On Wednesday 19 June, the Frontline Club audience burst into spontaneous applause to the precision choreography of a Transnistrian military parade. The footage was part of the documentary film Fortress, shown at the preview screening of Open City Docs Fest, supported by the Czech Centre London as part of One World Echoes in London.

Capturing aspects of everyday life in the unrecognised Pridnestrovian Moldovian Republic, from televised propaganda to school graduation ceremonies, the film offered rare insight into the little-known world that is also known as Transnistria. Czech director Lukáš Kokeš explained what his film was about:

“It’s not only about human rights, and not only a travelogue about an exotic country. The main topic for us was the atmosphere of that place, and we called it Fortress because we think that in every country there is a kind of a fortress. It shows us that Transnistria, with its corruption and its absurd regime is not so far away as we thought. So I think sometimes we all live in a small fortress called Transnistria.”

Moderator and Founding Director of Open City Docs Fest Michael Stewart kicked off the Q&A:  “As young chap who wasn’t, I’m sure, familiar with the occupation of your country by the great Russian forces, how come you made this particular film?”

“The biggest motivation for us to go there and make a film was that we didn’t know about the existence of this territory, or country,” replied Kokeš. “Often the territory is described as a dangerous place where you should never go; so we wanted to explore it and fill this black gap on the European map. … We felt we were connected to the reality there, as it was similar to the communist past of our country.”

“There are speculations,” responded Kokeš, to a question on arms smuggling:

“They may have been sold in the 90s. The main income for the state comes from smuggling. They are smuggling food, cigarettes, alcohol, everything that comes from Ukraine goes through Transnistria. And there it gets lost. The son of Igor Smirnov, the [former] President, was the head of border control.”

“The fear of the people,” was the main obstacle the team faced in filming:

“This situation is similar to the Czechoslovakian reality during the 70s or 80s,” said Kokeš. “Because people fear they could lose their jobs, they don’t want to criticise the regime.”

He added, “It’s very interesting that nowadays:

“The secret service in Transnistria, at that time when we were shooting it was called MGB, which means Ministry of State Security; after the new President was elected – he was perceived as big hope, as a democratic force – he changed the name from MGB to KGB again.”

On internet access in the territory,  Kokeš observed, “there’s only one internet provider, controlled by the state”:

“The internet is there, you can surf, find everything you want, but you are being watched. Last month they started to block all the opposition sites, or the forums where people are discussing political issues. So it’s very easy for them to control.”

Asked about the potential resolution of the territorial conflict with Moldova, Kokeš replied:

“The propaganda is very, very strong. After 20 years they succeeded to make this brainwashed generation, because even the young people, they told us that Moldova is enemy territory to them. Officially there is still war between Moldova and Transnistria. Only they are not fighting. So Moldovans are enemies to them.”

To conclude, Kokeš described how the project changed his own perception:

“I was expecting a Soviet open-air museum. I expected only old cars, but suddenly there were pink Hummers. So I started to think things are more complicated. We started to ask people how could they describe the regime: is it socialist or democratic or dictatorship or something in between? And they said: it’s very complicated. It’s anarchy, it’s oligarchy, it’s democracy but with its own rules, it’s a complex problem.”

Fortress was presented as part of the One World Echoes in London series, supported by the Czech Centre London and in collaboration with One World Prague.

Upcoming films in the series are Black Out and Stone Games, both at Open City Docs Fest on Sunday 23 June.

One World Echoes in London is a series of human rights film screenings supported by by the Czech Centre London. Celebrating the 15th anniversary of One World, Europe´s largest human rights film festival established in Prague in 1998 by the Czech NGO People in Need. This series offers a selection of extraordinary documentary films exploring societies and individual lives from a human rights perspective. Representing various countries where People in Need, the biggest NGO in Eastern Europe, runs its human rights, relief and development projects.

One World Echoes are co-organised by the Czech Centre London, Open City Docs Fest London 20-23 June 2013 and the Frontline Club.

Thursday 11 April 2013, 7:00 PM Frontline Club – Amazing Azerbaijan!
Amazing Azerbaijan! is a tale of two countries. A shiny democratic republic the government proudly puts on display for visiting journalists and dignitaries. Alongside a repressive and corrupt state with no respect for freedom of expression, where peaceful protesters are violently beaten and journalists are threatened or even killed. Followed by a Q&A with director Liz Mermin.

Friday 24 May 2013, 7:00 PM Frontline Club – Motherland or Death
For over fifty years Cuba has been following the battle-cry of the revolution, Patria o Muerte, which translates as Motherland or Death. Veteran Russian documentarian Vitaly Mansky centers on the generation born before the revolution. They are devoted to their motherland with heart and soul, yet curse the circumstances in which they are forced to live.

Wednesday 19 June 2013, 7:00 PM Frontline Club – Fortress BOOK NOW
Over twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union directors Klára Tasovská and Lukáš Kokeš travel back in time on their visit to the unrecognised Pridnestrovian Moldovian Republic. A separatist region within Moldova, with its own passports, an elected president and a legal system. This Open City Preview Screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Lukáš Kokeš.

Sunday 23 June 2013 2:30 PM Preview screening Open City Cinema Tent – Black Out BOOK NOW
Every evening during exam season in Guinea, hundreds of school children begin a nightly pilgrimage to the airport, petrol stations and wealthier parts of the city, searching for light. A literal and metaphorical journey to enlightenment, this evocative documentary tells how children reconcile their lives in one of the world’s poorest countries, with their desire to learn.

Sunday 23 June 2013 5:00 PM UK Premiere Open City Lighbox – Stone Games BOOK NOW
Do the Sudeten Germans who were tortured and killed during their expulsion at the end of the Second World War deserve a commemorative monument or not? In response to a stone monument in Nový Bor, Czech Republic a group of local inhabitants has unleashed a hate-filled ritual dance of national fervor and moral outrage that also turns out to be a sufficiently strong election issue.

Motherland or Death by veteran Russian documentarian Vitaly Mansky centers around the generation born before the revolution. As they reach the end of their lives, they begin to understand that they no longer have to live by that decades-old revolutionary mantra. They are devoted to their motherland with heart and soul, yet curse the circumstances in which they are forced to live.

Mansky portrays a stark gap between Cuba’s carefully crafted image and the reality of daily life, depicting Havana as a desolate place, a dilapidated skeleton, broken up and rearranged with stray dogs and cats, meat rations, lamp posts as gallows, and angry spewing sewers.

Directed by Vitaly Mansky
Duration: 99′
Year: 2012

This screening is part of One World Echoes, an international tour celebrating the 15th anniversary of One World, Europe´s largest human rights film festival established in Prague in 1998 by Czech NGO People in Need.

One World Echoes are co-organized by the Czech Centre London, Open City London Documentary Festival (20-23 June) and the Frontline Club.

The screening of “Amazing Azerbaijan!” on Thursday, 11th April was followed by a Q&A with the film’s director Liz Mermin. The film contrasts the two-faced Azerbaijan: on one hand there was the glamour before and during Eurovision, carefully constructed by the government; the other side is that investigative journalists like Khadija Ismayilova regularly get persecuted for speaking up for democracy.

The documentary journalist and film director Liz Mermin gives the public an insight into how she gathered the footage.

Before opening up the debate, Mermin summarised the discrepancy between official Western thinking and the struggles of ordinary people: “Eurovision was being used by the government to say ‘look, we are European. We are Western and just between evil Russia and Eastern Iran.'”

To enrich her portraits about activists and exiles, Mermin spent ten days in Azerbaijan and tried to talk to government and industry officials.

“It was very difficult to get a journalist visa. It came through the night before we got on the plane. I was told I was given interviews with high ministers but none of those happened.”

After a member of the public addressed the lack of international interest in corruption and an anti-democratic governmental expenditure, the director explained:

“Crucial EU players don’t want to be part of these conversations because they have nothing to gain from it. We need people in power to get embarassed by what they are doing.”

Another issue that prevents extensive European attention and coverage is the EU’s dependency on Azerbaijani oil and energy supplies. BP also “wasn’t very interested in talking to me, for obvious reasons.” As a result, the film gave a platform to some of the country’s most passionate and aggressive activists, bloggers and intellectuals.

Liz Mermin answers questions from the public and calls for a higher mainstream media coverage of the Azerbaijan conflict.

A member of a human rights organisation in the audience pointed out that:

“it is hard to stand up for the wrongdoings in these countries when, often, western governments are guilty of similar things. I’m thinking about the ongoing Guantanamo debate for example.”

The hunger strike of the Bay’s strikers has been classified as “potentially deadly” on Thursday.

This screening of “Amazing Azerbaijan!” was part of One World Echoes, an international tour celebrating the 15th anniversary of One World, Europe’s largest human rights film festival, established in Prague in 1998 by Czech NGO People in Need. The London Echoes are co-organized by the Czech Centre London, Open City Docs Fest (London 20-23 June 2013) and The Frontline Club. On Friday 24 May, Frontline will show “Motherland or Death”, a screening about Cuba. Further details tbc.

Azerbaijan is like a dynamic eagle that naturally links the cultures of the West and the East – that is how the state and local representatives attempt to portray the country internationally. Skyscrapers are growing in a country rich in oil, Azerbaijan has joined the UN Security Council and President Ilham Aliyev presses the flesh with some of the world’s most important statesmen.

Amazing Azerbaijan! is a tale of two countries: one a shiny democratic republic the government proudly puts on display for visiting journalists and dignitaries. The other country is a repressive and corrupt state with no respect for freedom of expression, in which peaceful protesters are violently beaten and journalists are threatened or even killed.

The excitement around Eurovision 2012 hosted in Baku, offers an unorthodox lens through which director Liz Mermin investigates basic issues of human rights and the position of journalists in this dynastic republic ruled by the Aliyev family since 1993.

Directed by Liz Mermin
Duration: 60′
Year: 2012

This screening is part of One World Echoes, an international tour celebrating the 15th anniversary of One World, Europe´s largest human rights film festival established in Prague in 1998 by Czech NGO People in Need.

One World Echoes are co-organized by the Czech Centre London, Open City London Documentary Festival (20-23 June) and the Frontline Club.