Competition Programme  

The film captures the flow and simple beauty of daily life in a monastery standing on a hill above the Serbian village of Velika Hoca in Kosovo. The director asks the viewer to set aside any expectation of hearing a “story” and instead to quietly observe, as in life. The serenity of the film provides a poetic space in which the imagination may drift freely, meditating and reflecting. The camera is still, landscapes unfold, seasons change and words give way to silence. It is a long, patient and personal quest for reconciliation in war-torn Kosovo. The director says: “In 2000 I was travelling for weeks all over war-torn Kosovo, looking for signs of reconciliation. The only person, who did not ask me whose side I was on, was Father Miron, a Serbian monk. It took seven years to get permission for filming and four years to film and edit. I had to wait patiently until I could become one with the place.”

Festivals

Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival, Czech Republic, 2011

Kersti Uibo

London-based Estonian filmmaker Kersti Uibo’s work experience ranges from being a music producer with Estonian Television to cleaning streets in Tallinn when blacklisted by the Soviet regime; from setting up the post-war Estonian Embassy in the UK as director of the Estonian Information Bureau to being a “one-woman-band” filmmaker. Kersti Uibo’s documentary films have been shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, at Cinéma de Réel in Paris, at festivals in Mumbai, Tehran, Sydney, Montreal, Delhi, Boston, St. Petersburg, Parnu to name a few and won several awards. Her most prominent films include Evaldimaa and Kitsas on värav, the first receiving the Grand Prix at the Pärnu International Documentary and Anthropology Film Festival in 1995.

Selected Filmography

Still Life with a Woman / Vaikelu naisega (2006)
Narrow is the Gate / Kitsas on värav (2002)
Evald’s Acre / Evaldimaa (1995)