’s lives, from an early age, ideology becomes dangerous. Forgoing narration Okhapkina manages to construct a potent observation of the precariousness of free will in the face of state propaganda.

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  • Matthew’s Laws

    Marc Schmidt • Netherlands • 2012 • 72′

    Director Marc Schmidt films his childhood buddy, Matthew, who suffers from autism and desperately tries to create order in the chaos around him. Followed closely in his privacy, Matthew’s explosive confrontations with the outside world are alternated with stylized observations and personal confessions. Little by little, the film unravels the complex way of Matthew’s thinking and shows the catastrophic consequences his disorder may eventually have for him.

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  • On The Road

    Dumitru Budrala • Romania • 1997 • 43′

    Every autumn, shepards from Transylavania set off with their flocks in search of green grass. They follow an ancient route wich takes them hundreds of miles away from home. During his journey, the master of the flock is murdered in a forest. His youngest son mist take over one thousand sheep, five donkeys, seven dogs and four hired sheperds. sleeping in the open, marching through villages and fields, fighiting bad wheater and truck drivers’prejudice, he learns to be a master.

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  • Songs from the Nickel

    Alina Skrzeszewska • USA, Germany • 2010 • 83′

    Sirens, screams, laughter, singing, bartering: these are the sounds sweeping into the rooms of Downtown Los Angeles’ old forgotten hotels. Their inhabitants’ stories tell of lives lived on the margins. Some residents stay for a few months. Others have lived there for as long as 40 years. According to Charlie, the desk clerk at the King Edward Hotel, “you can be anything you want; you can do anything you want – and nobody gives a damn!” After all, we’re on America’s most notorious skid row, also known to old-timers as the Nickel. Director Alina Skrzeszewska also lived in one of the hotels for a year and a half, while shooting SONGS FROM THE NICKEL. The result is a strikingly intimate portrait of people living in this largely invisible community.

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  • The Curse Of The Hedgehog

    Dumitru Budrala • Romania • 2004 • 93′

    “I cared for my donkey more than I do for my own man and kids. But now it’s dead. If I had a donkey now, I’d be as well off as a Member of Parliament.” concludes Turica, one of the main characters in the film. She and her relatives wander from village to village, carrying on their backs huge bundles of handmade brooms and baskets which they try to trade for food. The filmmaker follows this extremely poor Gypsy family in their survival winter trips. Employing a cinéma vérité camera style, the film goes beyond all Gypsy stereotypes and clichés to reveal a group of real people doing their best to cope with the harsh, absurd and at times tragicomic situations they stumble upon in their everyday lives. A remarkable photography and a bunch of colourful people, all of them natural born storytellers, open the gates towards a world most of us find to believe it really exists.

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  • The Empty Room

    Jasna Krajinovic • Belgium, France • 2016 • 60′

    Challenging our understanding of radicalization and its reasons, “The Empty Room” is a deeply moving portrayal of a global problem personified: a Belgian family is faced with the aftermath of their 19 year old son’s death, who had left to wage jihad in Syria. Banding together with other parents in her situation, the mother fights against the silent disappearance of her son through the cracks of the judiciary system, demanding that his death be officially recognized and that she be let to grieve properly. Of course, her struggle is not easy, as she has to cope not only with her overwhelming loss, but also with the unspoken blame cast on her for not preventing her child’s indoctrination. But by making everyone her audience, from Parliament officials to teen-agers in high-school, she questions issues of responsibility and victimhood, unveiling our deeply flawed understanding of them.

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