Directed by: Mantas Kvedaravičius
Script: Mantas Kvedaravičius
Producer: Aki Kaurismäki, Mantas Kvedaravièius
Production company: Sputnik Oy, Extimacy Films
Cinematography: Mantas Kvedaravièius
Editing: Mantas Kvedaravièius

Format: video
Running time: 59'

Synopsis
To live among the gazes of the tortured and the rumours about those gone missing is even more devastating than overt violence. 'Barzakh', Mantas Kvedaravicius directorial debut, follows the families of missing Chechens. They don’t know where their loved ones are, or whether they are even alive. Shot in 2007−2009, the film shows us the marks that war and violence leave on people’s everyday lives. It lingers on in harvesting, in construction work, in celebrations, and in play. We follow a man tending to his garden. He also shows us the grim space where he was tortured. After experiences like these, how do people remain humane? The title of the film translates as the land between life and death. A mother of a missing man says: ‘I do not have my son either in life or in death.’ ‘To me, this is barzakh, neither life nor death. It is a void, an absence,’ the director clarifies.

Awards and Festivals
Berlin International Film Festival 2011 - Amnesty International Film Prize, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury - Special Mention

Directors Biography
Mantas Kvedaravicius was born in Birzai, Lithuania in 1976. He holds a Master’s Degree in cultural anthropology from the University of Oxford and is currently completing his PhD dissertation and a book manuscript on the effects of pain at the university of Cambridge. Kvedaravicius has taught university courses on religion, law, and political theory in New York, and since 2006 he has been conducting research on torture and disappearances in the North Caucasus. Barzakh is his debut film.

Location and screening schedule:
EUROPA CINEMA, Wednesday, October 19th at 9.00
TUÅ KANAC CINEMA, Wednesday, October 19th at 16.30
DOCUCINEMA CROATIA, Wednesday, October 19th at 21.00