Tomorrow's Classics

Programme

• Apolonia, Apolonia (Lea Glob, DK/PL 2022, 116')

  When Danish filmmaker Lea Glob first portrayed Apolonia Sokol in 2009, she appeared to be leading a storybook life. The talented Apolonia was born in an underground theater group in Paris and grew up in an artists’ community—the ultimate bohemian existence. In her 20s, she studied at the Beaux-Arts de Paris, one of the most prestigious art academies in Europe. Over the years, Lea Glob kept returning to film the charismatic Apolonia and a special bond developed between the two young women.
  
  The result is a fascinating portrait, spanning 13 years, of a young woman trying to find her place in the art world. Apolonia is confident in her talent, but her path is not always an easy one. Life is not a storybook; one of the lessons Apolonia learns is that women painters have to make more sacrifices and overcome greater obstacles than their male counterparts do. This also applied to the friend she lived with for a long time, Oksana Shachko, one of the founders of the feminist action group Femen. Apolonia’s resilience is put to the test.

• Silent House (Farnaz Jurabchian & Mohammadreza Jurabchian, IR/CA/PH/QA 2022, 100')

  Set against the turbulent backdrop of Iranian history over the last 40 years, Silent House tracks the fortunes of three generations of an upper-class Iranian family. At the center of the story stands the grand home in which the family lived through both happy and tragic times. The filmmakers, a brother and sister in the family, were able to draw on the rich archive of family home movies, setting them alongside historical material as well as interviews with their own mother and grandmother.
  
  A picture emerges of a prosperous family hit hard by the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The filmmakers’ grandfather went bankrupt, and the ideological shifts also impacted on the rest of the family. One of their uncles had to go and fight in the Iran-Iraq war, and came back traumatized. Another emigrated to England. Their ambitious and energetic mother undertook all sorts of ventures—from starting a bookshop to trying to become a member of parliament—but she met fierce resistance from patriarchal, ideological and religious quarters. The ultimate ruination of the family home echoes Iran’s own decline.

• Paradise (Alexander Abaturov, FR 2022, 88')

  In 2021, an extreme heatwave gave rise to huge wildfires in the vast subarctic forests of Sakha, a northeastern republic in Siberia. The village of Shologon lies in this taiga landscape, shrouded in orange smoke and black ash. The forest is burning and the flames are approaching fast.
  
  The original inhabitants of the area aren't expecting any help from the government, though, because Shologon is at the edge of a “control zone.” This is the official Russian term for any remote or sparsely populated area where the authorities are not required to combat wildfires if the cost of extinguishing them would exceed the cost of estimated damage. Left to their own fate, the villagers join forces.
  
  This visually powerful film is interwoven with a Sakha fairy tale about the wind blowing over the sacred mountain. This traditional tale has suddenly become grimly topical, now that the wind is bringing the flames ever closer. The camera accompanies the men as they enter the fire zone, to quench the flames of what they call “the Dragon.” This inferno is potent evidence that climate is changing faster here in the polar regions than anywhere else.